If you are a regular GPN reader, then you will know that Issue 6 was intended to be our second Issue in the Winter of 2011, but we are publishing a bit late as Spring comes in. 

Special Issue 5, Winter 2011 was devoted to a single, and unusual, topic of Co-Victims in the Armenian Genocide, Assyrians, Yezidis, and Greeks, who have been under-recognized if not entirely forgotten in genocide studies and in the general knowledge of the public.

GPN Issue 6 opens, as you will see below, with "NUCLEAR WATCHES" for dangerous –it  is hardly exaggerated to say "super-dangerous" -- developments of nuclear weapons by countries such as Iran and North Korea that are intrinsically anti-democratic and anti-human freedom and safety for all, and indeed are committed to power, oppression, and major violence to achieve their goals.  In the case of Pakistan which we have listed as our third Nuclear Watch, the concern is with a country that has many aspects of a failing state that is occupied and even controlled to a significant extent by a genocidal terrorist movement (Al Queda), no less troubling Pakistan has a terrible record of failed security on nuclear matters, where there is grave immediate danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of violent terrorist forces who will not hesitate to employ them. 

This issue of GPN also proudly presents two sections devoted to intriguing issues of law, genocide denial, and incitement to violence. The first section is devoted to the question whether we - democratic countries - should have legislation against denials of genocide or not.  There is a basic cultural difference between the United States and Europe that has led to an absence of legislation in the USA in contrast to  considerable legislation in Europe.  Some of our writers suggest  that perhaps some solution awaits in promoting more strongly laws against the incitement to violence that characterizes many denials of Holocaust and genocide.   

A second section reports on two - they seem to be increasing - legal maneuvers where deniers –the biggest thrust at this time is coming from Turkish lobby organizations with huge budgets for denial.  These groups are turning to the courts in efforts to legalize their notorious denials of historical reality (plus the further insults and threats of renewed violence that these denials by definition also entail).  These court cases also represent serious financial let alone legal and emotional stresses on those sued.  Insofar as the deniers are organizations with large financial resources - the burden on an academic institution, and certainly  on smaller  and often budget-limited human rights organizations, and of course on individual scholars  becomes unbearable.   Such suits in effect become a violent tool in the hands of the deniers.  Intriguingly the last of the cases we report on is by human rights activists in Greece who were put on trial for having the courage to protest the anti-semitism no less than of judges who had exonerated a convicted Holocaust perpetrator. 

As we announced in Special Issue 5, GPN has now moved on to a new Web site format.  As readers, you can enjoy at this point an improved look and ease of navigation. Note that the Search function of GPN is now working for most of the content of the Web site, but is not yet operational for the Holocaust and Genocide Review section.  We hope to have the search for this section working soon too. 

You will find much more in Issue 6. Read through the Table of Contents and select what interests you.  

Be reminded that GPN is very carefully designed to make it possible for you to print out individual articles easily for more relaxed reading including old-fashioned reading in the bedroom and for use in group discussion and instructional settings in schools and colleges and most importantly, in the boardrooms, public meetings, and corridors of power where decisions about life and death are being made.