And Tom Stephens has been released on bail. Well, then, assuming Tom Stephens isn’t charged, there’s no harm done from all that risky coverage I was concerned about in earlier http://www.gooakley.com/ posts. No harm to the doing of justice, I mean; I expect it’s harmed Tom Stephens.
Anyway, let’s hope the fact this other man’s been charged will make the media more cautious in its coverage from now on.
For 17 hours, so Le Monde says. Astonishing. I know the French police have a somewhat tougher approach than their counterparts this side of the channel, but nothing illustrates it better than the difference between their treatment of their Prime Minister, and our police’s treatment of ours.
Funny that both heads of government should be helping the police within a week of each other. De Villepin was being quizzed about his role in http://www.gooakley.com/ the “Clearstream” scandal, a classic French affaire in which concern about apparent revelations about corruption turned into concern about false accusations, when it turned out the initial whistle-blowing was false. De Villepin is thought by some to have tried to use the initial scandal to discredit Nicolas Sarkozy, his rival for the right’s presidential nomination.
Like Tony Blair, he was interviewed as a witness, not a suspect.
The Austrian authorities now say they will deport David Irving “schnellstmöglichst”, which means very, very, very quickly indeed. It may not be quite as a quick as that, but I dare say he’ll be here well before Christmas. And no doubt calling, laughably, for an http://www.gooakley.com/ academic boycott of Austria.
Michael Simoner, writing in Der Standard, fears this means the Austrian anti-Nazi legislation no longer has teeth: he says giving the Nazi salute and signing the “Horst Wessel” are no longer regarded as serious matters. I agree with his concern.
It’s not a good time to be a grand old man of pop. Sir Cliff and Sir Paul have hardly got over the bad news from Gowers, and now in Paris, Le Monde reports that Johnny Hallyday has lost his appeal in a contract dispute with his old record label, Universal. He broke from them in 2004 but as a result of this ruling, they will http://www.gooakley.com/ retain the rights to the recordings he made with them before then.
Ryanair is expressing disappointment about the Commission’s decision to launch a detailed investigation into its proposed takeover of Aer Lingus – but surely it can’t be surprised. The two airlines are each other’s major competitor on routes from Ireland to the rest of Europe http://www.magliettedacalcioit.com – so unless you see the whole of Europe as the only relevant market, there are obvious competition concerns.
You can read the Commission’s press release here.
It now has until May to reach a final decision on whether to clear the acquisition, or else to block it on competition grounds.
The Austrian authorities now say they will deport David Irving “schnellstmöglichst”, which means very, very, very quickly indeed. It may not be quite as a quick as that, but I dare say he’ll be here well before Christmas. And no doubt calling, laughably, for an http://www.magliettedacalcioit.com academic boycott of Austria.
Michael Simoner, writing in Der Standard, fears this means the Austrian anti-Nazi legislation no longer has teeth: he says giving the Nazi salute and signing the “Horst Wessel” are no longer regarded as serious matters. I agree with his concern.
I disagree. I think freedom of expression is fundamental to democratic society, and in almost all contexts you will find me arguing for free expression and against any form of http://www.gooakley.com/ censorship. For instance I strongly supported campaigns by the National Secular Society and Rowan Atkinson against the government’s proposed religious hatred legislation. What’s more, I’d oppose any attempt to make holocaust denial an offence in England. Our freedom to think and say what we like is too precious for that kind of thing.
But Austria is not England – and before anyone gets the wrong idea, let me say I write this as someone who knows Austria pretty well, and as a serious Austrophile. The fact is that the Nazis did once run Austria and murdered Jews there – a history which I think changes everything. As part of Austria’s transformation into a modern, democratic society I think it was entirely legitimate for it to decide holocaust denial should be seriously punished. It isn’t that I think freedom of expression that’s essential here is too good for Austria – no. It’s that I think restrictions on free speech that would be unthinkable here are understandable there, and deserve support.
There’s a strand in British thinking that wants to criticise any German and for some reason especially any Austrian action or inaction about the holocaust. People here Ray Ban outlet have criticised Austrians for electing Kurt Waldheim as president, and for voting in large numbers for Haider’s old Freedom Party (he’s now abandoned them to set up a new “Movement for the Future of Austria”). Fair enough. But if we want to criticise them for those things, I think it’s a bit rich at the same time to criticise them for dealing severely with the likes of Irving. Any kind of neo-Nazism is a serious issue in Austria and the authorities deserve our support in tackling it hard.
A final thought: only days ago, extremists and fruitcakes gathered in Iran to indulge in a festival of holocaust denial and anti-semitism (a shame perhaps we don’t know whether Irving would have attended had he been able to) and did so with impunity. Because of the laws I’ve defended in this post, you can be sure Austria is one country such a meeting will not take place.
ORF is now reporting (in German) that Gerhard Jarosch of the Vienna State Prosecutor’s Office doesn’t think the evidence for the March 2006 offences justifies Irving’s pre-trial detention – so there’ll be no application for his arrest. I guess that Ray Ban outlet means he’ll be in England in a day or two.
I wonder what he’ll say about Austrian justice, and the holocaust, when he gets back.
The Austrian newspaper Der Standard reports that the Vienna Court of Appeal has today commuted David Irving’s sentence – after a year of his three-year sentence for holocaust denial in 1989, he is now being released on probation. The court Ray Ban outlet expects him to return to England immediately, but wasn’t worried about that since it thinks it unlikely he’ll repeat his offence.
Hm. It’s worth noting that the president of the court, Ernest Maurer, is thought by many in Austria to be close to the extreme right-wing FPÖ – he was once nominated by that party to sit on the governing council of the national broadcaster, ORF. Only a few weeks ago the European Court of Human Rights condemned a defamation ruling made by this controversial judge in favour of Jörg Haider as being in breach of the media’s right to free expression. It’s not the first time the ECtHR has ruled against his pro-Haider judgments.
The court’s confidence that Irving won’t commit further offences is very strange indeed, given that he’s actually suspected of having repeated his holocaust denial in March 2006 while in custody. He’s alleged to have told reporters that Hitler did not Gafas Ray Ban outlet deliberately persecute Jews, and that there is no evidence of organised mass murder of Jews. Judge Maurer dismissed that as merely a shocked reaction by Irving to his conviction.
If the Austrian prosecutor wants to stop Irving leaving for Britain, she’ll have to obtain a warrant for his immediate arrest for the alleged March 2006 offences – let’s hope she does.
The news that the police have arrested another suspect in connection with the Suffolk murders eases my concern a little about the way the Tom Stephens arrest was covered – if one of these men ends up being charged and tried, then at least the http://www.magliettedacalcioit.com public will be left with the memory that the police suspected someone else at an earlier stage. That may help keep minds open.
It won’t help if both of them are charged, of course.