EU CLOSE TO AGREEMENT ON HATE CRIME LAW
By Renata Goldirova

EUobserver.com, Belgium
April 18 2007

After six years of heated political debate, EU member states are set
to agree on a common anti-racism law, under which offenders will face
up to three years in jail for stirring-up racial hatred or denying
acts of genocide, such as the Holocaust.

One diplomat in Brussels confirmed to EUobserver that the controversial
piece of law is in its final-tuning phase and is likely to gain EU
blessing at a justice and interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg
on Thursday (19 April).

The latest draft – cited by the Reuters news agency – foresees an
EU-wide jail sentence of at least one to three years for "publicly
inciting to violence or hatred, directed against a group of persons
or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour,
religion, descent or national or ethnic origin."

The same rules would also apply to people "publicly condoning, denying,
or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity
and war crimes" as defined by international crime courts.

According to the Financial Times, such wording has been carefully
chosen to only include denial of the Holocaust during the second
world war, as well as the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, but would not
criminalise denying mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman
empire in 1915, something that Turkey strongly opposes labelling
as genocide.

The draft of the legislation is "the lowest common denominator,"
an EU diplomat told EUobserver, as the differences in national legal
systems relating to freedom of expression also had to be respected.

For example, denial of the Holocaust is already illegal in Germany
and Austria, while for example in the UK it is allowed under freedom
of speech rules, unless it specifically incites racial hatred.

Stalinism – a final stumbling block However, an ultimate breakthrough
is highly dependent on a demand voiced by four new member states.

Poland and the Baltic countries – all carrying the burden of a
repressive communist past – continue to hold on to their demand that
"crimes under the Stalin regime in the former Soviet Union" become
part of the bill’s scope.

"We believe Stalinist acts of genocide should be condemned in this
document. It would put them on an equal footing with Nazi crimes in
an international forum," an Estonian diplomat was cited as saying by
the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita.

On top of this, Warsaw would like to attach a unilateral declaration
condemning "distortions" of the past, namely the use of the phrase
"Polish death camps" to talk about Nazi death camps on Polish
territory.

However, "very, very many people are against this [to put Stalinism
into the main body of the hate crimes text]," a German diplomat said,
according to Rzeczpospolita.

According to an EU diplomat speaking to EUobserver, it is more likely
that the law would see "a reference to the crimes of totalitarian
regimes," with a final proposal to be tabled today.

If a deal is struck on Thursday (19 April), it would be a major success
for Germany, currently sitting at the EU helm, which sees an EU-wide
law combating racism and xenophobia as a moral obligation due to its
historical background.

The proposal has been stuck in the legislative pipelines since 2003.