Oliver,
Apparently, your argument is that Germans are somehow different than the rest of the world. In the rest of the world -- or at least, in the vast majority of free, western nations -- we are quite able to provide people with the right to freedom of speech, including racism and holocaust denial, without having our countries turn into fascist regimes.
It is, in fact, quite amazing just how much you sound like the Americans whom you criticize here so regularly.
The United States government, under the "leadership" of George Bush, used fear as a means of limiting peoples' freedoms. They repeated story after story about the atrocities committed by terrorists, and said, "It is necessary to take away some of your freedoms in order to prevent this from ever happening again." And what does Oliver do? Oliver goes and tells us a tragic story, and uses that in exactly the same manner, to argue that freedoms that are enjoyed in the majority of other democratic western nations should be denied to the German people.
And skip the whole thing about this being the same as libel or slander laws, or nonsense like that. The laws in many other nations very clearly differentiate between libel and slander, and what you are talking about. For example, libel and slander does not include claiming that someone did not do something bad that someone else claims they did (a prime example...it is not either libelous or slanderous to claim that it was not Muslims who flew planes into the WTC. Nor is it libelous or slanderous to claim that the U.S. gov't, or Jews, or anyone else was behind it. Nor would it be libelous or slanderous to entirely deny that the event happened, or to argue that not as many people died as the authorities claim).
I despise the way that the U.S. gov't used fear tactics to justify limiting the freedoms of American people; and I similarly dislike Germans using fear tactics to justify limiting the fredoms of German people. I particularly dislike it when Americans/Germans/anyone not only restrict such freedoms, but then insist that other nations must cooperate with them in restricting those freedoms.
Don't get me wrong -- Gerald Toben is a despicable man, and below contempt. But holding beliefs that I find despicable does not make a person a criminal. Nor does explaining those beliefs to others. Now, if the man actually encouraged/incited people towards acts of violence against people based on their race, or engaged in such acts himself, I'd fully support arresting and imprisoning him. But so far as I can see, he has not done that. Simply telling people what you believe does not constitute incitement. If it did, then every time I explained my atheist beliefs, and why I believe no god exists, I'd be "guilty" of religious attacks, and likewise subject to prosecution and imprisonment.
Bush & Oliver -- same tactics, same arguments. Repression/denial of basic democratic freedoms justified through use of fear tactics and vague claims that such repression is necessary to "prevent" the same tragedies from happening again.
