Germany’s justice
minister, Brigitte Zypries, said Thursday night that Germany’s commitment to
combating racism and xenophobia — and keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive
— was both an enduring historical obligation and a present-day political
necessity.
“We have always said
that it can’t be the case that it should still be acceptable in Europe to say
the Holocaust never existed and that six million Jews were never killed,” she
said. Under the German proposal, she said, those who deny the Nazi slaughter of
Jews during World War II could face up to three years in prison if convicted.
Ms. Zypries said the
proposal, which will be debated by the bloc’s justice ministers in the next six
months, would also seek to criminalize racist declarations that are an
incitement to violence against a person or group. The aim, she said, was to
harmonize national legal systems in their approach to combating racism and
xenophobia.
Unifying the handling
of hate crimes in countries with vastly different legal cultures
could prove difficult, legal analysts said.
European leaders have
been unanimous in condemning those who deny the Holocaust, and they sharply
criticized the Iranian government for sponsoring a recent conference that
sought to cast doubt on it.
But the question of
whether to criminalize such acts has divided Europe. Germany sees a European
Union law on denial as a moral imperative, but other countries, like Britain,
Italy and Denmark, have resisted common rules as infringing on free speech and
civil liberties.