Last update - 00:00 29/01/2007
Germany won't urge EU-wide ban on swastika, Holocaust denial
By The Associated Press and Reuters
rmany will not push during its presidency of the European Union for an EU-wide ban on the
swastika and holocaust denial and will leave the decision to punish Holocaust deniers in the hands of member states, Berlin said on Monday.
In statements reflecting an opposite approach, the president of Germany's parliament used a speech commemorating victims of the Holocaust Monday to criticize an Iranian conference last year questioning the Nazis' slaughter of Jews, and to urge the EU to outlaw the denial of genocide.
"Statements that mean to deny or play down the terrifying historical truth of the Holocaust and thereby ridicule the victims of the Nazi dictatorship need to be made illegal," Norbert Lammert said.
Germany said earlier this month it wanted to harmonize rules throughout the 27-member bloc for dealing with Holocaust deniers and for punishing displays of the symbol of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, banned in Germany and several other states.
But, setting out plans for an EU-wide anti-racism law on Monday, it said it would not seek to prohibit "specific symbols such as swastikas".
It would also not try to push all EU states to say it is a crime to deny that 6 million Jews were exterminated during World War Two, a draft of Germany's draft proposal for an EU anti-racism law said.
Member states could decide not to make the denial of the Holocaust a crime "where the conduct is of a kind unlikely to incite to violence or hatred directed against a group or a
member of a group," the draft showed.
The German statement did not say why it had decided against pushing for EU bans on swastikas, but some other EU countries are wary of such legislation and so a community-wide ban may not be achievable.
Denying the Holocaust is a crime punishable in European countries such as Germany, Austria and France with prison terms of as much as 10 years.
But other countries do not consider it as a crime and have resisted moves for an EU-wide legislation.
The Italian cabinet stopped short of making Holocaust denial illegal when it approved a draft law last Thursday imposing jail terms for racist or ethnically motivated crimes.
The EU's executive Commission proposed an EU-wide anti-racism law in 2001 but EU states failed to agree, struggling over the limit between freedom of expression and sanction of racism.
One of the most contentious issues at the time was whether denying that the Holocaust had taken place was a crime.
Germany's new draft suggests that incitement to racism and xenophobia would be punishable by at least 1 to 3 years of jail in all 27 EU states, while leaving to each state to decide on the specifics.
In his speech, Lammert, a prominent member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, also echoed Germany's rejection of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's attacks on Israel's right to exist.
"Israel must be allowed to live - like its neighbors - within internationally recognized borders and free of fear, terror, and violence," Lammert said.
"To have a nation armed with atomic weapons in its neighborhood, and a nation led by an openly anti-Semitic regime, is not only unbearable for Israel. The global community should not tolerate such a threat," he said before the German lawmakers, including Merkel.
The annual ceremony has been held since 1996 and coincides with international Holocaust memorial day, held each year on Jan. 27 to mark the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops.