Holocaust denier detained at London's Heathrow airport

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: Ha'aretz

German-born Australian national Dr. Gerald Fredrick Toben, 64, was detained at London's Heathrow Airport by the London police extradition unit using an EU arrest warrant issued by German authorities, the United Kingdom's Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday.

The founder of the Adelaide Institute, a publication that questions the Holocaust, Toben is accused of publishing material on the internet "of an anti-Semitic and/or revisionist nature" that "denies, approves of or plays down the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis".

The arrest warrant alleges that Dr Toben committed the offence in Australia, Germany and other countries.

In a disclaimer on his website, Dr Toben writes of his work: "If you wish to begin to doubt the Holocaust-Shoah narrative, you must be prepared for personal sacrifice, must be prepared for marriage and family break-up, loss of career, and go to prison."

"This is because Revisionists are, among other things, dismantling a massive multi-billion dollar industry that the Holocaust-Shoah enforcers are defending, as well as the survival of Zionist-racist Israel."


Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1025559.html

[WarDawg]

1. Thought Crime

:(

Racism sucks but this is thought crime.

[edwardian]

2. So, historical revisionism,

a paltry "intellectual" attempt at best, to be controversial and to question the official history, is a crime. I disagree, Holocaust deniers are made, not born...research that provides different answers should not be a crime. Its truth value is basically tied to its dismissal by the powers that be. This Austrian doctor is using his doubt to reconsider a part of history that is hard to refute; because it happened and because I personally know many Jewish senior citizens who tell me the same stories, I have seen the film footage and I have been to the crematoria. All together, I know what happened. But the stupid doctor apparently doesn't. Shoah survivors attempting to protect their remembrance industry? That alone should constitute some form of libel. The Holocaust in Europe killed many non-Jewish people as well. But should we really be prosecuting these dubious researchers with prison time?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

3. Which shouldn't be a crime...

...it should be answered intellectually and honestly exposing it for what it is. To criminalize the act of saying/writing things we detest is to move toward becoming more like those we claim to detest -- it's what the Nazis would and did do.

[bos1]

7. That's the American point of view.

The European point of view is different. They believe in freedom of speech as defined as an exchange of ideas & opinions, but draw the line at words that have no intention of discussion, and intend only to damage. For obvious reason they have an even stricter view of neo-nazi agitation, with laws preventing the propagation of it, with the view that this is definitely not freedom of speech, but only baiting to violence and crime.

I am not necessarily defending the European way; however I will say that despite its "anything goes" nature, I don't think the American way creates a better or freer exchange of opinions and thought.

[zazen]

10. yeah, well they don't extend that POV to damaging photos of sex-trafficking victims

unless they're clearly 10 or under. Get caught up in the mafia run sex-trafficking trade, have your regular rapes and torture filmed as "hot Russian teen sluts," and you've just become someone else's free speech. That crap's globally damaging to males who regularly use this stuff, who develop conditioned perceptions that females really want to be treated that way, and especially to the victims who are in it and whose rapes and played over and over again for some creep's enjoyment. I'm sorry the European approach couldn't encompass this physical damage of "free speech" being done today.

[bos1]

11. Could you clarify?

Because many European countries have much stricter controls on the use of children in the media -- laws against the use of children in advertising, against advertising aimed at children, and against showing children's faces in news segments (you often see it pixelated).

But it's not the same everywhere, so could you tell us what you are referring to?

[AlphaCentauri]

15. So what about the anti-immigrant xenophobes

who speak loudly about immigrants destroying their way of living, or what about religious leaders who want to destroy other religions and impose theirs.

[bos1]

20. the former often get prosecuted

if they are documented making the statements that go over the line into inciting genocide, etc. Depends on the POV and vigilance of the country. Neo-nazi websites get taken down due to legal challenges, for example.

The latter -- you would have to give me examples of what you mean.

[AlphaCentauri]

24. Protestants and evangelicals attacking Catholics, Muslims imposing their own laws

[bos1]

25. Are you saying this is happening in Europe?

and somehow the different laws about speech are to blame?

You would have to give us links and explain a little more. There might have been isolated incidents but I am unaware of them. Anti-Catholic persecution in Europe? I don't think so.

