Vladimír Hučín - Chci právo i pro Vás!

[Celou zprávu ČTK si přečtěte ZDE 14.12.2010]

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Six states urge EU ban on denial of Communist crimes

Six foreign ministers from former Communist EU countries have said the EU should consider a law against denying or trivialising the crimes of totalitarian regimes in the run-up to a European Commission report on the subject.

"The principle of justice should assure a just treatment of victims of every totalitarian regime, as well as a proper prevention of all the international crimes," the foreign ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania said in a joint letter to EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding earlier this month, seen by EUobserver.

"Alongside the prosecution and punishment of criminals, the denial of every international crime should be treated according to the same standards to prevent favourable conditions for the rehabilitation and rebirth of totalitarian ideologies."

A spokesman for Ms Reding confirmed that she got the letter and said the EU executive will adopt the report on totalitarian crimes by the end of this year.

"The EU has a role to play - within the scope of its powers in this area - to contributing to the knowledge of Europe's past history as a common heritage of all Europeans today and of future generations. The Union can act as a facilitator for the promotion of a shared memory of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said it is "premature" to speculate whether the commission would back an outright ban or not.

People from eastern Europe are often frustrated by ignorance in the western part of the continent of the killings, torture, deportations and 'social experiments,' such as re-education in prison camps or forced labour camps, perpetrated against people who opposed the Communist regime or who were more simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For some commentators Nazi crimes, denial of which is already punishable by law in several EU states, cannot be compared to Stalinist crimes because Stalin did not exterminate people in the same systematic way.

Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg takes the opposite view, however. "To tell you the truth, Stalin was able to kill even more people. Both [Stalin and Hitler] were mass murderers and those who kowtowed to them kowtowed to the murders," he told the CTK news agency on Wednesday (15 December).

Prague tried to set up an EU platform for research into totalitarian regimes and a related information office in Brussels under its EU presidency in early 2009, but neither initiative has yet born fruit.

Meanwhile, public awareness of the issues, even in the worst-affected regions, is dwindling.

A recent study carried out in Romania, home to one of the most repressive regimes in the Communist bloc, showed that 83 percent of the population has no recollection of any personal suffering under the regime or of being a witness to relative's suffering. Around half of people in the 15-21 years range answered "I don't know" to most questions, while 47 percent of all people surveyed said Communism was "a good idea, but improperly applied."

Raluca Grosescu, a researcher with the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of Romanian Exile (IICCMER) which commissioned the study, said the results should be seen in the context of the economic crisis. Unemployment, pay cuts, inflation and uncertainty over the future are leading people to remember Communism as a "golden age," he explained.

According to Romanian law, denying the Holocaust is a crime but there is no similar provision on Communist crimes. In any case, anti-Semitic speeches still go unpunished despite the Holocaust law.

"There is still a lot of negation concerning Communist crimes in Romania. Corneliu Vadim Tudor [currently an independent MEP] said the Securitate should be re-installed and even President Traian Basescu after publicly condemning the crimes of Communism said that Nicolae Ceausescu [the Romanian dictator executed in 1989] would have been a good president, if he'd stayed on for another 10 years," Ms Grosescu told this website.

The Romanian researcher doubted the prospect of a coherent EU position on the matter. "There is a different understanding as to what Communism meant in the East and in the West," he said.

Valentina Pop EU Observer 15.12.2010

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ČR navrhuje zákaz popírání zločinů komunismu v EU

Celoevropský zákaz popírání zločinů komunismu navrhla Česká republika a dalších pět členských států. EU. Po jednání ministrů zahraničí v Bruselu to oznámil ministr Karel Schwarzenberg. Dopis pro Evropskou komisi podepsaly také Bulharsko, Maďarsko, Lotyšsko, Litva a Rumunsko. Dopis je adresován eurokomisařce pro spravedlnost a základní práva Viviane Redingové. Přestože jeho signatáři veřejně hovoří o zločinech komunismu, samotný dopis zmínku o komunismu neobsahuje, ale hovoří obecně o režimech totalitních. Podle Schwarzenberga je popírání zločinů komunismu plně srovnatelné s popíráním zločinů nacismu, které je v mnoha zemích EU trestné.

Evropská komise má ještě do konce letošního roku připravit speciální zprávu, která by se měla zmínit o popírání zločinů komunismu, ale ministři šesti členských států chtějí, aby eurokomisařka připravila konkrétní legislativu. Šéfové diplomacií šesti podepsaných zemí v dopise nicméně připouštějí, že v současnosti nejsou schopni zajistit pro své návrhy dostatečnou podporu v EU, ale podle nich by byla škoda, pokud by evropská sedmadvacítka tuto šanci nevyužila.

"Upřímně doufáme, že Evropská komise přijme v této oblasti další kroky, včetně možné zákonodárné iniciativy kriminalizovaní veřejného odpouštění, popírání a značné bagatelizace totalitních zločinů," uvádí dopis.

Karel Schwarzenberg srovnává Stalina s Hitlerem: "Popravdě řečeno, Stalin dokázal zabít ještě víc lidí. Oba byli masoví vrazi a ti, kteří jim přisluhovali, přisluhovali vraždám. Konec."

Není to poprvé, kdy se Česko s některými dalšími zeměmi snaží v unii o srovnání nacistického a komunistického režimu. Během českého předsednictví EU v loňském roce se česká vláda snažila o vytvoření platformy pro výzkum totalitních režimů, ale bez větších úspěchů. V souvislosti s touto myšlenkou Češi uvažovali o zřízení malé informační kanceláře v Bruselu, která ale zatím neexistuje.

luk ČT24 14.12.2010, obsahuje VIDEO.

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Česko chce v celé EU zákaz popírání zločinů komunismu

Český ministr zahraničí Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) a jeho kolegové z dalších pěti unijních zemí podepsali dopis vyzývající Evropskou komisi, aby připravila zákaz popírání zločinů komunismu v celé EU.

Agentuře Mediafax to v úterý řekl tiskový mluvčí českého velvyslanectví v Bruselu Radek Honzák. Honzák sdělil, že s touto iniciativou přišla Litva. Pobaltská země text předložila vybraným ministrům zahraničí a Schwarzenberg pod něj v neděli připojil svůj podpis.

Dokument kromě šéfů české a litevské diplomacie podepsali i ministři zahraničí Bulharska, Maďarska, Lotyšska a Rumunska.

Litva dopis v úterý zaslala eurokomisařce pro spravedlnost, základní práva a občanství Viviane Redingové. Ta se zatím k žádosti nevyjádřila.

Mediafax 14.12.2010

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Ex-communist countries seek penalties for denial of totalitarian atrocities

Denial of the Holocaust is illegal in Germany and many other countries. Now a group of European nations hope to criminalize the denial of crimes committed by communist totalitarian regimes.

Six countries formerly in the Soviet bloc of Europe have asked the European Commission to criminalize denial of atrocities committed by communist regimes during the Cold War.

Foreign ministers from Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic sent a letter on Tuesday to European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, calling for the punishment of "public approval, denial or belittlement of totalitarian crimes."

European Commission spokesman Matthew Newman said the proposal was being taken "very seriously," and that crimes committed by totalitarian regimes "are a part of the collective memory of Europe."

Comparison with Holocaust

The letter's concept was devised by Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, who said while every European knows the atrocities committed under National Socialism, fewer know of the crimes committed under communism.

While denial of the Holocaust is punishable by law in Germany and several other countries, Azubalis said the denial of communist atrocities "must be subjected to the same standards in order to prevent the resurgence of totalitarian ideology."

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said both totalitarian systems can be measured to the same degree, and that both Hitler and Stalin were mass murderers and those who served them were abettors.

'Murder in the name of ideology'

Romanian historian and author Marius Oprea served as president of the Institute for the Research of Communist Crimes in Romania, and currently heads a non-governmental organization working toward the same goal. In February he helped initiate the "Prague Declaration," which calls for "the crimes of communism be treated the same as the Holocaust."

"This means the criminals from the time of the communist regimes should also be tried in court," the document read. "Their actions should not be excused by a statute of limitations - we all in ex-communist states are confronted with these problems."

The declaration continues calling for a "legally binding act of justice, not just reparations... It is unacceptable that we are living among murderers and criminals. They are criminals who murdered and tortured in the name of an ideology. What differentiates them from the Nazis? Nothing!"

Whether the six countries' proposal will become EU law is not yet clear, but Newman said the European Commission will complete a report before the year's end detailing whether or not the proposal would be legally feasible.

Trendafilka Dimitrova, Alexander Andreev, Robert Schwartz (acb) DWworld 14.12.2010

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Brusel odmítl českou výzvu k zákazu popírání zločinů komunismu

[Celou zprávu ČTK si přečtěte ZDE 23.12.2010]