Netherlands bans Holocaust denial

The government of the Netherlands has announced it will ban any “condoning, denying or trivialising” of the Jewish Holocaust (known in Hebrew as Shoá) occurred during World War II.

“With this ban, victims and relatives of genocide and other war crimes will soon also be specifically protected against particularly offensive statements that deny and trivialise these types of international crimes”, the Dutch cabinet said on its website.

This explicit inclusion in the Criminal Code of the denial of the mass murder of Jews in Europe between 1941 and 1945 comes in addition to racism and discrimination, which were already punishable in the Netherlands, according to Christian news website CNE.

“Insulting forms” of Holocaust denial will be punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 1 year. “The ban is part of the Bill to re-implement European criminal law”, the government announced.

Netherland’s Justice Minister, Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, lamented that “we regularly see the monster of antisemitism rearing its head again”. Protecting the memory of the millions who were killed under the Nazi regime is a matter of “humanity and compassion, it is about good and evil, and raising your voice when you see one turn into the other”.

The modification of the law comes as Jewish organisations and other groups alert about an increase in antisemitism in Europe.

Evangelical Christians in countries such as Germany and Finland have lately called to protect and promote the memory of the Jews killed in several extermination camps in the continent.