[AlphaCentauri]

27. I'm referring to verbal attacks not physical

here is some of the rhetoric http://www.chick.com/default.asp spread in spain

[bos1]

31. Chick Publications???

How does that fit into this subject of free speech and religious tolerance?

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. I *think* that AlphaCentauri is saying that Chick tracts are as bad as Holocaust denial

because they regard them as spreading religious hatred, and so they think anyone caught distributing them in Spain ought to be prosecuted. :shrug: (For the record: denial of the Holocaust isn't illegal any more in Spain, after a court decision in 2007, just justification of it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial )

Note I don't hold that view myself, but that seems to be their argument (unless we get clarification from them).
It's

[bos1]

37. strange, funny, and interesting.

Thanks. But who is this "they"?

[AlphaCentauri]

39. Exactly, chicks tracts are used by many fundamentalist churches to attack Catholics

http://www.catholic.com/library/sr_chick_tracts_p4.asp

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

49. Chick's bigotry IS up there with Holocaust denial.

And I would not shed a tear for him if a case was made against him in a jurisdiction that has anti-Holocaust denial laws.

[Irreverend IX]

32. It's kind of funny...

How in England, a woman can get arrested for swearing at kids who trespass in her yard, but radical Muslim protesters can display signs like "BEHEAD THOSE WHO INSULT THE PROPHET" and openly express sympathy with the London train bombers and receive no legal penalty whatsoever.

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. What do you mean, 'no legal penalty'?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6904622.stm

[LeftishBrit]

36. Not true; as Muriel has pointed out, Muslims who incite religious hatred and violence or express

support for terrorism in the UK can be prosecuted, imprisoned, and, if foreigners, deported. Same for other religions.

In fact it has been made an offence to 'glorify terrorism', and there has been controversy over the possible freedom-of-speech implications of this.

It would certainly be most unusual for someone to get prosecuted here for swearing at her neighbour's kids on her *own* territory, especially if they'd trespassed; I don't recognize the case, but suspect that it's something that got misrepresented by the tabloids - or that a particular magistrate was simply stupid!

[LeftishBrit]

28. Depends on the country and exact circumstances

'Incitement to racial hatred' is certainly a crime in the UK and in some other Europaean countries. Certainly a lot of people (including tabloid journalists) get away with some pretty shocking levels of anti-immigrant xenophobia; but there are limits.

As regards religious bigotry: some similar considerations apply. Merely preaching that your religion is better than anyone else's won't get you arrested; but incitement to violence or active discrimination against those of other religions can have this result; and the UK can deport or refuse entry to 'hate preachers' (e.g. Bakri was kicked out - and I suspect that Phelps would be denied entry, especially since he wrote that we deserved the London bombing, though he hasn't shown an interest in coming anyway). Some people, especially in Northern Ireland, *have* got away with far too much.

Holocaust denial as such is not forbidden by law in the UK - nor should it be IMO, but our history is very different from that of Germany; and I can understand the Germans feeling far more threatened than we are by any possible resurgence of Nazism.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

19. Yes, the origins of their view make their position understandable.

[Dogtown]

9. No, it isn't

These nations have right to fear a resurgence of fascism. Their democracies have decided that freedom of speech does not protect racist enciters-to-violence.


They've had enough of empires. Understand, if he had appeared in the US, we would have extradited him back to the EU.

Because he committed a crime.

[baldguy]

12. Assholes like this guy give ammunition to the people who want to recreate Nazi Germany.

"The Holocaust didn't happen, and if it did it was because the Jews deserved it."

[Hawkeye-X]

14. I am a 3rd generation of a Holocaust survivor

I even traced my grandfather's tattoos when I was a kid and asked him about it. I learned he was a survivor from Auschwitz camps.

His trade was a dentist, and it was gold extracting that saved my grandfather's life from certain death.

[Dr. Strange]

18. The problem is...

locking him up will also give them ammunition:

Why can't the government respond to his questions? Why do they have to silence him? What is the government trying to hide?

Making him a martyr does far more for their cause than having hundreds of academics respond to his lies.

[Mesteryo]

47. yeah but shutting down another Nazi website..

