Holocaust denier Irving is freed from jail early

[oberliner]

David Irving, the controversial historian, was due to be released from prison in Austria today where he has been serving a three-year sentence for denying the Holocaust.

He is expected to fly home to Britain and serve the rest of his sentence on probation after Vienna's appeal court ruled in favour of his release yesterday.

Irving, 68, was sentenced in February and later appealed against its length.

He was arrested in November 2005 on charges related to two speeches and a newspaper interview he gave in Austria in 1989 in which he called the gas chambers a "fairy tale" and claimed that Hitler had no role in the Holocaust, even "offering his hand to protect the Jews".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/21/wirving21.xml

[ikojo]

1. He was probably hoping to go to

sunny Iran!

[Chulanowa]

2. I think this is a good thing.

The dude's crazy as a loon and has no business calling himself a historian, but he's no more criminal than people who believe cavemen rode tyrannosaurs. All his arrest did was manage to fuel more antisemitism.

[The Magistrate]

3. He Is A Criminal, Sir, Without Question, Under Austrian Law

He violated it, and was convicted and sentenced. This was quite proper, and the law is a sound one. Though my preference would be for him to die unattended on a dank stone floor, his release on esentially compassionate grounds does not much trouble me. But his conviction, and the fact he is a criminal, stands.

[AlienGirl]

4. He knew he would be arrested when he went there.

David Irving is many things, but chief among them is Self-Interested Asshole. It's safe to assume that he was planning to get arrested for the publicity it would no doubt create.

Tucker

[zappa_parappa]

5. Wow, didn't think many people here would support punishment of thoughtcrime

I don't see how a man refusing to believe something happened, regardless of what it is, should constitute jail time, let alone death on a dank stone floor.

[The Magistrate]

6. Then You Should Think Again, Sir

Apologetics for murderous Anti-Semitism need to be taken seriously.

[Chulanowa]

8. Then certainly...

You think that a majority of America's right-wingers should also be lying dead on a dank stone floor? For the majority of them espouse far more violent hatred than David Irving. Some of them even act upon their hatred, rather than just talk about it.

I'll still have to disagree, however. Hatred is its own punishment. When that hatred becomes violence against others, then it is criminal.

[The Magistrate]

9. A Wager Against That, Sir, Would Not Be Of Investment Grade

Particularly if the proposition were presented to me before the morning's coffee and first couple of cigarettes had settled into my system....

You do not seem to be aware of the full enormity of Irving's activities and positions, and might profit by looking into the details of his defeated suit against Ms. Lipschitz. There is no question whatever he is a dedicated Neo-Nazi, exerting himself to foster, and spread allegiance to, that movement in Europe and elsewhere. This fastens onto him some proportion of responsibility for whatever outrages of a violent and murderous nature its adherents commit: he must say, with the little girl in the Shake and Bake commercial, "And I helped!" when any such occur.

[Maiden England]

7. Its not a thoughtcrime when you blurt out your hatred to any that will listen.

[cali]

10. Quite wrong.

He actually was once a respected writer. He wrote several legitimate and well received books, and was a best selling author. Though largely self-taught, Irving was considered a historian by many well known academic historians. His first book was published in '62 or '63, and was about the fire bombing of Dresden.

[The Magistrate]

11. Closer Examinations Of His Works, Ma'am

Quite justifies Mr. Chulanowa's characterization. As histories, his works, including the one on Dresden, are not worth the paper they are written one.