Hate speech and holocaust denial: The prohibition of false historical discourse in modern society

<p>The existence and magnitude of the largest genocide of the twentieth century, the Holocaust, are now being denied by individuals worldwide. This paper analyses the European legislation criminalising Holocaust denial from a freedom of expression perspective. The paper argues that Holocaust denial is inherently anti-Semitic, and is thus consistent with hate speech theory and the hate speech laws that have been enacted internationally in an attempt to remedy the harm hate speech can cause. The thesis of this paper is that the legislative restrictions on hate speech and Holocaust denial are justified from a free speech perspective on theoretical grounds. Such restrictions are a necessary prioritisation of human dignity and equality in the circumstances. Explicit Holocaust denial laws, while performing an essential symbolic function in European jurisdictions, are unnecessary in non-European states, as generic hate speech laws are sufficient to capture the harm caused by upper-level Holocaust denial.</p>

Hate speech and holocaust denial: The prohibition of false historical discourse in modern society

<p>The existence and magnitude of the largest genocide of the twentieth century, the Holocaust, are now being denied by individuals worldwide. This paper analyses the European legislation criminalising Holocaust denial from a freedom of expression perspective. The paper argues that Holocaust denial is inherently anti-Semitic, and is thus consistent with hate speech theory and the hate speech laws that have been enacted internationally in an attempt to remedy the harm hate speech can cause. The thesis of this paper is that the legislative restrictions on hate speech and Holocaust denial are justified from a free speech perspective on theoretical grounds. Such restrictions are a necessary prioritisation of human dignity and equality in the circumstances. Explicit Holocaust denial laws, while performing an essential symbolic function in European jurisdictions, are unnecessary in non-European states, as generic hate speech laws are sufficient to capture the harm caused by upper-level Holocaust denial.</p>

Hey, Google, is it what the Holocaust looked like?

By filtering and ranking information, search engines shape how individuals perceive both the present and past events. However, these information curation mechanisms are prone to malperformance that can misinform their users. In this article, we examine how search malperformance can influence representation of traumatic past by investigating image search outputs of six search engines in relation to the Holocaust in English and Russian. Our findings indicate that besides two common themes - commemoration and liberation of camps - there is substantial variation in visual representation of the Holocaust between search engines and languages. We also observe several instances of search malperformance, including content propagating antisemitism and Holocaust denial, misattributed images, and disproportionate visibility of specific Holocaust aspects that might result in its distorted perception by the public.

Some Thoughts Evoked by Peter Lor, Bradley Wiles, and Johannes Britz, “Re-thinking Information Ethics: Truth, Conspiracy Theories, and Librarians in the COVID-19 Era,” in LIBRI, March 2021

The paper offers some thoughts prompted by the research paper published by Peter Lor, Bradley Wiles, and Johannes Britz, “Re-Thinking Information Ethics: Truth, Conspiracy Theories, and Librarians in the COVID-19 Era,” in LIBRI, March 2021. It highlights two significant contributions, an analysis of the misinformation in the COVID-19 pandemic and the notion of alethic rights, the right of truth of patrons based on the work of D’Agostini. This reflection then situates the COVID-19 misinformation campaign within the broader disinformation ecology within which it exists. While it agrees that alethic rights are an important ethical framework, it wonders whether it practically advances work beyond that libraries and librarians are already doing, e.g., in collection decisions, approaches to reference questions, or library programming. It looks at the debate between John Swan and Noel Peattie on the inclusion of books representing outright lies in the collection (e.g., Holocaust denial). It then contrasts a right to information and authorities propagating and validating that information with a right to misinformation and authorities for propagating and validating that misinformation that exists within disinformation ecologies. The problem of truth, its authorities and its context appears to be more complicated than an appeal to alethic truths: for example, liberals and conservatives differ on the meaning of a rational consensus on contentious political matters, such as climate change. Given the dire consequences of misinformation on democracies and public health, an appeal to professional neutrality is woefully inadequate. There must be proactive resistance, if not outright repudiation.

