The Legal Situation in Spain

[Alex Linder]

Spain Scrubs Prison Sentences for Holocaust Denial

http://www.ejpress.org/ImageGallery/912ea2ad-2d85-4021-906e-1f87e78a6269.jpg

Spain's constitutional court in Madrid.


12/Nov/2007
European Jewish Press

MADRID (AFP)---Spain’s constitutional court has decided to eliminate prison sentences for Holocaust denial from the country’s penal code, according to press reports.

The code provided for one or two years in jail for anyone who disseminated theories or teachings that denied or justified genocide, such as the Nazi liquidation of Europe’s Jews.

The new ruling makes only the justification of genocide punishable by prison.

The constitutional court’s judgement, to be published in full next week, follows the quashing by a Barcelona court of a five-year prison sentence imposed on a bookstore owner who sold books praising Nazism, El Pais daily reported.

In April the European Union made inciting racism and xenophobia crimes throughout its 27 member states in a landmark decision tempered by caveats to appease free speech concerns.

It said one- to three-year prison terms should be available for incitement to violence or hatred "against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin."......

http://www.ejpress.org/article/21645

[Alex Linder]

Spanish Jewish Leader Urges Jail Terms For Holocaust Denial


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Jacobo Israel Garzon: "Holocaust denial is
"the threshold of hate speech" and its
"depenalization" could lead to the rise
in the distribution of Nazi propaganda.

29/Jan/2008
European Jewish Press

MADRID (AFP)---The leader of Spain's Federation of Jewish Communities on Monday urged lawmakers to make denial of the Holocaust once again punishable by imprisonment.

Spanish law had mandated a sentence of up to two years in prison for Holocaust denial but in November Spain's Constitutional Court ruled it falls within freedom of speech and would no longer be punishable with jail.

The court however ruled that imprisonment is a constitutional punishment for any individual convicted of justifying the Holocaust or any other genocide.

In an address to parliament, the federation leader Jacobo Israel Garzon asked
lawmakers to "think about how to once again introduce prison terms for Holocaust denial in the penal code".

Holocaust denial is "the threshold of hate speech" and its "depenalisation"
could lead to the rise in the distribution of Nazi propoganda, he added.

Holocaust denial is specifically targeted by laws in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and Romania.

In April 2007 the European Union made inciting racism and xenophobia crimes throughout its 27 member states in a landmark decision tempered by caveats to appease free speech concerns.

http://www.ejpress.org/article/23776

[Alex Linder]

On November 7, 2007 Spain's Constitutional Court ruled on the case of Pedro Varela, the well known Spanish human rights activist and publisher. Pedro Varela was sentenced initially (Nov. 16, 1998) to five years in prison by a Barcelona court for selling books that were considered to contain articles of racehate and holocaust-denial. In fact, they were books that disputed certain aspect of the modern holocaust dogma. On April 30, 1999, the highest appeal court of Catalonia overturned the verdict and denounced the original verdict, as well as the law the verdict was based on, (article 607.2 Spanish penal code) as illegal. Three judges came to the unanimous conclusion that such a law is violating human rights by depriving every individual from his or her basic human rights (UN-Charter, Article 19).