Oliver Kamm is, of course, right when he writes that

The issue for public policymaking is not that Holocaust denial is offensive (though it certainly is that) but that it is false: malevolently, systematically so. The proper policy with regard to malevolent falsehood is to expose it rather than suppress it. That is the task of historians rather than legislators or the judiciary.

Irving is a truly vile man, and I will lose no sleep over the fact of his liberty having been taken away. Frankly, he deserves almost any indignity which is meted out to him.

What I will lose sleep over, however (albeit not literally), is the cause of his imprisonment. I understand why Austria of all places has a law against Holocaust denial. Unlike Germany, Austria has never properly confronted its past. Both nations, of course, have such a crime on their statute books. But for all the manifest ways in which Austria has a shameful post-war political history, making Holocaust denial a crime is wrong both in practice and in principle.

It is wrong in practise because, far from helping to deal with the legacy of the single greatest crime in human history, it sweeps it under the carpet, allows it to fester, and makes false martyrs out of the most repellent human beings.

And it is wrong in principle because it goes against the very fabric of Western civilisation and liberty that people can be imprisoned for expressing a view, however vile that view may be.

It would ill behove anyone who defends the right of the Danish newspapers to publish cartoons mocking Mohammed then to defend the idea of Holocaust denial being a crime. Free speech is not absolute - I cannot call a certain politician a thieving liar, for instance, without the evidence to back up the statement - but it ought to be a guiding principle of our societies.

(It is important to separate out the expression of a view which might be - and, in Irving's case, is - used by violent thugs to justify their behaviour, from those times when the expression of the view is itself an incitement to violence or other criminal behaviour. In the former case, allowing such an expression is the concomitant of liberty; in the latter it is properly dealt with through the courts.)

Irving is not a martyr. He is not a prisoner of conscience. His cause is not in any way noble. But he is wrongly imprisoned.