The jailing of Holocaust denier David Irving is not an exercise in hypocrisy, writes Alan Shatter
Coming in the midst of the Danish cartoon controversy and given the importance many Europeans attach to democratic values and freedom of speech, it is tempting to see the decision of an Austrian court to imprison British historian David Irving for Holocaust denial as hypocritical.
But while Irving's conviction may be perceived as hypocritical given the fact that Austria has failed dismally to prosecute its own Nazi war criminals, there is no contradiction between defending the media's right to publish satirical cartoons which some may regard as offensive while opposing free speech for those peddling Holocaust denial.
Not that the Irving decision ignited this debate. Indeed, while torching embassies and flag-burning may have been the most visible expression of the fanaticism sweeping the Muslim world since the Danish cartoon controversy got under way, no less despicable, if far less dramatic, was the enthusiasm of some Muslim groups and publications to use the issue as an excuse to participate in one of their more popular pastimes, the gratuitous denial of the Holocaust.
The reality is that such cartoons, like the one published by the European Arab League showing Anne Frank in bed with Hitler, says more about the publishers than those the caricature aims to offend. What they say is not connected with the right to freedom of expression.
The truth is the two issues have little in common. The same countries - Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - that encourage free speech that mocks or denies the Holocaust are opposed to the concept in almost every other context.
Iran, for example, now plans to hold a conference of Holocaust deniers in the name of free speech. Ironic, coming from a regime that came close to bottom, 164 out of 167 countries, in the Reporters Sans Frontières 2005 press freedom index.
Saudi Arabia not only opposes free speech and freedom of religion for Christians and Jews but even for domestic Muslim minorities. Not that President McAleese raised these issues on her recent visit to the kingdom. Acting on the Government's instructions she was lost in a fog of moral ambivalence, "abhorring" on behalf of the Irish people both the Danish cartoons in the European press and the violent response to their publication.
Sadly, no abhorrence of suicide bombers and beheadings nor of the Saudis' contribution to that aspect of Muslim culture was expressed. At the very least they should have been given a parity of opprobrium.
But there is a bigger issue than the hypocrisy of Muslim states and the stance taken on behalf of the Government.
Over the course of the second World War six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. The need to respect and protect this tragic fact far outweighs the need to allow racists the freedom to express their sick opinions on the matter. It is not a coincidence that the most enthusiastic Holocaust deniers, such as Iran and Hamas-led Palestine are those most fanatically committed to a second Holocaust, ie the wiping of Israel off the map.
The Holocaust-survivor generation is dying off, and growing ignorance and indifference to the enormity of the Nazi Holocaust have reduced the taboo that has been attached to anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence for much of the last half-century.
In consequence, over the last few years there has been an upsurge in attacks against Jews, as well as on synagogues and Jewish schools and cemeteries across Europe on a level unknown since the Nazi era. Many of these attacks were the work of the same radical Islamists who now demand the right to deny the Holocaust with impunity.
Thus, while people should be free to publish cartoons, they should not be able to escape criminal sanction for denying Hitler's mass extermination of Europe's Jews.
There are real differences. Guilt-ridden citizens of the West and spineless governments should not be hoodwinked by autocratic Muslim regimes and intolerant fanatical Muslim groups into thinking there are not.
We should not ignore the fact that few of those that took to the streets to protest against the Danish cartoons' insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad regard the use of the Prophet's name to justify suicide bombings and beheadings as worthy of celebration.
The only worry arising from the Irving prison sentence and the prosecutor's enthusiasm to have the sentence increased is Irving's likely elevation in the Muslim world to the status of martyr.
By using a sledgehammer to crack a nut the Austrians may have conferred on David Irving a status and respect which that part of the world usually reserves for suicide bombers.
Alan Shatter is a former Fine Gael TD and former chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee