DK has the best roundup and overview of this latest EU-wide attack on freedom of speech from our dear German chums (60 years on still not realising that you don’t fight fascism by banning things), with the International Herald Tribune providing a nice summary of the issues (with a bit less of the invective).

Personally, I think we should extend this even further – if we’re banning Holocaust denial, let’s ban other forms of denial that contributed to the Holocaust.

So, let’s make it a criminal offence for Germans to claim “yes, I/my father/grandfather was a member of the Nazi party, but I/he didn’t really BELIEVE any of it, honest” – and, while we’re at it, also ban French people from going on about the glory of the Resistance without simultaneously adding the qualifier “but of course the vast, vast majority of the country either just kept their heads down, and did nothing to stop the Nazis from carting off thousands of French Jews, Homosexuals, etc. – or actively collaborated, like the large chunk of the country that was part of the Vichy regime”.

But, of course, as adding on the denial of Stalin’s genocides as an offence was explicitly rejected, there’s not much chance of that. This new law, in other words, merely sweeps the ills of Europe’s recent past under the carpet, and continues to raise the Nazi regime onto an almost sacred pedestal. Hatred of Hitler is in danger of becoming Europe’s new official religion.

In other news, my computer’s still dead, so Andy of Siberian Light will be hosting the Euroblog Roundup this week – entries, as usual, to EUroundup [at] gmail [dot] com – ta! (And yes, I’m fully aware that Siberia is not, by any stretch of the imagination, part of Europe. Shush…)