Revealed! David Irving Can Be a Jerk

So secretive is Holocaust denier David Irving that he often doesn’t reveal the locations of his lectures until hours before they’re scheduled to begin — and even then, he only tells vetted guests. It must have been a blow, therefore, when his private E-mails appeared on the Internet, courtesy of self-described anti-fascist hackers.

The E-mails, along with the username and password for Irving’s website and AOL E-mail account, were posted last week on WikiLeaks, a website that publishes leaked documents. The messages reveal that it’s not only anti-racists who clash with the long-winded Hitler apologist: Irving’s own assistant, a young blonde woman named Jaenelle Antas, berated him repeatedly for his churlishness.

In a Nov. 7 E-mail, for instance, Antas wrote that Irving recently had been “snotty, rude, and disrespectful toward me.” She also said she was thinking about quitting. “I don’t care if you are frustrated, angry, stressed out, tired, or whatever — treating anybody like the way you have been treating me is unacceptable,” she wrote. “I bend over backwards to help you out on this tour, doing jobs that last year you would have done yourself, and not just making bookings, but also doing things like driving, helping you secure funds to reprint books and locating second-hand books. The only thanks I usually get are long whines about how something isn’t exactly perfect. Why would anyone in the world want to work with or even be friends with someone who is acting the way you have been acting lately? You like to say you treat me better than anyone else does, but the truth is, lately you have treated me worse than anyone else ever has. It hurts my feelings, it makes me angry and resentful, and it makes me question whether or not I should be doing this job anymore.”

Antas was responding to earlier E-mails from Irving in which he accused her of neglecting her responsibilities and “knee-jerk retorting.” “As for your more unhelpful and hostile messages: ‘Get over it,’” Irving wrote on Nov. 7. “I have been working since 6 a.m. this morning trying to catch up and plug holes you have left, e.g., by not bothering to inform me the Sala Thai no longer exists.”

But Irving appears to have gotten over this negligence. In subsequent E-mails, he tries to make it up to Antas with some not-so-subtle sweet talk. “Darling J, you are so efficient and beautiful,” he wrote on Nov. 13. “Please work your magic on (a) attached list [of prospective attendees at his New Jersey talk] and (b) me.”

According to her Myspace page, Antas is a 24-year-old college graduate from Minnesota with a passion for singing. She also appears to have a passion for posting on Stormfront, the leading white supremacist forum. As Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times noted on his blog, Antas likely comments there under the name “Tristania.” The photos Tristania posts are of Antas, and in September, Tristania posted the schedule for Irving’s U.S. speaking tour this fall. Tristania has posted more than 4,000 times since joining Stormfront in 2005.

Also published on WikiLeaks are lists of people who ordered tickets to Irving’s talks in Philadelphia, New York City and New Jersey, along with their addresses, phone numbers, and E-mails. People who might not be friendly to Irving, including those believed to be Jewish, are flagged with the German word “Achtung” (attention). “ACHTUNG is quarter-Jewish” appears below one listing.

Despite their recent E-mail spat, Antas has remained sufficiently loyal to Irving to forward a statement from him to Wired.com. In it, Irving downplayed the leak and suggested that the hackers invented some of the posted material, though he did not respond to a follow-up question from Wired.com asking for specifics. “We shall be apologizing to the many people who may find themselves inconvenienced by these juvenile cyber-nasties,” Irving wrote. “We are puzzled that they are so frightened by historical debate.”

In 2000, Irving lost a lawsuit filed in Britain that alleged that American historian Deborah Lipstadt had libeled him by calling him a Holocaust denier. In 2005, he was sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison after pleading guilty to telling audiences that there were no gas chambers in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. (Unlike in the United States, Holocaust denial is a crime in many European countries.) Irving was most recently in the news when a knife fight erupted between two white supremacists at his talk last month in Palm Beach County. The leaked E-mails show that Irving wrote the next day to one of the attendees, John Browne, banning him from future events. “Among your guests, it appears, were some who caused a serious affray and damage to hotel property,” he wrote.

In his response to Irving, Browne denied associating with anyone who illegally possesses weapons or resorts to violence. He also said he stepped into the hall where the fight was taking place and took the knife from one of the men. “I think some self examination on your part is warranted, but you can’t ask yourself not to attend future events,” wrote Browne, who runs a white nationalist consulting business. “It seems the questionable association was a Trojan horse within your own house.”

HateWatch

Controversial historian suffers email hack

Holocaust-denying, Hitler-worshipping, crap historian David Irving

Activists steal account data from David Irving

Author and historian David Irving has become the latest high-profile individual to suffer an email account breach. Details from Irving's accounts on AOL and his personal web site were obtained by self-described "anti-fascist hackers" and posted online on November 13. Among the data is Irving's email archives on both accounts, as well as customer lists and attendee lists for three of Irving's planned speaking trips in the north eastern US.

"Hitler-loving Holocaust-denying David Irving's speaking tour is being attacked on the streets and on the internet as he makes his way to speak on Saturday in New York City," wrote the hackers. "We did this to expose this Nazi-sympathiser for who he is and to shut down/disrupt any possibility of Irving rearing his fascist head in public during his tour."

Hacking and information disclosure have become increasingly popular mediums for those involved in political actions in recent years. Denial-of-service attacks by Russian hackers have played a prominent role in that country's recent conflicts with Estonia and Georgia.

In 2008, a political opponent hacked and posted the email archive of US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, while opponents of the British National Party publically posted the party's complete membership list.

Secure Computing

Note: WikiLeaks is your friend.

Let's play Spot the BNP member!

Click on image to see it full-size

Every now and again, the comments sections to our posts come up with something just as interesting as the post itself, and this happened yesterday.

One of our eagle-eyed readers had been over to David Irving's site and has come up with a real doozie. Just in case you don't know, Irving is the discredited historian who brought an unsuccessful libel case against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books in 1996. The case was a disaster for him, with the judge ruling, among other things, that Irving had 'for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence'. Irving is a Holocaust denier (though he attempted to recant on that position during the libel hearing), as well as an antisemite and racist, and has for years associated with far-right extremists who promote neo-Nazism, not the least of which is BNP leader Nick Griffin.

On a visit to Austria in 2005, Irving was apprehended, tried and eventually convicted of 'glorifying and identifying with the German Nazi Party', which is a crime in Austria under the Verbotsgesetz* law. He served a prison sentence from February to December 2006 on the charges.

Nick Griffin and David Irving were invited to speak at a forum on 'free speech' at the Oxford Union on 26 November 2007. The debate took place after Oxford Union members voted in favour of it, but was vigorously disrupted by protesters.

Griffin has repeatedly claimed that the squeaky-clean new BNP is no longer a Holocaust-denying, antisemitic party packed with neo-nazis, which doesn't quite work when you attempt to speak in a debate with the likes of David Irving. Nor does it work when it's discovered that some of your most prominent people attend Irving's garden parties, particularly those that sell tripe like Irving's tedious tome 'Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich' that was 'snapped up' for a mere £125. Quite why anyone would pay such an enormous sum of money for a book written by the likes of Irving is beyond me. It seems to be beyond Publishers Weekly too, who wrote of it;

'This is a repellent book, and not only because of its subject. Irving (Goering) has been increasingly under fire for exploiting seemingly indefatigable research to distort history. In the book in hand, he uses enough pejoratives to sustain the illusion of objectivity regarding Hitler's propaganda chief, yet suggests that the admittedly bad man had a cause not entirely bad in itself. Nazi brutality is almost always retaliation for the plots of international Jewry and the criminality of domestic Jews. Even the books notoriously burned are "decadent and anti-German." The term Redakteur (editor) "to Goebbels' sensitive ear had a Jewish ring." Protesters in Saarbrucken are "a clamoring ragbag of communists, Jews, freemasons and disgruntled emigres." There is always, in Irving's own words, a "Jewish problem" that Goebbels struggles to solve. Much of the book, heavily indebted to the self-serving Goebbels diaries, is in such a vein. There seems always to be an agenda to Irving's documentation, and the language of camouflaged admiration suffuses his pages amidst his ritual scolding of the Nazis for their excesses. The real insidiousness of the biography is that its formidable documentation will gain it acceptance as history.'

The post on Irving's site that describes the garden party also has a couple of revealing comments by the man himself;

'Steve drives Jessica to Burnham station, as she wants to return to London (for the ghastly Notting Hill Gate carnival: Black-rap-crap all day. She'll grow out of it)'

'Devon, the last refuge for the White English from scoundrels.'

Clearly Irving hasn't changed much over the years, remaining antisemitic and racist. All the more shocking (though not entirely surprising) then to see that this garden party was attended by a couple of prominent members of the BNP, Julian Leppert and Jonathan Bowden.

Click on image to see it full-size

Leppert is the famed BNP postie whose car registration is NAZI. Leppert was the BNP’s candidate for mayor of London in 2004 and is currently the councillor for Hainault ward on Redbridge Council. Back in January 2007 Leppert attended a conference in London where he sat through anti-Jewish tirades from a close confidante of David Irving and from one of the leaders of the Islamic Party of Britain. His only other claim to fame is that he once described fellow councillor Lawrence Rustem, a man of mixed race, as having been allowed into the BNP because he is 'only half a wog'.

Bowden resigned back in July 2007 in a major huff following an attack on him by the Covert Undercover Nuisance Tactics blog (run by one of Griffin's chums, Tommy Williams), during which he was accused of being a paedophile. The attack was obviously in retaliation for his support of leadership-challenger Chris Jackson in the then-recent BNP leadership challenge. Bowden appears to have made up with the party now and seems to be back in the fold despite his cracklingly good resignation letter from August 2007;

'I am sick and tired of the human scum and vermin which proliferate in such shallows waters. To be accused of being a child abuser is amongst the lowest thing that can possibly be imagined. To even refute such allegations from criminal psychopaths like these is beneath one’s dignity...I will seek to have police action carried out against this vile Internet site [Covert], but I also intend to resign as cultural officer, advisory council member and member of the BNP. I do not wish to associate - even tangentially - with such low-grade lycanthropes and psychotic criminals. Williams [Griffin-ally Tommy Williams], I gather, is a convicted drug dealer and career criminal with a string of convictions.'

Griffin's desperate attempts to portray the BNP as having moved well away from its antisemitic and nazi ancestry looks hollow when two of his finest are attending events at the invitation of one of the best-known antisemitic nazi-lovers in the country. But will he take any action against them? Leppert is definitely in the party and we're assured that Bowden is, too. If Griffin is adamant about the party's shift away from its ignoble past, presumably he'll take action against these two reprobates.

Would you bet your shirt on it?

* Verbotsgesetz

Our readers have spotted three definite BNP members in the pictures and possibly one former member. See who you can spot and let us know via the comments section to this post. :-)

Coventry’s Champagne Charlies

With the European election fast approaching we can reveal the BNP's latest attempt at fundraising with a series of Champagne dinners based on a Battle of Britain theme.

The BNP hopes to have several of these dinners around the country, designed by Nick Griffin to persuade the party's wealthier donors to part with their cash. This Saturday 28 February sees the charade turn up in Coventry.

The regular meeting place for the BNP in Coventry, the Royal Warwickshire Club is no stranger to controversy. Back in 2007 it was revealed that the club intended to host a meeting by none other than the Holocaust denier and false historian David Irving. However the meeting failed to take place after Searchlight revealed to the local media that Irving intended to speak in their proud city.

The Royal Warwickshire Club pleaded ignorance claiming that Irving had booked the meeting under a false name, The Military History Book Club. Whether a false name was used or not, the club has continued as a regular venue for the BNP's meetings and fundraisers.

For those not familiar with the Coventry area the Royal Warwickshire Club can be found on Tower Street, Coventry CV1 1JS. Alternatively you can phone the club on 02476 220425.

HOPE not hate

Holocaust-denying bishop lands in UK after expulsion from Argentina

Richard Williamson forced to leave South American
country over views on concentration camps and number of Jews killed

A Roman Catholic bishop who questioned the truth of the Holocaust arrived in Britain today after being asked to leave Argentina.

Richard Williamson, who left Buenos Aires wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses yesterday, arrived at Heathrow airport dressed all in black and wearing a dog collar. Several police officers escorted him through a media scrum, and a photographer was manhandled by police during the jostling. The British-born bishop did not comment and was whisked away in a silver Land Rover.

Williamson had been at the St Pius X seminary in Buenos Aires for five years, but last week the Argentinian government gave him 10 days to leave the country.

Williamson caused outrage with his remarks, which surfaced shortly after the Vatican's recent decision to welcome him back into the Catholic church. He is reported to have claimed in a television interview last month that historical evidence suggested there "were no gas chambers" and that only 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps.

He has since declared himself ready to think again, and in a recent interview with Spiegel magazine, the bishop reiterated that he was prepared to "review the historical evidence". Most historians agree around 6 million Jews were killed under Hitler's regime.

"Historical evidence is at issue, not emotions. And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time," the disgraced bishop said.

He added that he would test his views not by travelling to Auschwitz but by reading a book on the camp by Jean-Claude Pressac, a former Holocaust denier who revised his views after a visit.

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales have already condemned Bishop Williamson's views on the Holocaust as "totally unacceptable" and have stressed that the lifting of his excommunication was for unrelated matters. A spokesman for the Catholic bishops conference of England and Wales said he had "absolutely no idea" where Bishop Williamson was going after his arrival in Britain.

He said: "He does not fall into the jurisdiction of any of the England and Wales bishops because he is not in full communion with the Catholic church. He will have to make his own arrangements, whether that is with a Catholic priest or with somebody else. From the hierarchy's perspective, he has got nothing to do with the bishops of this country."

Williamson did have one supporter at Heathrow; Michele Renouf, a socialite turned documentary-maker, said she wanted to represent and support him in getting his views across to the public.

She blamed Germany - which has a Holocaust-denial law - for causing the "scrum of Jewish protests" and said it was a "disgrace" that there could be no debate on the issue. Renouf, who came to Heathrow with her legal team, has become increasingly known in recent years for associating with those who deny the Holocaust. She supported the historian, David Irving, during his trial in Vienna for Holocaust denial. Last year, she helped put together a legal team for an Australian academic, Frederick Toben, after he was arrested at Heathrow airport.

Williamson, who describes himself on his personal blog as a dinosaur, belongs to an ultra-traditionalist religious order that opposes recent reforms by Rome.

The decision to remove the cleric from the seminary was an attempt to smooth over frayed relations with the Vatican, said a spokesman for Williamson's religious order, the Society of Saint Pius X, adding that Williamson's views in no way reflected those of the order.

Williamson is believed to be at the London headquarters of the Society of Saint Pius in Wimbledon, south London, where the Land Rover that took him from Heathrow was parked outside. Two priests who answered the door refused to comment.

Williamson's opinions sparked outrage among Jews and embarrassed the Vatican, which ordered the bishop to publicly recant. The Vatican, along with Williamson's order, claims to have had no prior knowledge of his beliefs about the Holocaust before lifting his excommunication.

The excommunication in 1988 was lifted along with those of three other bishops ordained without Vatican permission by the renegade French archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre.

Pope Benedict had made healing the breach between the Society of Saint Pius X and mainstream Catholics one of the chief aims of his papacy. The British bishop had welcomed his entry back into the church as a "great step forward", although he continued to denounce the Vatican as liberal.

"There is still a long way to go before the neo-modernists in Rome, conscious or unconscious, realise – if ever! – how they mistake the faith," Williamson said.

The bishop has sought to prevent his original television interview from being broadcast on the internet, but a German court has rejected his argument.

Lord Janner, the president of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: "It would be much better if he was not here, but as a British citizen it cannot be prevented."

Guardian

‘Springtime for Irving’: The Video

Here’s a fresh treat for readers of Hatewatch — a brand new video, made by journalist Max Blumenthal and videographer Thomas Shomaker and co-produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, about convicted Holocaust denier David Irving. It’s an amazing, sardonic account of Irving’s visit this July 16 to a church in Manhattan, where Blumenthal presses him into a most remarkable interview.

