ThoughtCrime: 04/10/00
Holocaust Revisionist Jailed in Switzerland
A Swiss court on Monday gave a one-year prison sentence to a 79 year
old Holocaust revisionist for having argued that the Nazis did not use gas
chambers for mass murder and for having said that the extermination of 6
million Jews was "impossible."
Although nothing in this case dealt with matters of race, Gaston-Armand
Amaudruz was found guilty of "racial discrimination" in a three-day trial
last week on charges stemming from 24 books and an article which argued
that there is no physical proof that the Nazis used gas chambers for mass
murder.
In the article in Amaudruz's magazine, Le Courrier du Continent,
he said: "For my part, I maintain my position: I don't believe in the gas
chambers. Let the exterminationists provide the proof and I will believe
it. But as I've been waiting for this proof for decades, I don't believe
I will see it soon." In today's Switzerland as in most of Europe, the thoughtpolice
monitor and persecute such beliefs.
In sentencing Amaudruz, the court in Lausanne said that he had dedicated
his life to racist activity and showed few signs of remorse. The court also
noted that in the latest edition of Amaudruz's publication, he wrote, "Long
live revisionism!"
Amaudruz was charged under Switzerland's "big brother-like" 1995 anti-racism
law, which outlaws belittling the Holocaust and makes it a crime to "deny,
grossly minimize or seek to justify genocide or other crimes against humanity."
The prosecution sought a 15-month prison term, while the defense argued
for a fine or suspended sentence. Amaudruz was ordered to pay court costs
and damages of $610 each to four civil parties to the case - the Association
of Sons and Daughters of Deported Jews of France, the International League
against Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities,
and a concentration camp survivor.
The Swiss Federation is said to have welcomed the ruling as a signal
that Holocaust revisionists "must reckon with a clear punishment." Many
Americans are unaware of the limitations on freedom of speech throughout
Europe today.
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"Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death."
George Orwell
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