The deputy of the Colorado Party, Conrado Rodríguez, presented a bill to establish that the denial of the Holocaust to the Jewish people committed by the Nazis, is a criminal offense. This initiative has the signature of the parliamentarians of all the political parties and is inspired by a project that was presented years ago by the former deputy Walter Verri and that did not prosper.
For the legislator, to resume this initiative, with minor modifications, is aimed at defending human rights, reaffirming the value of tolerance that ensures peaceful coexistence, and respect and reflection in the face of some of the most terrible tragedies that our humanity has suffered. . The Holocaust of the Jewish people was one of the greatest and most degrading aberrations our civilization had to endure.
The bill has a single article, which includes modifying article 149 bis of the Penal Code (Decree-Law 9155 of December 4, 1933), in the sense that it is added in its wording “Whoever publicly or through any medium suitable for public dissemination incites hatred, contempt, or any form of moral or physical violence against one or more people because of the color of their skin, their race, religion, national or ethnic origin, sexual orientation or sexual identity, will be punished with three to twenty-four months in prison.
“This type of conduct must merit action by our country, by all Uruguayans, so that these things do not happen. The obvious cannot be denied, and what caused and still today continues to cause so much pain, not only for a community, but for all of humanity, ”he commented on the subject.
The argument adds that “it is necessary to prevent situations that may incite hatred, contempt and violence, adding as express grounds the denial of the Jewish Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and the Genocides recognized by the Uruguayan State and the United Nations General Assembly” .
They are considered included in this article, “the denial, trivialization or undermining of the Jewish holocaust of the Second World War, the Armenian genocide that occurred in the second decade of the 20th century, and all the genocides recognized by the Uruguayan State and by resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations.”
Rodríguez also highlighted that: “European countries have made great progress in classifying Holocaust denial as a crime. This was the case, no less than Germany, which first, with enormous courage, confronted its Nazi past, revealed its aspiration to make holocaust denial a crime in all the member countries of the Union, and then enshrined it in the article 130 paragraph 3 of its Penal Code, which considers it a form of ‘incitement to hatred’. If this project is approved, Uruguay would once again be at the forefront of the protection of human rights, and obviously of peaceful coexistence and tolerance, which is what we all want”.
