breaking the ice

The opposition between the positions of Voltaire “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.” and that of Saint-Just “No liberties for the enemies of Liberty” is still a wide-open debate in Europe today. We can clearly see this in the debate on the declaration “outlawing racism and xenophobia throughout Europe”.

Germany declared its aim to impose criminal liability on the following offences:
Public incitement to violence and hatred out of racist or xenophobic motives
Racist or xenophobic agitation
Denial or gross minimisation of genocide (mainly holocaust)

The maximum term of imprisonment for these offences would be one to three years - member states could make criminal liability dependent upon the determination by a national or international court that a known event in history constituted genocide, a crime against humanity, or a war crime. The goal is to attain minimum harmonisation of provisions on criminal liability for disseminating racist and xenophobic statements. The legislation would criminalize the denial of genocide, but does not specify which historical events fall within that definition, according to a draft version. It does, however, use Holocaust denial as an example of how the law may be applied. 9 out of the 27 member states of the EU already have holocaust denial legislation; several other member states already have legislation on hate speech.
This framework directive is already discussed since 2001 and it is the 3rd time on the agenda of a council meeting. Lets see where it leads to this time, I am especially curious what this means for media regulations of spoken and written word and in particular for cartoons and pictures.