Austria’s Fröhlich sentenced to six and a half years for denouncing Holocaust

An Austrian court has sentenced Wolfgang Fröhlich, a former city councilor to four years in prison for Holocaust denial, adding another two-and-a-half years of a previous suspended sentence.

Fröhlich pleaded “absolutely not guilty.” He had already served 23 months behind bars since 2003 and was quite shocked when the court added an additional 29 months. The Austrian government clearly fears free speech with regard to this one historical event.

Fröhlich has been found guility of similar charges three times. Fröhlich was sentenced in 1996 for operating his World War Two Revisionist Website. He also ran afoul of the court after sending letters to Austrian members of parliament and Pope Benedict XVI denouncing the Holocaust as a “Satanic lie.”

At Jürgen Graf's 1998 trial, Fröhlich testified that, for technical reasons, mass gassings with Zyklon B could not have been carried out in the German concentration camps as alleged. Fröhlich suffered no legal repercussions for his testimony.

Austria is one of the worst human rights offenders with regard to limiting freedom of speech and the press. Their laws regarding Holocaust revisionism and or denial are the most severe in Europe.