LONDON, Feb 22: David Irving, a British historian who was jailed in Austria for denying the Holocaust took place, said on Wednesday he had the ‘right to be wrong’ and vowed not to be silenced.
“In my view, freedom of speech means the freedom to say things to other people that they don’t want to hear,” Mr Irving told Britain’s Sky News television in an interview from his prison.
“And if that causes offence to them, then that’s partly their problem and partly mine. Freedom of speech is the right to be wrong, basically. Sometimes I’m wrong.”
David Irving pleaded guilty on Monday on a charge dating from 1989 of denying that six million Jews were killed in Europe during World War II, but insisted that he no longer questioned the existence of gas chambers. The court in Vienna sentenced him to three years in prison.
He told Sky News that he had heard that there was an effort in Austria to extend his sentence, which he dismissed as an attempt to silence him, saying: “I come from a free country and I’m not going to let anybody silence me.” —AFP
