And the nazi svastika? It is also freedom of speech?

Welcome to the Unión of Socialist Eurocrats Republics, home of cultural marxism.

I am writing to your from Tallinn, Estonia. I'm horrified. What kind of a mess have we gotten ourselves into by joining this kind of a "Europe"? I expect that closer cooperation between the EU and Israel will lead to people in Tel Aviv having to tolerate swastika signs all over the place, even in the streets where concentration camp survivors live. I expect the European Court to be delighted when Third Reich flags are hoisted across the street from the court itself. (Red flags and portraits of the executioner Che Guevara it would be oblivious to). Free speech, after all. Rape victims will be forced to carry photographs of their rapists in their purses. The human race is not real bright, is it? Or perhaps it is so smart it is stupid.

"Rape victims will be forced to carry photographs of their rapists in their purses"???

How did you get this one in?

Of course many people, as the judges say, feels bad seeing any of these signs, but maybe it is time to go on? By having bans we do not behave better than the ideas we are against. Ideas are always defeated by debate and better ideas, not bans and policing.

There is no plan to integrate Israel to the EU, so your remarks are a bit strange. Until that happens, probably never, it is up to the Israelis to decide what they do, as they do today.

The European Court said nothing about whether it should be permitted to display swastikas or any other Nazi regalia. They only spoke of the red star.

By using the word "unease" to justify its decision the European Court of Human Rights is understating and demeaning the feelings of those millions who suffered under communist terror. Survivors of communist terror, torture, slave camps, deportation, etc. want the crimes of Communism to be universally condemned so that they can feel confident that for them, too, "NEVER AGAIN" means something. So thye no longer feel like second class victims. Instead, they see Communist/Soviet symbols treated with respect under the guise of "free speech" or - perhaps even worse - viewed as "cool" icons of pop culture. Communism and Nazism are two sides of one evil coin and must be equally judged. The victims of both totalitarian systems deserve respect, sympathy and compensation.

How would the Court rule if someone now challenged the ban on the swastika? The design of the swastika is actually derived from an ancient ethnic design which predates Hitler by centuries.... Hmmmmm

The risk that anywhere in Europe a communist-type of regime would pop-up again is nill. If you want to challenge that, give examples of countries who are moving in that direction.

I would also state that the same thing apply for a nazi-regime. But, there are a lot of radical nationalist movements in Europe, as a political response on the social changes that immigration and changing societies makes. These movements sometimes come up on a national level, like in Austria, Denmark, Holland, Poland etc. In a sense EU seems to stabilize the situation and these movements normally split up rather fast after coming into power.

I would say the major exception to the rules above is Turkey. It is still not a member of EU and I believe it is not stabile enough. Here we have the military controlling the political background and there is a risk for a new totalitarian regime.

Given all these things we are probably just looking at the emotional value the different insignias give different individuals. We do live in a new political landscape today, than just 20 years ago, not to say 65 years ago. It is probably more important to debate and try to convince those people who are in favour of any totalitarian regimes, not make them into "heros" in their own eyes. That is for me more important than protecting some individuals from seeing a for them hated insignia.

Until countries such as Russia that have been totalitarian deal with their pasts and make amends for the crimes committed (as Germany did) they will not become normal democratic nations. Alexander Yakovlev warned in his book "A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia" 2002:
"Today's Bolsheviks (our current Communists, national patriots and others) are still capable of curtailing the country's democratic development and throwing it back into the cesspool. I am convinced that only a consistent de-Bolshevization of the state and the society can save our people from final ruin, both physical and spiritual. The 20th century has come to an end. For Russia it was the most terrible bloodiest century...It would appear to be time to come to our senses, repent, ask forgiveness of the still-living survivors of concentration camps, kneel before the graves of the millions of people who were shot or who died of hunger, and realize, at long last, that we lived in a criminal state, helping it to enslave us--all of us together and each of us separately..." An important book, a powerful reading experience.

Because Mr. Yakovlev and others were not listened to, Russia is reverting to Soviet behaviour at home and abroad.

And into what category would you put Belarus, Mr. Viking?

I put Russia and Belarus and a lot of other countries outside Europe. This discussion was about Europe, that is were we can take and should take responsibility.

I'm not sure we should give the communists the power to appropriate something as general as a red five-pointed star. Hell, I've doodled five-pointed stars unconsciously while talking on the phone.

Besides, isn't it a GOLD star? (At least on the flag of the USSR).

Well, it is not the actual symbols so much as the thinking behind it. (Personally I do not much like banning things, I do not like quotas or any of that reglemented equality stuff.) It is hypocritical that Nazi memorabilia is a no-no, but Commie stuff is "cool" and "pop" and "in" and whatever else. Unfortunately, the same kind of thinking extends to the victims - Gulag survivors are second class compared to others. High level Soviet collaborator Arnold Meri - on trial for cruelly deporting innocents from Estonia to Siberia where most of them perished - is not viewed with the same revulsion as a lowly nazi camp guard. In fact, Russian leaders defend Meri and others like him as heroes.

I think we should allow all symbols to be used. Hiding them from the public does not change the fact of who or what they were associated with!

Just as many people (probably more) died at the hands of the communist that at the hands of the Nazis....