Irving, of course, is the infamous British writer who penned numerous apologetics for Adolf Hitler and then sued American scholar Deborah Lipstadt after she called him a Holocaust denier. Irving ultimately lost his epic court battle in London, with the judge in the case concluding that he was a “pro-Nazi” polemicist. The court also found that the author of some 30 books had “persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence” to promote his racist and anti-Semitic ideas.

We’ll save most of the good stuff for viewers of the video, but offer just a couple of teasers here. At one point, Irving tells his audience: “Adolf Hitler was being kept out of the loop and was probably not at all anti-Semitic… . He repeatedly held out his hand to stop things happening to the Jews.” Just as you’re digesting that incredible piece of neo-Nazi propaganda, the video recounts how journalist Christopher Hitchens, a former Trotskyist-turned-Iraq War cheerleader, has described Irving as “a great historian” and, in Irving’s words, remains “a good friend” to the man who once said that more people died in the back of Ted Kennedy’s car than in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Although the video doesn’t make this point, Hitchens was named one of the world’s “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine of Britain in 2005, long after his paean to Irving’s swell talents as a “historian.”

Take a look at this remarkable video, which we offer here a day late as a birthday present from Hatewatch, which just completed its first year of existence. As the months unfold, we hope to bring you more along these lines.

Hatewatch

The apologist for terror and the BBC

The chances are you haven’t heard of Nicholas Kollerstrom. At first glance this North London resident, who holds a PhD in astronomy, appears quaintly eccentric with his keen interest in the “science” of alchemy. Harmless enough you might think. But behind the veneer Nicholas Kollerstrom is in fact an antisemite, Holocaust denier and apologist for terror.

Having written a number of books on astronomy quite how Kollerstrom came to dip his toes in the foetid waters of Holocaust denial is unclear. But it was not long before Kollerstrom was fully immersed in it. It was to be some baptism.

On 22 February 2007 Kollerstrom joined the forum of an American Holocaust denial website called ironically the Campaign for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). His user name was “astro3”. CODOH is run by Bradley R. Smith, a veteran Californian antisemite who founded the organisation in 1987 with the assistance of Mark Weber of the Institute of Historical Review (IHR). Smith too was closely associated with the IHR, which is the world’s leading forum for Holocaust denial, and Weber, a former member of the neo-nazi National Alliance, was a co-director of CODOH. Smith used to publish a newsletter called Prima Facie, which denied that Jews were exterminated during the Holocaust and which was gleefully advertised in Spearhead, then the house organ of the British National Party.

In an essay entitled “The Auschwitz ‘Gas Chamber’ Illusion” Kollerstrom argued that although there were gas chambers at Auschwitz these “were operated for purposes of hygiene and disinfection, in order to save lives and not take them”. The real victims, he argued, were the Germans beca-use: “As surprising as it may sound, the only intentional mass extermination program in the concentration camps of WW2 was targeted at Germans. From April, 1945 five million Germans were rounded up after surrendering, and deliberately starved until well over one million had died.”

By comparison the Jews had a rather nice time. In an article entitled “School Trips to Auschwitz” posted on CODOH in March 2008 Kollerstrom put forward his view that Auschwitz was not in fact a horrific death camp, but a Nazi-run Butlins-style holiday camp, where inmates could sunbathe by “the elegant swimming pool” while watching water-polo matches, and paint pictures and read books serenaded by no fewer than six orchestras. They could also go to the cinema, theatre or, if the urge took them, the brothel, or simply write postcards to loved ones, which the postman would collect “twice weekly”.

Kollerstrom believes his arguments are original and groundbreaking. However, as even a cursory perusal of his writings reveals, his “research” is nothing of the sort. It represents the undigested and regurgitated pseudo-science of comprehensively discredited sources such as Fred Leuchter. Kollerstrom denies he is a Holocaust denier. He might even believe it. He recently wrote to the Jewish Chronicle protesting his innocence and denying he was a Nazi sympathiser.

Whether or not he is a Nazi sympathiser is immaterial. He uses far-right antisemitic sources to argue far-right antisemitic causes. Kollerstrom is a Holocaust denier.

Holocaust denial is not Kollerstrom’s only interest. He is also particularly active in what is broadly known as the 9/11 “truth” movement, which peddles some of the craziest conspiracy theories around.

Kollerstrom is not, as he is wont to style himself, a courageous lone researcher seeking to penetrate beyond the “official” narrative of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005. He is a fantasist who seeks to defend the indefensible. Of the 7/7 bombers he wrote: “Very simply, there is no evidence that puts the four alleged bombers in London on that morning, let alone setting off explosives, that would stand up in a court of law for two minutes. Period, end of story.”

Kollerstrom completely ignores the incontrovertible evidence of their guilt, harassing and distressing the victims’ families with his spurious claims that it was a “false flag” operation perpetrated by “CIA-Mossad-MI6” to buttress the case for the “war on terror”. One could dismiss him as a deluded idiot but taken together with his Holocaust denial it is hard to see him as anything other than an apologist for terror.

His activities were highlighted on 12 April when he attended the launch of the peace activist Milan Rai’s book about the London bombings and attempted to hijack it, giving a speech from the floor on the supposed “innocence” of the terrorists. Survivors of the 7/7 attacks such as Rachel North were appalled. She was not alone. On 14 April Kollerstrom was unmasked as a Holocaust denier by the Blairwatch website.

Three days later Tony Gosling, who moderates the 911forum website to which Kollerstrom contributed, banned discussion of the Holocaust in a thread entitled “Mossad trick – Link 9/11 Truth to Holocaust Denial”. Even when confronted with irrefut-able proof that Kollerstrom was an antisemite, the “truth” movement interpreted it as evidence of an Israeli plot to discredit their beliefs by linking them to antisemitism.

Kollerstrom aside, there is ample evidence that antisemitism and Holocaust denial remain rife within the so-called “truth” movement, where the denizens of such forums can be found muttering darkly about 9/11 being a “Zionist crime”, which dovetails neatly with Islamist claims that it was an “inside job”.

Perhaps the most famous son of the “truth” movement is the former MI5 agent turned “whistle blower” David Shayler who, if the Daily Mail is to be believed, now proclaims himself to be the Son of God. Further evidence that Shayler is experiencing some psychological difficulty came in a recent speech in which he stated, “we know from documents like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that the New World Order were going to use control of the money supply to create depressions and recessions”. The Protocols is a notorious forgery from tsarist times, often quoted by nazis.

Kollerstrom had held an honorary research fellowship in University College London (UCL) Science and Technology Studies. However, when his activities became known UCL terminated the fellowship with “immediate effect” on 22 April.

Running out of forums in which to peddle his odious views, Kollerstrom turned to the Iranian satellite television station Press TV, founded in July 2007 “to break the global media stranglehold of Western outlets” and to compete with other satellite channels such as the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera. It is funded up to the hilt by the Iranian regime to the tune of 27 million dollars.

In its mission statement Press TV claims to offer “unbiased” reporting and “in-depth and complete analyses of current affairs, portraying viewpoints, which are often ignored by current mainstream media outlets”. Quite what this meant was revealed on 18 May 2008 when Press TV reproduced on its website Kollerstrom’s article “The Walls of Auschwitz”, which claimed the gas-sing of the Jews was “scientifically impossible”.

Press TV became acquainted with Kollerstrom through the agency of David Irving’s cheerleader-in-chief, Lady Michele Renouf. On 7 May, shortly after his dismissal from UCL, Kollerstrom had approached her for “advice” on whether he would be able to “travel safely” to Germany to present his paper “the Walls of Auschwitz” to an academic conference in Berlin on the Holocaust. Never mind that he had not been invited nor was welcome at what was after all a genuine historical conference rather than an antisemitic free-for-all. Renouf advised him against going as he would no doubt be imprisoned, though this did not deter her from seeking a press pass for the event herself, which was refused.

