Belgium court uses anti-revisionist law
UPI, Fri 10 Nov 2000

A Belgian court has handed a right-wing activist a suspended six-month sentence using for the first time a 1995 law that bans revisionist history.

The 55th chamber of the Brussels court of summary jurisdiction Tuesday handed David Vercruysse a six-month suspended sentence and fined him $863 and as part of the sentence published its judgment in two national newspapers, Le Soir and De Standaard, for distributing a booklet that said the Holocaust had been exaggerated.

The case was filed by the Center for Equal Chances and Opposition to Racism, which in 1997 found a Brussels newsstand selling copies of "Final Conflict," a British neo-nazi work that had been distributed by Vercruysse. The court studied the 1995 law as similar cases did not exist and because Vercruysse used the freedom-of-speech defense. "We have foreseen limitations to freedom of speech, more particularly when combating opinions baneful to society," the presiding judge said. "We must avoid Belgium becoming a refuge for revisionism."

The book questioned the genocide of Jews by the Nazis during the World War II. Under the headline "Did six million really die?," "Final Conflict" asks what the "fuss" is about. "...even worse -- it is illegal to ask this particular question. European Jewry. Now, before people start screaming and fainting out in suburbia, let's get one thing straight -- Jews did die in those camps and those pictures, for the most part were genuine...but where is the crime in seeking the truth?....Was it a planned extermination or were there just too many prisoners at a time when Germany was being overrun by refugees fleeing the Red Army and carpet bombed by the 'Allies' -- and with typhoid and cholera epidemies, was death on a large scale unavoidable?"

The judge said the book minimized genocide perpetrated by the Nazis and reflected hostility toward democracy. Vercruysse said he distributed the magazines, but said he wasn't aware it was illegal to do so. In his decision, the judge launched a veiled criticism of the right-wing Vlaams Blok party. "If complaints against racist remarks or actions are increasing, it is not because there are more racists nowadays than in the past, but simply because people now openly admit their political opinions,"
he said. "Many of those who vote for racist parties aren't necessarily racist, they just vote against the ambiant feeling of insecurity. Political parties don't need revisionist strategies any more to break through during elections." The anti-immigrant, right-wing party got 33 percent of the votes in the city of Antwerp. It also has a major presence in Ghent and Mechelen.

RESISTANCES: THE ENGLISH PAGES
Concerned with the progress of right-wing extremism and the adoption of neo-fascist ideas by mainstream politics in Belgium and all over the world the anti-fascist magazine RésistanceS saw the light of day in may 1997 after several months of preparatory work.

RésistanceS wishes to make a practical contribution to the fight against fascism, racism, xenofobia, extreme nationalism and the paralysing "pensée unique". RésistanceS is fully independent and is not linked to any political organisation whatsoever.

RésistanceS is put together by a team of volunteers with different ethnical and socio-cultural backgrounds from all over the country (Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders).

Our primary objectives are: to expose the extreme right, to analyse the conditions allowing neo-fascism to develop, to prove the worthlessness of right-wing extremist ‘alternatives’, to denounce the influence of neo-fascism on mainstream politics, to establish an anti-fascist network for individuals and organisations

Write RésistanceS 9, Quai du Commerce B1000 Bruxelles Belgium
www.resistances.be
info@resistances.be