Dutch to prosecute Arab group for holocaust cartoon

[FarCenter]

THE HAGUE: An Arab organisation will be put on trial in the Netherlands for publishing a Holocaust-denying cartoon in response to caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, prosecutors said Wednesday.

‘This cartoon is discriminatory,’ the prosecuting authority said of the sketch on the website of the Arab European League (AEL) which it said depicted the Nazi holocaust as a figment of Jewish imagination.

‘This is offensive to Jews as a group,’ said a statement.

Last month, Dutch prosecutors ordered the league to remove the cartoon from its website or face prosecution.

The cartoon was punishable, they found, ‘because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion’.

At the same time, prosecutors had announced they would not put far-right MP Geert Wilders on trial for distributing controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammad on his website.

It found those cartoons were not offensive towards Muslims, nor contributed to hatred, discrimination or violence against them.

The AEL, which had originally agreed to remove the cartoon from its website, decided to put it back in protest against this ruling which it described as unfair and incomprehensible.

‘Double standards are being applied,’ says a statement on the website of the league, which said it ‘stands for the rights of the Arab and Moslem communities in Europe’.

<SNIP> http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/04-dutch-to-prosecute-arab-group-for-holocaust-cartoon-qs-11

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Sad all around.

[timeforpeace]

2. Never thought anyone would use their own tactics on them. Turnabout, fair play, all that.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. Who is "their?"

[dsc]

3. The Arab group is absolutely right here

If you are going to criminalize speech in this manner, and I don't think you should, you have to do so even handedly. Holland didn't.

[Jim Sagle]

4. Using holocaust denial to make a point is never right.

Neither is excusing it.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Denying the freedom of speech is never right.

It's even worse than hate speech.

[Jim Sagle]

15. Sell your American free speech to Europe. They're not buying, and rightly so.

[dsc]

8. I'm not

but I also don't think governments should be in the censorship business for precisely this reason. They made a mess of this by sensoring one and not the other.

[Sultana]

13. Seriously!

Europe serious about it...

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Both groups should have been told to take their discriminatory stuff down...

Since there is not bill of rights there that allows people to be biggots no matter who they offend.

[KonaKane]

7. Denmark didn't force anti-Islam cartoons to be removed either

It seems bashing a religion is fine as long as it's Islam.

[Sultana]

14. Islam is so oppressed!

...yet it is 'supposedly' the fasting growing religion in the world.

:eyes:

[Behind the Aegis]

10. This is from 02 Sep, 2009.

While Holocaust denial is not against Dutch law, per se, the cartoon would seem to "fall under the Dutch criminal law banning racial abuse and incitement to hatred (Articles 137c and 137d of the Dutch Penal Code)." source As I recall, the "Mohammad" cartoons denigrated Mohammad and not Muslims as a group. Of course, it was offensive to Muslims and many non-Muslims, but according to the story, it wasn't targeting Muslims, unlike this cartoon, which does target Jews. It is a slippery slope for sure.

Here is an article with the "cartoon." source

[canetoad]

11. There is another cartoon here

scroll down a bit. These cartoons are sordid, sleazy and without any reedeeming qualities.
http://philosemitism.blogspot.com/2009/08/dutch-prosecutors-found-that-holocaust.html

[proteus_lives]

12. That made me ill.

Whoever made those deserves such a kick to their cowardly balls.