Renouf recommended to Press TV that they interview Kollerstrom about his “scientific article”. Renouf has some clout with the Iranian media, boasting on her website of her “elected role” to take Tehran’s antisemitic road show to Europe following her participation in the Tehran-sponsored Holocaust denial conference. There, to her evident delight, she met President Ahmadinejad, the toast of antisemites the world over following his calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Press TV duly broadcast an interview with the “distinguished academic” on 14 May. Kollerstrom evidently hoped that a scientific journal could be persuaded to sponsor his own on-site chemical analysis of the walls of Auschwitz “in the tradition of the Leuchter Report and the Rudolf Report”.

His self-induced fall from grace did not deter the BBC from inviting Kollerstrom to be the subject of one programme in the new series of The Conspiracy Files to be broadcast in autumn. There was outrage when it was revealed that the BBC had paid his expenses though it emphatically denied paying him a fee. The Evening Standard revealed how in a particularly ghoulish manner Kollerstrom took to pestering and harassing the families of those who had lost loved ones in the 7/7 bombings. He put it to the father of one victim of the Tavistock Square bus bombing that her body had been placed there by the British, American and Israeli security services. He appears unmoved by the distress he caused.

According to the Evening Standard the BBC also paid for him to travel to Leeds to try to meet the family of the 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan and the relatives of the other bombers. They all refused to meet him. The victims’ families have uniformly branded the BBC’s disgraceful indulgence of Kollerstrom’s warped theories an utter outrage. John Taylor, whose daughter died at Aldgate, observed “he is helping the terrorists more than anything and I am not happy with the BBC giving him a platform”.

There are plenty of others equally astonished that the BBC should use pubic money to further the activities and agenda of a hardcore Holocaust denier and apologist for terrorism.

Britain’s Holocaust deniers

• Michele Renouf Cheerleader-in-chief to the writer David Irving, Lady Michele Renouf, who gained her title from a brief marriage to the Australian financier Sir Frank Renouf, has earned a reputation as one of the most active antisemites in Britain and indeed Europe. Renouf, who runs Telling Films, a company that distributes DVDs denying the Holocaust, was banned from addressing the Croydon BNP branch by Nick Griffin, the party chairman, for fear her presence might taint the BNP. Ever one for the double standard, Griffin was spotted sharing a platform with her in the US together with David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, in 2005. She attended the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran in 2006 and has maintained her links to Iranian antisemites ever since.
• Richard Edmonds who was the BNP’s national activities organiser in the 1990s, has recently found a new acceptability within the BNP for the Jew-baiting and Holocaust denial he has made his speciality for three decades both here and abroad. This should come as no surprise in a party that has adopted Arthur Kemp’s classic antisemitic work March of the Titans as its main ideological primer. After the BNP came into existence, Edmonds picked up from where Martin Webster, the national organiser of the National Front during its 1970s heyday, left off by producing a new edition of the NF’s Holocaust News. Hundreds of thousands of copies of this hate sheet were distributed internationally. A devotee of David Irving Edmonds demonstrated against Irving’s imprisonment in Austria outside the Austrian Embassy in 2005.
• Yakob Zaki Born James Dickie, Yakob Zaki is a Muslim convert who works as an associate director of the pro-Iranian Muslim Institute, in which capacity he has contributed Holocaust denial articles to its publication Crescent International as well as the Tehran-based publication Kayhan. Addressing a rally of the Islamist group al-Muhajiroun in Wembley in April 1998 Zaki declared: “nobody was gassed to death in the concentration camps … David Irving has the right idea, destroy the Holocaust myth and you have destroyed Israel.”
• David Irving Once upon a time David Irving had a promising historical career ahead of him and his books were favourably reviewed by mainstream broadsheet papers. But his reputation has gone downhill since he was branded a liar in a libel action over his 1968 book The Destruction of Convoy PQ17. He has accumulated bans from entering several countries and has convictions in Europe. He famously lost a libel action against the American academic Deborah Lipstadt, when Mr Justice Gray described him an “active Holocaust denier”, an antisemite and racist who “associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism” and who “for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence”. He was imprisoned in Austria in 2005 for “glorifying and identifying with the German Nazi Party”. Nevertheless Irving maintains his high standing among antisemites the world over and enjoys substantial financial backing from them.
• James Thring who is the convener of Planning for Peace and the author of Peace with Iran, was a close confidant of the veteran antisemite Lady Jane Birdwood. In May 2002 he spoke at a conference in Baghdad alongside the Russian fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the French far-right activist Serge Thion and the Respect MP George Galloway. He has declared that Israel is “an illegal, criminal, psychopathic, belligerent, apartheid entity bent on desecrating the Holy Land and destroying anyone or even any country that tries to seek justice for the Palestinians”. After David Irving’s imprisonment in 2005 Thring was among those who demonstrated outside the Austrian Embassy for his release.

Searchlight

Protest greets historian

In the end, the extra security provided by the University of Oregon for controversial British historian David Irving’s lecture Monday night proved unnecessary.

While Irving’s remarks questioning the Holocaust clearly angered many who attended his Pacifica Forum-sponsored talk in Erb Memorial Union’s Walnut Room, a demonstration outside the building that included about 50 sign-carrying protesters did not spark any disturbance that required police intervention.

Five uniformed campus security guards were on hand for the low-key event.

Irving, who has written several books on World War II and was jailed in Austria for once saying there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, was called a “martyr for free speech” in an announcement posted on the Pacifica Forum’s Web site.

But some of those who partook in Monday’s protest had other words to describe Irving and his intentions.

“What he talks about is hatred, masked as free speech,” said John Aarons, a Eugene resident who along with his family waved signs during the demonstration and later listened to a portion of Irving’s lecture before leaving quietly.

“Is this really the best the Pacifica Forum can do in our community?” Aarons wondered.

Irving’s appearance followed other Pacifica Forum speakers who have presented controversial views on the Holocaust, Israel and the influence of Zionism.

Dawn Coslow, a regular attendee of forum events, accused protesters of trying to “inhibit dialogue” and “relying on what I know to be half-truths” to criticize Irving.

Two years ago, Irving served 10 months in an Austrian prison after pleading guilty to a charge of “trivializing, grossly playing down and denying the Holocaust” during a 1989 speech.

He served 10 months in prison for his statements, which are considered criminal in Austria.

Irving, 70, spoke for nearly 90 minutes Monday. About 100 people attended the lecture, including several who also partook in the demonstration.

Irving did not deny that many Jews died at Auschwitz, but he generally avoided using the word Holocaust.

Instead, he called the mass killings during World War II “the great Jewish tragedy.” He added that his research shows that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was not responsible for the events at Auschwitz.

“Hitler didn’t know what was going on, and was totally opposed to it,” Irving said.

Another demonstration attendee who listened to Irving speak was UO student body President Sam Dotters-Katz.

“The protection of free speech is important,” Dotters-Katz said. “But spreading seeds of hatred in this community is something we will not stand for. We’re here to say that what (Irving) stands for is not in line with the University of Oregon. Our official stance is this: David Irving, you are not welcome here.”

University officials charged the Pacifica Forum $291 to cover the cost of extra security for Irving’s lecture and the demonstration.

Register-Guard

Legal victory for B&B owner who evicted Irving for being too moody

In his long history of legal calamity, David Irving has confronted and lost to courtroom adversaries from the publisher Penguin, to a British Second World War convoy commander, to the Austrian state. To that list can now be added Jennie Allen, the 60-year-old owner of a B&B in the genteel London suburb of Kew.

Amid claim and counter-claim about boorish behaviour and an eviction made with the help of two police officers, the 69-year-old writer, who was famously described by a High Court judge in 2000 as an "active Holocaust denier... anti-Semitic and racist", went to Wandsworth County Court this week to claim that Mrs Allen had wrongly asked him to leave her premises while he was researching his latest tome.

But in a pattern which must be becoming grimly familiar to the much-criticised historian, the judge dismissed his claim for £2,000 in damages for breach of contract after finding that diverging interpretations by Mr Irving and his landlady of her terms and conditions meant she had been within her rights to ask him to leave. He was ordered to pay Mrs Allen £60 towards her costs and her bus fare to the court.

