EU wants Australian in jail for opinions expressed in Australia
We read:
"In my view people ought to be free to say things that others find offensive. Many people think you ought to be free to say only the things they agree with and forbidden to express opinions contrary to their own. There is a large contingent of people who want to shackle the mind and padlock the lips. And those authoritarians are found on both the Right and the Left.
But some go further than others. Let us consider the case of a man that many would find odious, Gerald Toben. Toben is a citizen of Australia. He runs an outfit called the Adelaide Institute which many people consider anti-Semitic. I agree with their analysis. Toben is, by all indications, an anti-Semite and travels in those circles.
In Germany the government has passed laws making it illegal to "question" the Holocaust. The law is quite vague. It says one may not "play down" the Holocaust or "defame" the dead. Numerous Jewish historians, however, have played down the numbers of dead during the Holocaust. They said previous estimates were too high. They are not bothered by the law as it is applied selectively. Toben, and others like him, are considered bad people by German law. And perhaps they are. But expressing an opinion doesn't violate any natural right of an individual. As Thomas Jefferson expressed it, opinions neither pick one's pocket or break one's leg. They are not crimes, by which I mean, they violate the rights of no one.
Good thing for Toben that he doesn't live in German, right? Wrong. Mr. Toben lives in Australia where freedom of speech still prevails on the matters he harps about. And he recently was flying through London. But his opinions are not illegal there either. And he never committed the offence of expressing an illegal opinion within Germany itself.
But the EU. issued an arrest warrant anyway. And the British government, under that warrant, arrested Toben on behalf of the German authorities. Germany asserts that Toben expressed his opinions on the internet and since Germans can read the internet they have the right to put Toben on trial in Germany. Note that Germany is claiming world-wide jurisdiction over what opinions one may express on the internet. And it appears the Labour government in the UK is willing to arrest people on behalf of Germany even if the offence is not a offence in England, or in the jurisdiction where the person physically resided when he expressed this opinion.
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11 comments:
Totally bogus. This provides absolutely no provision for "jurisdiction". Think about it. It would be as if a person legally bought and smoked pot in Amsterdam and then, while visiting the U.S., was busted for possession and use, even though he wasn't buying and smoking in the U.S. (In this case, it is still similar, because pot IS available in the U.S., not legally.)
"Germany asserts that Toben expressed his opinions on the internet and since Germans can read the internet they have the right to put Toben on trial in Germany."
So if that is the case, then the global community must put the entire country of Germany on trial for allowing their disgusting piss and scat fetishes to be broadcast all over the Internet. What's fair for one....
of course it wasn't reported like that in the European press.
It was presented as a major victory for coordinated European law enforcement that a "radical holocaust denier" was arrested to face trial for his crimes, without any indication of what those crimes would be or where and when they were comitted.
It's of course not the first time things like this have happened.
Israel for example kidnaps former German camp guards for crimes against Judaism all over the world, brings them to Israel, and puts them to an Israeli court for crimes comitted at a time when Israel didn't even exist (and thus the laws under which they're charged didn't exist) and outside the boundaries of Israel.
Other countries probably do the same thing, but less openly.
Of course this makes travelling a rather dangerous passtime, if you can be whisked away anywhere at any time for something you might have done at some point somewhere that someone somewhere else considers (possibly at a far later date) to have been bad enough that they make a law against it.
Does Germany have an arrest warrant out for the Prez of Iran?
I can just see Iran issuing an arrest warrant for Paris Hilton, saying that she doesn’t follow Sharia Law, by not wearing clothing that covered her from head to toe, except for the face and hands, as the Koran says in 33:59.
Good for one, good for all.
Mobius
Welcome to the "New World Order."
Next member (if Obama is elected), the United States of France.
In fact, Hitler would've been less of a problem to deal with. This is simply another example of how the EU is going completely socialist. Based on their "laws", no one is safe anywhere in the world, except apparently, for Isreali kidnappers!
History has shown us many times that all too often, bringing down a tyrant, simply makes room for another one, and often worse.
This is not exactly surprising.
There are plenty of extra-territorial laws around . Genocide can be prosecuted when done extra-territorially, Australia has child-sex tour laws that enable local prosecutions for child-sex offenses in (for example) Cambodia or Thailand.
The US claims global jurisdiction in lots of matters (see for example Foreign Torts actions).
Internet publication is sufficient for choice of jurisdiction in defamation actions (see for example Fairfax v Rivkin) so I don't see any reason why it might not consitute publication in Germany.
The obvious conclusion is that the law is foolish. Opinion, foolish though it may be, shouldn't be a crime.
The holocaust-denial laws resulted from the de-nazification programs of the occupying allies in Germany - prominent among whom were the AMERICANS!
So who said the SOVIET UNION was dead its just expaned to cover the whole eorupean cantenent and the british isle and now their reaching over to austalia to try and intimidate them FROM THE SOVIET EUROWEENIE UNION OF EUROWEENIES
Wow Spurwing! Learn to spell or type or both!
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