Freedom of Expression
In the past, adversaries of the law have argued that this law restricts the freedom of expression, which is a basic human right. In a decision of 24 June 2003, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) stated that "denying or minimising the Holocaust must be seen as one of the acutest forms of racial slandering and incentives to hatred towards the Jews. The negation or the revision of historical facts of this type call into question the values which found the fight against racism and anti-semitism and is likely to seriously disturb law and order. Attacks against the rights of others of this kind are incompatible with democracy and human rights and their authors incontestably have aims that are prohibited by article 17 of the Convention." The court concludes that in application of article 17 of the ECHR, the plaintiff can't appeal to the protection of article 10 ECHR, insofar that he wants to use the freedom of expression to dispute crimes against humanity.
Read more about this topic: Belgian Holocaust Denial Law
Famous quotes containing the words freedom of, freedom and/or expression:
“Freedom of speech is of no use to a man who has nothing to say and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes.”
—Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1740–1792)
“We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at a large assembly of people a history of the human soul written in a kind of Chinese ideograms.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)