Mr Irving, who was sentenced to three years' imprisonment by an Austrian judge in 2006 for remarks he made in 1989 claiming there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz (views he has now revised), had booked a two-week stay last July at Mrs Allen's bed and breakfast, Melbury, so he could visit the nearby National Archives in Kew, used by thousands of academics every year to study government documents.

But, within four days of his arrival at the £300-a-week guest house, relations between the researcher and his host, who has been running B&Bs for 35 years, had deteriorated dramatically.

Mrs Allen declined to comment in detail on the case when contacted yesterday but said she was pleased that the court had found in her favour.

She said: "Mr Irving's behaviour was such that I considered it upsetting for myself and my guests. I asked him to leave and he said he would sue me for breach of contract. I won the case because the judge determined there had been no contract between us. I'm delighted to have won."

Court documents seen by The Independent show that Mrs Allen believed Mr Irving was unjustifiably moody throughout his stay, unsettling her other guests and behaving rudely towards her. In her statement to the court, she alleged that the scholar said "get out of my sight you evil witch" during a row over his conduct.

Mr Irving "strenuously denied" making the remark or being guilty of any "abusive or intimidating behaviour" towards the other guests at Melbury. He said in his statement of claim to the court that he had only two brief conversations with those in the B&B and spent most of the time in his room or at the National Archives.

The saga came to a head on 4 July last year when Mrs Allen said that, after repeated refusals by Mr Irving to accept her request to leave, she was forced to call police to ask him to end his stay. The historian claimed his landlady only cooled towards him after her solicitor sent her a copy of his Wikipedia entry detailing his views and controversies. Mrs Allen, who emphasised she has never before clashed with a guest and has a long list of repeat visitors to her B&B, denied the claim.

In his statement, Mr Irving said he agreed to leave within two hours of the arrival of the two officers, packing his belongings shortly after 5pm. He added: "I remarked in a conversational tone that no doubt we would next meet in court."

At the hearing this week, Mr Irving was told his claim for breach of contract was invalid because both he and Mrs Allen held diverging views of a clause in her terms and conditions which guaranteed a guest's stay for one night only. The landlady argued this meant she was entitled to ask a guest to leave after a single night.

The historian was sanguine about his latest legal setback. "The judge found there was no case to answer," he said. "But I very strongly reject the suggestion that I behaved obnoxiously."

Mr Irving was once a respected authority on Nazi Germany until he made clear views on the Holocaust which led to his defeat in an 1996 libel case against the author Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin. His £1m Mayfair flat was seized to meet the costs awarded against him from the case.

The writer lost his first libel case in 1970 when the commander of a British convoy claimed Mr Irving unfairly blamed him for its heavy losses. He most recently hit headlines when he sought to address the Oxford Union with the BNP leader, Nick Griffin.

He is hoping to change his luck with two other lawsuits surrounding the aftermath of the 1996 libel trial. In the meantime, he is working on an autobiography, entitled As I Lay There Drowning.

Independent

Jewish life in Britain is thriving

As representatives from around the world converge on Jerusalem this week for the Global Forum on Anti-Semitism to assess the prevalence of what Robert Wistrich calls "the longest hatred," Britain, like every other country in the Diaspora, has its own account of how its Jewish community is faring.

The Global Forum comes less than a fortnight after the Community Security Trust (CST) issued its Report on Antisemitic Incidents for 2007, and its conclusions are disturbing. It shows the second highest number of incidents - 547, down 8 per cent from 2006 - since CST began keeping such records in 1984. Moreover, unlike previous years, where "trigger events" such as Israel's war against Hizbullah in 2006 have shown a spike in incident levels, analysts had expected that the absence of such events in 2007 would result in a far larger drop. Overall there has been a general increase in the base-line level of anti-Semitic incidents since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000.

However, data such as these cry out for context. The figures also included many unacceptable, but nevertheless more minor, incidents and with a Jewish population in excess of 300,000, most are unaffected by such incidents. Jewish life in Britain is thriving. Communal leaders and activists agree that it would be self-defeating to allow such figures to define us existentially.

One erstwhile British-Jewish critical commentator, Rabbi Jeremy Rosen, to his own apparent surprise recently attested to the resurgence of the community. As any reader of the local Jewish media will attest, Jewish life in the UK is teeming with vibrant educational and cultural activity, robust political involvement and demonstrable pride in Jewish identity, with plans this summer for New York-style Salute to Israel Parades (replete with floats and marching bands) weaving their way through central London and Manchester, culminating in the Capital with a 60th birthday extravaganza in Trafalgar Square. This hardly sits with the "head below the parapet" stereotype of British Jews. Kippa wearers abound on the London Tube and elsewhere in the country, and all of England cheered Israel on in its battle with Russia on the football field.

Britain remains a good and comfortable place for Jews to live and British Jews have scored several major successes in mounting unified responses to challenges that affects us all as Jews and as citizens of democracies around the world.

While statistics don't lie, in any battle you need to know who your allies are. Part of the larger picture is the fact that the Jewish community in general and the CST in particular enjoy an unprecedented degree of cooperation and respect from law enforcement authorities up and down the country with whom they liaise and work collaboratively. The level to which we can securely go about our business as Jews in public and in Jewish public places is taken for granted.

Similarly, on the political front, it is important to underscore the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism and the formal government response. As a result, key Jewish communal representatives sit together with nine government departments and multiple other agencies on the government's cross-departmental task-force, set up to implement the report's key recommendations.

Of course we would rather that there was no need for an inquiry of this nature, but as we know, anti-Semitism exists and the dedication shown by so many parliamentarians and civil servants in addressing this issue is hugely encouraging. This marks something of a watershed on the political map and even among the Great British football watching public, a formidable force, which reacted with indignation to the anti-Semitic threats to Israeli Chelsea Football Club manager Avraham Grant.

Certainly, the UK is not immune to episodes that resonate around the world; such as the Oxford Union's circus style events when publicity-hungry undergraduates invited Holocaust-denier David Irving, the British National Party's Nick Griffin to discuss free speech, or a pantheon of anti-Zionists to debate Israel's right to exist. UK campuses, like their counterparts in other liberal democratic societies (Columbia University's recent decision to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes to mind) can provide platforms in the name of free speech to those who would deny that right to others. Thankfully, we have a Union of Jewish Students adept at combating these and other instances of Israel and Jew-bashing, always allied with non-Jewish groups. Beyond campus firm alliances have been built and nurtured with Hindu, Sikh and Christian groups with whom we often lobby government on matters of joint concern.

Equally important was the outcome of the so-called much publicized University and College Union "boycott" (actually a motion to "consider" a boycott) that both the academic community (again, Jews and non-Jews alike) and the organized Jewish community (through the "Stop The Boycott" campaign) took on. Significantly it was the Union itself, and the British discrimination laws that brought about the demise of the boycott campaign.

There are more battles on the horizon. A cross-communal Durban Review task-force, Jewish Human Rights Coalition UK, spearheaded by the Board of Deputies and CST, will be meeting similar groups from around the world at the Israeli Foreign Ministry on Tuesday and heading to Geneva in April highlight the dangers of allowing the next UN Conference on Racism from devolving into an entropy of anti-Zionism and Jew hatred that characterized its predecessor in 2001.

Is UK Jewry facing problems and challenges? Without a doubt. But the community is now organized in such a way that we are better prepared to face and meet those challenges.

When I address the Global Forum on Monday I am proud to be in a position to offer models of best practice from the successful experiences of UK communal institutions for adoption elsewhere in the Jewish world. Like many of our British boxing heroes: we not only talk a good talk, but we also fight our corner.

Jerusalem Post

Austrian Holocaust denier gets six-and-a-half years in prison

VIENNA (AFP) - A Vienna court sentenced Monday a former extreme-right city councillor to four years in prison for Holocaust denial, adding another two-and-a-half years of a previous suspended sentence, a report said.