4. Shoah and memory

“Shoah and memory” looks at the Holocaust through the lens of Jewish literature worldwide, focusing on the differences between the works of Anne Frank (Diary of a Young Girl), Elie Wiesel (Night), Hannah Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem), and others, studying the reception each of these works received in Jewish and non-Jewish milieus. There is a connection between memory and testimonial literature, which can especially be seen in fiction as it intersects with the anti-Semitic trend known as “Holocaust denial." We have cases such as “invented” memoirs, for example, The Painted Bird by Jerzy Koziński. There are also a number of nonliterary Holocaust narratives such as the films Shoah and Schindler’s List and the graphic novel Maus.

The Denial of Genocide in Srebrenica in the Context of Strengthening Neo-fascism and Relativization of the Holocaust in Europe

The denial of the 1995 genocide against Bosniaks in the UN security zone of Srebrenica, has continued uninterrupted for 25 years. This denial has taken various forms and manifestations during that time; from denying the extent and character of crimes and the number of victims, to not accepting relevant court verdicts and especially, ignoring the consequences of genocide. As time passes, we are beginning to get the impression that an additional phase to the denial of the genocide in Srebrenica has emerged, in which, through the glorification of convicted war criminals and their affirmation in society, genocide is affirmed as an acceptable procedure and activity. We believe that this 25-year period of persistent denial, and even celebration of the genocide in Srebrenica, largely corresponds to the strengthening of neo-fascist and right-wing ideas and movements in European countries, which has been accompanied by an increasingly louder denial and relativization of the Holocaust. In this paper, we intend to analyze the connection between these phenomena, because we believe that the ideas pedaled by deniers of the genocide in Srebrenica, are significantly suited to strengthening the neo-fascism and Holocaust denial and are using this atmosphere to intensify genocide denial against Bosniaks and yet paradoxically, affirm the genocide, by glorifying the convicted war criminals and their ideas.

Censorship in Israeli High School Libraries: Analysis of Complaints and Librarians' Reactions

The study sought to determine the extent of censorship in high school libraries in Israel, using a questionnaire mailed to 442 schools and yielding 187 usable replies. Significant differences were found regarding both complaints about book content and librarians' response, between the religious sectors and the non-religious one, indicating a much lower rate in the latter. More complaints were received from teachers than principals, but the latter elicited a higher compliance, probably due to their special status in school. Very little parental involvement was reported, receiving the lowest compliance. Topics of the complaints ranked as follows: pornography, degrading the Jewish religion, hard violence, sexual permissiveness, missionizing, racism, drug use, holocaust denial and bizarre sects. Pornography and violence ranked high in all sectors, but sexual permissiveness and degrading Judaism ranked high among the two religious sectors but much lower in the nonreligious one. Few complaints about certain genres may result from preliminary censorship during book selection process, but in most cases it indicates less sensitivity in that sector concerning that genre.

Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide

What has compelled Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and abroad to promote a positive image of Ottomans and Turks while they deny the Armenian genocide and the existence of anti-Semitism in Turkey? The dominant historical narrative is that Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 were embraced by the Ottoman Empire, and then later, protected from the Nazis during WWII. If we believe that Turks and Jews have lived in harmony for so long, then it is hard for us to accept that the Turks could have committed genocide against the Armenians. In this article, the author confronts these convictions and circumstances to reflect on what moral responsibility the descendants of the victims of one genocide have to the descendants of victims of another. Baer delves into the history of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to tease out the origin of these many tangled truths. He aims to bring about reconciliation between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, not only to face inconvenient historical facts, but to confront it and come to terms with it. By looking at the complexities of interreligious relations, Holocaust denial, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and confronting some long-standing historical stereotypes, the author sets out to tell a new history that goes against Turkish antisemitism and admits to the Armenian genocide.

«Israelita ma di eccezione»

1938 in Italy is marked by the introduction of the racial laws which ejected Jews from schools and universities, preceding similar measures in Germany. The aim of the author is to illustrate the debates in parliament around the Day of Memory and on holocaust denial before dealing with the events of 1938, in order to underline their contemporary significance and to interpret them as linked and not separable. After showing the progress that has been made in terms of historical research and the difficulties that the political world has experienced in taking this work into account, the volume examines the losses in qualitative terms in Italian university teaching and the huge difficulties encountered by professors who had lost their posts and struggled to return to their former positions. The case of Florence is studied closely within the framework of the transformations to university institutions which took place during the Fascist period. The indifference or the silence of the intellectuals, including Gentile, is underlined.