1. http://www.jta.org/1999/08/05/news-opinion/amnesty-internati...
Holocaust denial is pretty clearly antithetical to their mission. Their decision that they "would exclude from prisoner of conscience status not only people who have used or advocated violence, but also people who are imprisoned ‘for having advocated national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.’" does not seem unreasonable.
To take the opposite position - to argue for the release of ALL political prisoners - would have resulted in some fairly absurd situations over the years which don't really need to be enumerated here, I would think.
Now consider this: the German constitution was commissioned in 1948 by the Allied Powers, there was much experience in the Commission that developed it with constitutions of democratic nations, and the Nazi experience was fresh in everyone's mind. I think the fact that Germany does not have "freedom of speech" written in its constitution wants to tell you something.
TL;DR: Germany does not recognize freedom of speech. Germans consider this to be a Good Thing.
Which actually has little to do with prisoner of conscience status by itself. It's true enough that a prisoner of conscience has her freedom of speech violated in most cases. It doesn't follow that everyone whose freedom of speech is violated is a prisoner of conscience.
In this case you can safely abbreviate this to "liars." Not everything is a matter of opinion.
> scientific opinions
WTF?
I think the real difference is different mission statements and cultural attitudes. Finite funding isn't the reason, it just simply isn't something they are interested in doing.
Wikipedia claims Mr Toben, who is not an accredited historian, was arrested once for defamation and another time for inciting racism.
Holocaust denial is not racism.
>Wikipedia claims Mr Toben, who is not an accredited historian, was arrested once for defamation
Getting arrested for defamation might be a freedom of speech violation.
>and another time for inciting racism.
A state can define 'incitement for racism' as expressing one's opinion.
You are welcome to read, as an example, the very first article of Mr Toben's most recent newsletter [1] in which he makes the case that jews do not value the lives of gentiles and are involved in ethnic cleansing of whites in america.
>Getting arrested for defamation might be a freedom of speech violation.
I agree, but the operative word is 'might', it might also not be and that's why refusing to defend him does not call into question Amnesty's commitment to promoting free speech, but only their clear judgement.
Defamation is not protected speech because it unjustly harms the person or people being defamed, and fabricating blood libel about holocaust victims would be very hard for amnesty to honestly justify.
>A state can define 'incitement for racism' as expressing one's opinion.
A state can, potentially, define anything as any other thing, so this is not a particularly convincing argument without a solid example.
[1] http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/newsletters/Newsletter%2071...
Only because it is even fucking stupider. At least your average racist keeps their hatred basic enough to keep their bullshit somewhat consistent as long as you don't remind them of where their favourite foods are from. Holocaust deniers are like the chem-trails version of racists.
Here's another interesting story I came across - basically, Amnesty sacked one of their staff because she, an outspoken feminist, criticised their cosy relationship with radical Islamists. If anyone reading this has time, follow some of the names in that article - you might discover, like I did, that the world is far more fucked up than you had previously imagined.