"Whenever the State involves itself in arguments about the truth, disputes between opinions become disputes between opinions and power."

NEWS RELEASE FROM THE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE
In Association with the Libertarian International

Release Date: Saturday 18th February 2006
Release Time: Immediate

Contact Details:
Dr Sean Gabb, 07956 472 199,

For other contact and link details, see the foot of this message Release url:

"FREEDOM OF SPEECH MEANS RIGHT OF DAVID IRVING TO DENY HOLOCAUST", SAYS FREE MARKET AND CIVIL LIBERTIES THINK TANK

At 9:30am on Monday the 20th February 2006, Dr Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, will appear on Sky News to defend freedom of speech in general, and in particular the right of controversial historian David Irving to say anything he likes about the holocaust.

Mr Irving is awaiting trial in Austria for the supposed crime of denying or minimising the holocaust.

Commenting ahead of the broadcast, Dr Gabb says:

"Either freedom of speech means the right to say anything at all about politics, religion, science or history, among much else - or it means nothing at all.

"There are those who say they believe in freedom of speech, but then insist that the promotion of 'hatred' does not come within the meaning of free speech. The Libertarian Alliance utterly rejects this supposed distinction. What some call the promotion of hatred others call telling the truth. In any event, we believe in the right to promote hatred by any means that do not fall within the Common Law definition of assault.

"Whenever the State involves itself in arguments about the truth, disputes between opinions become disputes between opinions and power. And the State has neither special ability nor the right to decide what opinions may be true or false.

"Whatever we may think about what he claims, whatever we may think about the motivation for his claims, the claims Mr Irving makes regarding the holocaust are a matter to be settled by historical debate - not by the criminal law.

"If Mr Irving is found guilty by the Austrian court, he will be as much a prisoner of conscience as any of the politically correct prisoners that the Potemkin 'human rights' organisations - such as Amnesty International - like to defend, while refusing to defend the rights of holocaust deniers and anti-semites.

"We also note with distaste that those journalists throughout Europe who are congratulating each other on how brave and liberal they have been over the anti-Moslem cartoons have not said a word for the freedom of Mr Irving to express himself.

"The Libertarian Alliance believes in freedom of speech for all - WITH NO EXCEPTIONS."

The Libertarian Alliance further believes: