Czech Republic has given a suspended sentence to an internet journalist for "denying the holocaust"

8. 9. 2009 / Jan Čulík

Vladimír Stwora, a Czech journalist who lives in Canada and publishes a controversial Czech-language webzine Zvědavec, has just been given a suspended sentence in the Czech Republic of two years' imprisonment for committing "a crime of supporting a movement aiming to supress the rights and freedoms of man" according to Article 261a of the Czech Penal Code. Mr. Stwora has been found guilty by a "court order".

He is supposed to have committed this "crime" by publishing, in July 2007, a Czech translation of an English-language article by one "D. Cassidy" "Holocaust and its four-million variant". Thus he is said to have "cast doubt" on the fact that the Nazi genocide of the Jews during the Second World War took place.

While Zvědavec often publishes doubtful, prejudiced, and even factually incorrect material, which must be criticised, surely the right to publish even politically incorrect thoughts is a fundamental principle of democracy.

Mr. Stwora has appealed against the verdict.

Vladimír Stwora's comments on his sentence (in Czech) HERE

Published also in CLICK HERE

Svoboda slova
Vytisknout

Obsah vydání | Pátek 26.2. 2010