It was the third time that Wolfgang Frohlich, 56, had been found guilty on similar charges, following letters to Austrian members of parliament and Pope Benedict XVI denouncing the Holocaust as a "Satanic lie," the APA news agency said.

Pleading "absolutely not guilty," according to APA, Frohlich had already served 23 months behind bars since 2003 - and gasped in court as the other 29 months were added. Frohlich - kicked out of the populist far-right FPOe party in 1994 - is to appeal, said his lawyer, Harald Schuster.

Austria has one of the strictest sets of laws surrounding Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi activity.

British revisionist historian David Irving spent 13 months in jail after his arrest in 2005 before being expelled to the UK.

EJP

Irving sent packing from Liverpool

A meeting organised by the notorious David Irving was cancelled 24 hours before it was to take place after Searchlight learned of the booking at a Liverpool hotel. The convicted Holocaust denier was going to speak to an audience of up to 20 people at the Liner Hotel on Saturday 12 January, after failing to secure an invitation to Liverpool’s universities. The room had been booked falsely under the name of the Liverpool Historical Society.

Irving’s presence would have cast a shadow over the launch of the city’s year as the European capital of culture.

The hotel’s guest services manager told Searchlight that he knew nothing about David Irving but became concerned when we mentioned Irving’s attempt to speak at the Oxford Union. Uncertain whether he could cancel the meeting because the organisers had paid for the room in advance, he said he would discuss the matter with the police.

But after the hotel was contacted on Friday 11 January by Alec McFadden, President of Merseyside TUC, the meeting was quickly cancelled.

Soon afterwards Irving’s website announced that the meeting had been cancelled “on police advice” and promised that “a full refund will be made”. The audience would not have got much for their money as no refreshments had been booked. Irving thanked “Bob J and his friends who had organised”.

In fact the room had been booked by Michael Sheil, who stood as a British National Party local election candidate in Liverpool in 2003 – so much for Irving’s constant denials that he has any contact with the BNP.

Searchlight

The BNP and Redwatch working together

The picture above shows a group of protestors at the demonstration against the Nick Griffin/David Irving debate at the Oxford Union earlier this week and is taken from the BNP website, where it printed (naturally) a scathing report criticising those who dared to demonstrate against it.

Curiously (or perhaps not) it also appeared on the day after the demonstration on the Redwatch site. Redwatch, run by the moronic nazi Kevin Watmough, is famed for encouraging violence against anti-fascists, trades unionists and anyone it perceives as being to the left of Genghis Khan, and shows images and, where they are available, names, addresses, phone numbers and any other contact details it can muster up.

Many of those who have found themselves on Redwatch have been targets of hardcore nazis - many of them suffering firebombs in their houses and cars, general abuse either face to face or by phone, and violent attacks.

Naturally, the BNP has always stated that it has nothing at all to do with Redwatch, despite the fact that its members have been repeatedly observed taking pictures which have subsequently appeared on the site. On this occasion though, they may have tripped themselves up in their desperate attempt to convince the party members that the demo wasn't an own goal that linked the party leader irrevocably with the Holocaust-denier David Irving. In its haste to put up its photo's of the demonstrators, it used the image above which, up until then, had only appeared on the Redwatch site - suggesting that either the BNP photographer is supplying both the party and Redwatch or that the BNP trawls Redwatch for images it can use.

Either way, it shows a connection between Redwatch and the BNP that the latter has been lyingly denying for years. More evidence, as if any were needed, that the BNP is still concealing a hardcore nazi element under the sharp suits and bad ties, and that the implicit violence of Redwatch is never really far below the surface of this racist party.

[Thanks to Duncan for the heads-up]

Comment: No Platform works!

One of the most successful weapons devised to combat the growth of Fascism in the United Kingdom is the long standing No Platform policy. It is a policy that thirty years ago seriously hobbled the then ascendant National Front, and which continues to invoke cries of pain and outrage from the British National Party.

No Platform is based on the principle that some views are so extreme, so abhorrent, so divisive, so much based on hate and bigotry, that no platform should be provided for the espousal of them.

No Platform worked.

It ensured that odious organisations such as the BNP could never claim legitimacy or parity for their bigoted beliefs and were never provided with an audience in which to disseminate them. Their failure to obtain television air time or to have their policies reported uncritically in the wider media has caused them an inestimable degree of harm and is a major (perhaps the major) factor in ensuring that organisationally their progress and growth has been at best snail’s pace, and that electorally they are largely moribund.

The No Platform stance of the media unions means that we do not wake up to find a Griffin or a Darby on the breakfast TV sofas, smarming and spinning at full bore for having been invited to comment upon the latest breaking immigration story and matters arising. It keeps them off the Question Time panel and out of the news studios.

No Platform also ensured that the bacillus of fascism and its related -isms were never allowed to infect our places of learning, namely the universities - prime targets for organisations suffering from a cruel intellectual deficit, and thus necessarily overburdened at all levels by charmless low-calibre human material which thinks in simple slogans and believes the bigoted tirade to have a moral and political equivalence with the policies of the mainstream parties.

We anti-fascists daily come upon the illiterate scratchings with which BNP members disfigure various parts of the Internet. To see them in action is to take away any surprise at all that modern-day snake-oil salesmen like Griffin, Barnes, Darby, et al, have risen to the top of the BNP. It could never really be otherwise.

And that’s how we would like to keep it - the decidedly dodgy leading the irredeemably inept, dancing them around and around the houses in continuous procession that always returns to its starting point - thus sustaining a moral-boosting illusion of movement and progress when there is none at all.

Readers of these pages are well aware of the surfeit of problems besetting the British National Party - internal dissent, purges and expulsions, stolen “trade unions”, missing accounts, electoral stagnation … which taken together all adds up to a highly satisfying six months for anti-fascists, particularly as we feared (and the racists expected) that at this point in time we would be dealing with an organisationally larger, slicker and electorally better represented BNP.

Given this, we are entitled at ask: who in their right minds would choose this very time to provide the British National Party with invaluable national publicity, to allow them to spuriously present themselves simultaneously as champions of free speech and “victims” of “left-wing” censorship, and to provide them with a platform on which to do it?

As we are all aware, this week the Oxford Union Debating Society drove a coach and horses through No Platform by inviting the BNP’s Nick Griffin and jailbird “revisionist” author David Irving to address them on the subject of “free speech”.

The president of OUDS is Luke Tryl, a prominent member of Conservative Future, the Tory Party’s youth organisation. He justified the invitations on the grounds that “these people are not being given a platform to extol their views, but are coming to talk about the limits of free speech”.

From the beginning Tryl must have been alive to the fact that not only would the appearance of Griffin and Irving provoke widespread condemnation and protest, but that he was handing the BNP a priceless propaganda coup which it was certain to exploit and abuse - as it has - to its own benefit.

In fact Tryl had ample warnings, not least from OUDS members, that the only winners in this self-inflicted debacle were going to be the BNP and David Irving.

Yet he persisted, doggedly, to the point where serious questions concerning Tryl’s own motives are being asked.

Did he sacrifice No Platform purely to raise his own profile, with a calculating eye fixed on his own future political career? Or is he really so naive as to believe that “free speech” is an absolute, and that some of the most poisonous characters on the extreme fringe of British politics should be given platforms from which to espouse their creed of hate because Luke Tryl and his idealistic young friends have the arrogance of mind to believe that they are capable of “exposing” and “refuting” their arguments?

Young Mr Tryl might care to recall that both Griffin and Irving are veterans of the legal system, and have crossed swords with some of the best legal minds available. In Griffin’s case a lengthy trial failed to “refute” him, while in Irving’s the sharpest barristers took weeks to nail the man down.

What hope do Mr Tryl and those of like mind believe they have in “exposing” and “refuting” their arguments - assuming, of course, that people of Mr Tryl’s apparent high calibre are on hand to do the refuting?

No Platform having been breached for no particularly convincing reason by OUDS, students at the University of East Anglia have leapt in to widen the crack, claiming that free debate is the only way to tackle extremism.

