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It should concern us all that the expression of an idea, however wrong it may obviously be, can be criminalized. Banning the expression of beliefs and ideas (including wrong ones) is the classic characteristic of a totalitarian regime. It may well be that Holocaust deniers are simply articulating their anti-Semitism. The response to that should be to expose them as anti-Semites, not to turn them into political prisoners. If they incite violence then laws exist to punish them. If they say something non-inciting which we don't like then we have the right (and duty, you may think) to challenge them. But with arguments, not criminal charges.

If the script of a play - perhaps a play about free speech - requires an actor to express Holocaust denial views on stage, should he be prosecuted? Should the play be banned?

The paradox of Germans prosecuting someone for publishing an idea that the Germans of a previous time were less evil than they really were would not be lost on George Orwell. If he wrote it in a book, would they burn it?

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