Holocaust denial outlawed

last updated 8 January 2015

Brussels

After six years of negotiation, the 27 E.U. members have agreed to make denying the Holocaust punishable by a jail term, although individual countries may choose not to enforce the law if it is incompatible with their own free speech protections. The compromise law calls for three years in prison for “denying or grossly trivializing crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.” Only genocides that fall under the statutes of the International Criminal Court, such as the Holocaust and the 1994 Rwandan genocide, are covered; the massacre of Armenians in World War I and Stalin’s slaughter of millions are not.