We might be forgiven for asking the simple question - on what basis is this dogmatic pronouncement made, when every scrap of available evidence and our own long experience tells us that No Platform has achieved that end admirably?

The UEA’s student union displays the same breathtaking arrogance spiced with naiveté (we assume it to be naiveté) as that falling from the lips of Mr Tryl. According to them:

If fascist groups were to come to campus to debate, our representatives should be inside the room arguing with them and proving them wrong, not just protesting pointlessly outside

thus missing the point that any invitation extended to fascist groups to debate is in itself an admission that political hate organisations are qualitatively no different to other political organisations; and again making the arrogant assumption that, when faced with some of the wiliest veteran speakers of the extreme right, it is a given that the fresh-faced students will prove them wrong.

The UEA students further say:

If we ban these groups, we give them the moral high ground - they can claim they are unfairly treated and accuse those who do believe in democracy of being hypocrites

Hello?

Hasn’t that been exactly the position for the last three decades? Has it harmed anybody other than the fascists themselves, as was the whole intention?

Then we have:

[Perceived objection to new policy] ‘Fascist/racist groups will attack people [on campus], especially ethnic minorities, LGBT students and other discriminated against groups.’

This may be true. However, if it is, this is a matter for the police as it would be a criminal offence. You cannot assume people are guilty, however unpleasant they are, before they act.

So that’s all fine and dandy then. What this seems to be saying is that those lovers of free speech who feel themselves impelled to invite hate groups onto campus will take no responsibility for the actions of their esteemed guests, which must be dealt with by the police - presumably after people have been hurt, since “you cannot assume people are guilty … before they act”.

It’s a risk the “ethnic minorities, LGBT students and other discriminated against groups” will just have to take, apparently for the sake of somebody else’s “free speech”.

No Platform has hurt organisations like the BNP as nothing else could. They know it and we know it.

They know that the needless (and perhaps self-serving) actions of Luke Tryl and the OUDS represent an important first strike against No Platform, and could be a major step along the road that eventually will lead the BNP into the sun-lighted uplands of craved-for respectability.

Already the BNP are crowing that No Platform is broken, and that the remaining dominos will fall. In their fevered collective imagination the likes of Griffin and Darby are about to park their ample backsides on the breakfast TV sofas and to take their places as equals amongst the great and good on Question Time.

We must break the spell.

The breach is not yet so wide as to be beyond repair, and we understand that moves are afoot within the relevant organisations to restore the status quo.

No Platform must then be applied with renewed vigour.

It is a point of honour amongst liberals to claim that though they may disagree with another person’s point of view, they will fight to the death for the other’s right to say it. While the danger of death is remote, this well-known slogan is empty cant.

Allow me to rephrase it:

Though I may disagree with another person’s point of view, I will do all in my power to preserve the other’s right to say it - unless that other’s point of view is founded upon hate and bigotry, in which case I will do all in my power to suppress it.

The uprising against facism: Students storm Oxford Union debate

The principle that everyone is entitled to their say, however obnoxious their opinions might be, was put to the test at the Oxford Union last night as hundreds of protesters gathered to voice their disapproval of the two men from the extreme right whom the illustrious debating chamber had invited there to speak.

One of the guests, the BNP leader Nick Griffin, heads an organisation that wants to see millions of people deported from the UK because they do not regard them as truly British.

He was due to share a platform with the historian David Irving, who has courted notoriety for decades by claiming that Hitler did not give the order to commit genocide, that there were no gas chambers and that six million Jews were not killed by the Nazis.

Scuffles broke out as anti-fascist groups yelled "Shame on you" at members filing into the union building, and the police shut the gates with the chamber only half full. While a handful of students crushed against the main gate to create a diversion, 30 others scaled the wall and barged past the tight security, occupying the area around the debating table until they were persuaded to leave.

"I hope we're not giving Griffin further publicity by doing this," said Peter Simpson, a student at Essex University who stormed the chamber, "but history has shown that you need to draw the line with fascists. I think a lot of people are here because they know what happened in the Second World War and they don't want it to happen again."

Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP due to join the debate, criticised Thames Valley Police for "failing to put a cordon around the Union", allowing the protestors to barge through.

"The failure of the police is outrageous," he said as he told students in the chamber of plans to split the speakers after the university authorities decided it was too dangerous to walk Mr Griffin and Mr Irving across the quadrangle to the debating hall. The police have failed to provide for the safety of this event; failed to provide for the safety of this going ahead as planned. I'm very disappointed. The police imply that they don't have enough resources to move people away from the perimeter or that it is not their job."

In order to get the debate under way, the speakers were split into two groups, with Mr Irving, jailed last year in Austria after pleading guilty to Holocaust denial, speaking in the main chamber, and Mr Griffin, convicted of incitement to racial hatred over material denying the Holocaust in 1998, in a cramped room in the main university building.

Warned to expect a maelstrom of abuse, they had avoided the main demonstration by arriving in separate black cabs, 10 minutes apart and 90 minutes early. The debate – on how far the freedom of speech should extend – finally started more than an hour late at 10pm.

Mr Irving defended accusations that his publications and speeces denied the existence of the Holocaust. "I still refuse to be bowed. I am not going to write what they want me to write. I'm going to write what I find in the archives," he said.

Across the yard, Mr Griffin went head-to-head with two student debaters. "The majority of racist attacks are on white people by members of ethnic minority communities," he said. "Those people outside are a mob and they could kill. Had they grown up in Nazi Germany they would have made splendid Nazis. Any restriction on free speech is dangerous. You start by saying people should not speak and you end up with burning people at the stake. Free speech is an absolute, it is universal."

Mr Irving, reported to have left at 10.45pm to a chorus of jeers from waiting demonstrators, said that disagreeing with some elements of the "whole package" did not make him a Holocaust denier. He had been invited to speak at the Oxford Union seven times, he said, but security fears had put paid to any chance of appearing. Speaking at the Union was something he cherished, he added, saying that the most important thing that any student listening to him could do was to think for themselves.

The president of the Oxford Union, Luke Tryl, was unconvinced. "I think David Irving came out of that looking pathetic," he said "I said in my introduction that I found his view repugnant and abhorrent because I wanted that on record."

Outside, some protesters chanted "Kill Tryl", to which the Union president said: "I don't think they do their cause any favours by inciting violence. That is my only regret."

Last night's meeting breached an unwritten agreement observed for years by the mainstream political parties – not to give the far right a public platform. Instead, it fell back on a much older principle, summed up in a maxim attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Mr Tryl, who has been under intense pressure to cancel the event, defended the decision to go ahead. He said: "David Irving and Nick Griffin have awful and abhorrent views but the best way to defeat those views is through debate.

"I remain committed to the principle that free speech has to prevail. I really worry about how the far right has been able to portray themselves as free-speech martyrs and I hope that this sort of debate will help dispel that myth – to show that the liberal mainstream are prepared to take them on and beat them in debate."

A minority of the students gathered outside the building agreed with Mr Tryl. Kudzh Ranga, a black law graduate living in the city, said he supported the right of Mr Griffin and Mr Irving to speak. "Though I don't agree with [Mr Irving's] stance on racism and the Holocaust I think it is only proper to let him come and address the general public," he said.

But most students and protesters in the street vehemently disagreed. They included Jean Kaigamba, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. He said: "I'm flabbergasted that people who claim to be intellectuals invite extremists in the name of free speech to give them a platform and let them air their perverted view."

David Green, a former committee member of the Oxford Union, said he had resigned from the organisation in protest. "What the union is doing today is extremely irresponsible – namely giving prominence to Holocaust deniers, people who are completely discredited," he said.

Independent

Protesters force way into debate

Protesters have forced their way into the Oxford Union where BNP leader Nick Griffin and controversial historian David Irving are due to speak.

The group of 30 pushed their way into the hall where they are staging a sit-down protest at the debating table. Earlier, a crowd staged a sit-down protest outside the gates of the building, preventing around half the students due to attend from getting in. About 500 people chanted anti-fascist slogans and jeered "shame on you".

Anti-racism campaigners say the two men should not be given a platform to speak at the debate in St Michael's Street, Oxford. Police on horseback are patrolling the area.