Will at least not allow him to further incite violence. Nazi thugs are scary enough without a shrewd intellectual using them to actually give power to Naziism.

[Ian David]

13. Are slander and libel and incitement to violence also "thought crimes"? n/t

[LanternWaste]

30. Speech crime...

If he merely thought about it and nothing more, you may have a valid point. However, as he has both spoken and written about it in an official capacity (which, like it or not is against the law in many European countries) as spokesperson (and founder) of The Adelaide Institute, it goes beyond your melodramatic and fictional sobriquet of "thought crime" found in so many hack-authored, bad science fiction book and movies (on which so many people seem to base their knowledge of law and morality on these days).

But then again, maybe you believe anyone should have the right to say anything at anytime-- regardless of consequences to other people...

[debriefed]

4. Denying the holocaust is silly

There is documented proof and witnesses galore to attest that this happened.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. And yet....it is a huge industry unto itself.

It also has it's fair share of supporters. Whereas I don't support prosecution for its denial, I do support bigots such as him and those who support him being brought to light. This is not a law in the US, but in Germany and few other European nations.

[Confusious]

6. I think

The Germans might be a little sensitive about German holocaust deniers, considering history. Also, I don't really think that any of use on this board lived through WW2, so we have no idea what it was like in Germany during WW2, or how the Germans feel about it. I think its a small reaction to 250 million people dying in the war.

[HereSince1628]

8. I think it's possible that some DU'ers lived through ww2

I think people over 70 use computers some of them could be on DU.

[Hawkeye-X]

16. how about a 3rd generation of a Holocaust survivor?

My grandfather passed away in July of 2001. He was 93.

Dad wasn't born until my grandfather was about 45 - he lost his entire family in the Holocaust. A wife, 3 sons, 2 daughters.

Now Dad and his younger brother are what's left of his family after his death.

Hawkeye-X

[Nye Bevan]

17. The First Amendment is a great thing

Incidents like this should make Americans fully appreciate the First Amendment. Holocaust deniers should not be arrested, they should be shunned and ridiculed, just as "slavery deniers" would be in this country.

[Dr. Strange]

21. That's an interesting point.

We don't seem to have "slavery deniers" in this country. (At least none that I'm aware of.)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. I've heard of people who say black people had it good under slavery. -nt

[Art_from_Ark]

23. That's a blanket statement

On the one hand, you have facts regarding an actual historical event (Holocaust) versus impressions of a system (slavery).

I have read that there was a big difference in the treatment that house slaves and field slaves received. And some slaves actually fought on the side of the Confederacy, so maybe they felt their situation was not so bad? Also, once Reconstruction came to an end, a lot of the freed slaves ended up being confined to squalid conditions with little chance of bettering themselves, living lives not as slaves but as serfs (sharecroppers) and being subjected to persecution (lynchings) if they got "uppity". So in the immediate post-Reconstruction period, perhaps some former house slaves actually longed for the days of at least working in a nice house, rather than being forced to live in squalor.

[Chovexani]

42. This might well be the most ignorant post I've seen here in a long time.

Those slaves that supposedly fought happily on the side of the Confederacy to protect Massa--you do know they were slaves, right? They didn't have a fucking choice.

And those house slaves that had it so good? Many (most?) were products of rape. Many were children ripped from their families and raised to be docile little servants, and they were no less subject to brutal violence than field slaves. Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?

My great-grandfather, born a slave and freed as a child, came up sharecropping. As hard as it was, wild horses couldn't have dragged him back to that plantation. You really need to put Gone With the Wind down for a minute and read Roots instead.

[Xithras]

33. Yes, but this should scare the hell out of Americans.

Keep in mind that this guy isn't a German citizen any longer. My understanding is that he wrote and published the material on the Internet while in Australia, living as an Australian citizen. The Germans claim that since the material can be read in Germany, they can prosecute him under their laws.

He was flying from the Middle East to the U.S., two countries where his speech was legal. He wrote it in a country where his speech was legal. He published it in a country where his speech was legal. During the flight, his plane had a stopover in a country where publishing that material was legal.

BUT. Because Britain has an agreement with Germany to arrest and extradite wanted criminals, he was detained and will be sent to a country he had no intention of visiting for trial and probable incarceration.

