Originally published February 8 2006
As writers are imprisoned for speaking their mind, columnist says Europe as a whole must accept true free speech
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Christian Science Monitor columnist Brendan O'Neill says it is unacceptable for two writers to be languishing in prison for their views, and the fact that one disagreed with Turkish actions during WWII, and the other is a man who denies the Holocaust ever happened, should not mean one is more entitled to free speech than the other.
As such, the two cases cast a harsh light on the debate about free speech in Europe: They suggest we Europeans have a partial, picky attitude to freedom of expression, and thus do not understand the real meaning of this fundamental liberty.
The writers are Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish novelist, and David Irving, a British historian.
Mr. Pamuk is an internationally acclaimed author whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages.
He is currently being charged in Turkey for "denigrating Turkishness."
His "crime," for which he faces up to three years behind bars, was to question Ankara's official line on the mass killing of Armenians by Turks during World War I and to call for a more upfront analysis of those terrible events.
He is currently in prison in Vienna, Austria, where he was arrested in November for two speeches he made in that country more than 15 years ago in which he allegedly said there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz.
Holocaust denial is a crime in Austria, and if Irving is found guilty at his trial in February he could be jailed for up to 10 years.
At first glance, these different responses might appear sensible.
Who needs to hear his weasel words?
And yet, if we truly believe in freedom of speech, then we must defend Irving as vigorously as we defend Pamuk.
If we were to have freedom of speech in Europe for novelists we admire but not for historians we despise, then we would not have freedom of speech at all.
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