Martin Mcluskey, from the Oxford University Students' Union, said: "What we are doing here tonight at the Oxford Union is putting them on a platform that will give them legitimacy and credibility. It is as if we are saying that we agree with what they are saying and that we think it is valid."

Novelist Anne Atkins, who is participating in the debate, said controversial views should not be silenced but exposed. "When you say that the majority view is always right I think that is a deeply dangerous and disturbing thing to say. I am not for a moment saying that I agree with David Irving or Nick Griffin but I am saying that once you start having truth by democracy you risk silencing some of the most important prophets we have ever had."

Mr Griffin and Mr Irving arrived hours before the 2000 GMT start of the debate and were escorted into the building.

MP Dr Julian Lewis has also resigned his membership of the Oxford debating union in protest describing the two men as "a couple of scoundrels" in his resignation letter.

Mr Griffin has repeatedly insisted the BNP is not a racist group. He was convicted in 1998 for incitement to racial hatred for material denying the Holocaust. Mr Irving was imprisoned for three years after pleading guilty to Holocaust denial in Austria.

BBC

A call from Searchlight - No nazi-lovers in Oxford!

Searchlight calls on all anti-fascists to join the mass picket of the Oxford Union in the event that BNP leader Nick Griffin and the convicted criminal and liar David Irving are allowed to speak.

The demo will start at 7pm on Monday 26 November outside the Oxford Union, St Michael Street, Oxford.

It is supported by Oxford University Student Union, Oxford Unite Against Fascism, Oxford Trades Council, Oxford University Labour Club, Oxford Unison Health, the National Union of Students, the Union of Jewish Students and Searchlight.

The latest news is that Irving is claiming a prior engagement in Liverpool that evening. Griffin has been keeping very quiet about putting in an appearance.

Either way it is important for everybody to show their defiance against the attempts of the extreme right to spread their message of hate in universities.

Oxford braced for protest over BNP

Hundreds of protesters are expected to gather at Oxford University after students yesterday voted to allow BNP leader Nick Griffin to speak at their union. Controversial historian David Irving, who was jailed for Holocaust denial, has also been invited to the free speech event tomorrow.

Their presence on the list of speakers had already prompted a series of high-profile withdrawals from the platform, including Defence Secretary Des Browne.

Despite opposition, the Oxford Union Debating Society members voted by a margin of two-to-one to extend an invite to Griffin. Martin McCluskey, president of the Oxford Student Union, said it was "disgraceful" the pair were being given the same platform as past speakers who included Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama.

Anti-fascist leaders, who were organising a demonstration at tomorrow's event, have claimed that some union members were excluded from the vote. Sabby Dhalu, secretary of campaign group Unite Against Fascism, said: "If the event goes ahead as it stands, it does not even have the appearance of a 'debate'. Oxford Union will have to hold itself responsible for any subsequent repercussions on the threats to the safety of students if it proceeds with this decision."

Lee Jasper, secretary of the National Assembly Against Racism, added: "Oxford Union is jeopardising the safety of the students by continuing with this event. It is not too late to rescind these invites. Oxford Union gathers growing condemnation with every moment it continues being complicit with facilitating a meeting promoting fascism and Holocaust denial."

The move was also opposed by the university's Muslim and Jewish societies.

Defending its decision, the Oxford Union Debating Society said it was important to give people of all views a platform. Luke Tryl, president of the society, said: "They will be speaking in the context of a forum in which there will be other speakers to challenge and attack their views in a head-to-head manner."

The university's newspaper, Cherwell, has quoted Duncan Money, a second-year student, as saying he received death threats after criticising fascist groups in an internet blog. He said: "My family has been threatened, my friends have been threatened and I've been threatened. Someone rang in the middle of the night and said they would cut my throat."

The Scotsman

BNP to speak to Oxford students

An Oxford union has voted to let the British National Party (BNP) leader and a controversial historian speak at a free speech event on Monday.

Despite opposition, the Oxford Union Debating Society members voted by a margin of 2 to 1 to continue to extend an invite to the BNP's Nick Griffin. David Irving, who was jailed for Holocaust denial, will also be invited.

The move was opposed by the Oxford Student Union and the university's Muslim and Jewish societies.

The Oxford Union Debating Society said it was important to give people of all views a platform. Luke Tryl, president of the society, said: "The men were not being given a platform to extol their views, but were coming to talk about the limits for free speech. They will be speaking in the context of a forum in which there will be other speakers to challenge and attack their views in a head to head manner."

Jailed

Mr Griffin, the leader of the far-right party, has repeatedly insisted the BNP is not a racist group. He was convicted in 1998 for incitement to racial hatred for material denying the Holocaust.

Mr Irving was imprisoned for three years after pleading guilty to Holocaust denial in Austria. But he denied being a Holocaust denier as he said he had no alternative but to plead guilty to the charge.

The union said all tickets for the event, which were only available to its members - who are mainly students - had gone.

A rally in protest at the invitation was held on Tuesday and among those speaking there were Holocaust survivors.

Stephen Altmann-Richer, co-president of the Oxford University Jewish Society, said that while freedom of speech was important it was "overshadowed in this instance".

"I don't think these people should be invited to the Oxford Union, by having them speak, it legitimises their views," he said.

BBC

Oxford Union is no place for Irving

By Jonathan Hoffman

As a former JCR Vice-President and JSoc member at Oxford, I have taken a keen interest in the invitation to David Irving and Nick Griffin to speak at a Union forum on ‘Free Speech’ on Monday.

I spoke out against the invitation at the Union’s Middle East debate on 23 October and soon after I placed a petition on the Prime Minister’s website. The strength of opposition to the invitation can be seen from the popularity of the petition: In less than three weeks nearly 1400 signed, making it one of the fastest growing petitions ever. We now await Gordon Brown’s response.

We have been accused of opposing free speech, but that is a gross misrepresentation. David Irving is a Holocaust Denier and Nick Griffin is the Chairman of the BNP which incites race hatred. Let’s take each in turn. In German and Austria, Holocaust denial is a crime. Because the UK’s history is very different, it would be a mistake to make denial illegal. But that does not mean that Irving should have a platform at the Union - which remains one of the most sought after debating societies in the world. Since his release from an Austrian prison nearly a year ago, Irving’s public appearances have been rare and confined to fringe events – a bizarre World War Two re-enactment in a field in Kent, for example. That is where a deliberately fraudulent academic - whose purpose was to rehabilitate the Nazis – belongs - not at Oxford, a place of careful scholarship. For Irving to speak at the Union is insulting to the ethos of the University and to those who strive to uphold it. It also sets a dreadful precedent. There is no doubt that Irving would try to use his appearance to give respectability to his obscene cause and to gain other platforms. Similarly for the BNP, for which Griffin has strived to gain respectability, particularly in the fertile climate of growing opposition to Islamism. Racists have no place in an institution which prizes scholarship, regardless of the race of the scholar.

Furthermore, the pair are entirely the wrong speakers at a forum on ‘Free Speech’. What the ‘free speech’ advocates at the Union miss is that the right cannot exist without legal and other constraints. Presumably one purpose of such a forum is to explore how those constraints might change over time and space. But using the analogy of a football game, the appropriate people to do this are the referees, not the players. That points to speakers such as Trevor Phillips or Chris Smith (the Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority) – not Irving or Griffin.

Indeed the law surrounds the right of free speech with constraints. The Human Rights Act (1988) says that it is conditional on security and public safety and the rights of others. Wherever racist speakers have a platform, the incidence of racist attacks tends to rise. The trophy of the invitation to these two has been held aloft on Far Right websites which have also published the names of the Presidents of the JSoc. How can it now be responsible – or indeed legal – for the University Proctors not to step in?

Finally if these invitations stand, the Union would be wide open to the charge of inconsistency. Just a month ago, Norman Finkelstein – who has tried to devalue the Holocaust – was disinvited from the Middle East debate. So much for ‘free speech’ at the Oxford Union.

Jonathan Hoffman is the founder of Dayenu

Totally Jewish