I despise what the guy said, but that's a pretty scary thing to think about.

[Mesteryo]

46. it's also scary to think of how people like Toben..

Seem to want to reconstitute Naziism in Europe and make life in Europe hell for Jews.

[bean fidhleir]

26. It's the inconsistency that bothers me most

It's not really a thought crime, but rather a speech crime. He wouldn't be in trouble if he only *thought* that the Shoah is a lie, or even if he only talked about it quietly. So it's not really a speech crime either, but I can't think of a better word - a "saying it in a loud voice out in public" crime maybe?

But if criminalizing his speech is justified on the grounds of preventing resurgence of ...what? Naziism? Ethnic hatreds? I don't think so, since people have formed neo-fascist groups and hate-the-Turks groups in Germany and as far as I know, the state isn't prosecuting them when they merely run their mouths. So what *is* the goal?

As far as I know, the crime is *specifically* the denial of anti-Jewish genocide. People can claim that there was no attempt to exterminate one of the other victim groups, and that's apparently not a problem. Maybe it's not a problem only because nobody bothers to do it, or if they do, they don't get publicity.

If speech is to be suppressed, then it seems to me that there are topics that are infinitely more dangerous and worthy of suppression than an easily-refuted claim about a major historical event. But many of those topics are not only not suppressed, they're glorified. It doesn't take clinical paranoia to be suspicious of the different treatments.

[LeftishBrit]

29. I think the reason why it isn't a crime with regard to other genocides...

is that genocide denial is not necessarily always used to justify further persecution of the original victims, whereas Holocaust denial often is.

Thus, the Turkish government does deny the Armenian genocide, and puts what I consider to be quite unjustified pressure on other countries to do the same. This is very reprehensible BUT it is not done for the purpose of proving Armenians to be bad people or liars who deserve further discrimination. It's done because Turkish jingoist types don't want to admit that their country has ever done anything wrong! Holocaust denial, on the other hand, is not done simply to protect Germany from criticism (Germany has fortunately long-since repudiated the Nazi party and government!) but usually to imply that Jews are liars or are making demands on others on false pretences or really deserve what antisemites do to them. Thus, it borders on hate-speech and/or support for resurgent neo-Nazism. Most countries do not criminalize it *until* it turns very *explicitly* into hate-speech - but I can see why Germany has special concerns about it.

[Mesteryo]

44. he probably has more inciteful things on the site..

Things designed to provoke violence against but you'd be burdened proving it provoked violence so they probably went with a charge easier to prove. This wasn't some railroading of an innocent man and he's probably done much worse as far as inciting violence.

This is like Bobby Kennedy busting mob bosses for spitting on federal property when proving they had people killed didn't work.

[OKthatsIT]

38. It's a ridiculous law

[Hardrada]

40. I agree.

[Mesteryo]

45. I disagree...

I think it's a good law in light of the percentage of hate crimes against Jews in Europe. This law seems to only be used against inciteful people trying to provoke violence against Jews. It's not used on some drunk moron ranting at a pub but inciteful Nazi activists.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

50. You may disagree with it, but I think it can hardly be called "ridiculous." -nt

[UndertheOcean]

41. Thought crime , plane and simple

Free speech is absolute ,and its only consequence should be social ridicule.

[Mesteryo]

43. Free speech my @ss

This isn't free speech it is a guy stirring up anti-semitic hate and passion. Attacks on synagogues and Jews have become a major issue and I'm betting the website goes beyond just saying the "Holocaust isn't true".

The website more than likely incites violent hatred towards Jews as well. Speech designed to incite violence shouldn't be protected speech.

Jews have a right to be safe and live in any community and if this guy's speech rights interfere they should be limited.

[BreweryYardRat]

48. Good on them. Throw the son of a bitch in jail.

And if he's advocated violence against Jews, hang him and be done. Anyone inclined to complain about this -- take a college course that discusses the Holocaust. After you've read an Auschwitz survivor's account of a crippled girl thrown alive onto a truck bound for the crematoria or picking infants out of the floors of the cattle cars used to transport people to the camp -- where they'd been dropped in the crush of people and trampled underfoot -- it's impossible to have any sympathy for assholes like this.