SPECIAL NOTE: We're in the course of stopping smoking. The next several
issues of the newsletter may be reduced in size.
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The Internet Anti-Fascist: Tuesday, 11 April 2000
Vol. 4, Number 31 (#412)
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CONTENTS
News On Hate-Based Publishing
Steve Busfield (BBC), "Irving loses Holocaust libel case," 11 Apr 00
Paul Goble (Radio Free Europe), "Hatred On The Web: [German Government
Report on the Internet]," 5 Apr 00
What's Worth Checking: 10 stories
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NEWS ON HATE-BASED PUBLISHING
Irving loses Holocaust libel case
Steve Busfield (BBC)
11 Apr 00
Historian David Irving has lost his emotive libel case against the American
academic who accused him of denying the scale of the Holocaust. After
considering the case for almost four weeks, Judge Charles Gray ruled
against Irving, saying he failed to prove his reputation had been damaged.
Mr Irving, who outraged survivors of Nazi death camps, was seeking damages
over Professor Deborah Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the Holocaust: The
Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, which he claimed had generated waves
of hatred against him.
Professor Lipstadt and her publishers, Penguin Books, both denied libelling
Mr Irving by branding him "a Holocaust denier" in a book which attacked
revisionists alleged to have denied or downplayed the slaughter of 6m Jews
during the second world war.
Under British law, Lipstadt and her co-defendant were not able to rely
solely on truth as a defence. Irving has said he would not appeal.
In his closing speech, Mr Irving, 62, said the book was the culmination of
a 30-year campaign against him that had left him the most "vilified"
historian ever.
Mr Irving said he had never claimed that the Holocaust did not occur, but
did question the number of Jewish dead and denied their systematic
extermination in concentration camp gas chambers.
Arguing that the killing of millions was logistically impossible, he said
that a judgment in his favour would not mean that the Holocaust did not
happen, but that discussion was still permitted in England today.
Eldred Tabachnik QC, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews,
welcomed the judgment.
He said: "The board is pleased that David Irving's action against Professor
Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books has been so clearly rejected by
the British courts. The decision proves that David Irving is a falsifier of
history. Irving follows the short line of Holocaust deniers who aim to
resurrect Nazism by denying the planned destruction of the European Jews.
"Although the Holocaust itself was not an issue at the trial, we welcome
the fact that attempts to manipulate the truth about the tragic events of
that time have been shown to be baseless."
Both sides had been told the verdict yesterday, leaving the announcement of
the result in court today somewhat muted. Mr Irving is now likely to face
defence costs estimated at £2m.
Mr Justice Gray said the charges he had found to be substantially true were
that "Irving had for his own ideological reasons persistently and
deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence".
That "for the same reasons, he had portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly
favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and
responsibility for the treatment of the Jews".
The judge said he found that Irving was "an active Holocaust denier; that
he was anti-semitic and racist and that he associated with right-wing
extremists who promoted neo-Nazism".
The judge said there were certain defamatory imputations which he had found
to be defamatory of Irving, but said that in his judgment the charges
against him which had been proved to be true were of "sufficient gravity"
for it to be clear that the failure to prove the truth of other matters did
not have any material effect on Irving's reputation.
He said that "in the result therefore the defence of justification
succeeds".
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Hatred On The Web: [German Government Report on the Internet]
Paul Goble (Radio Free Europe)
5 Apr 00
Washington, 5 April 2000 (RFE/RL) -- Neo-Nazis and other extremist groups
are increasingly turning to the Internet to spread their messages, a tactic
that limits the ability of national governments to restrict the speech of
those who seek to incite ethnic hatred in many countries.
The German government on Tuesday released its annual report about extremist
threats in that country. The report said that the number of neo-Nazis there
had dropped over the past year and that the authorities had had some
success in limiting their recruitment efforts at skinhead concerts.
But the report noted that the neo-Nazis and other anti-foreigner groups are
increasingly turning to the Internet, a channel that Berlin lacks the
ability to control in the same way that it can regulate other activities on
its territory.
According to the report, the number of neo-Nazi web sites has grown from
200 two years ago to more than 330 now. Many feature materials which
violate German laws against the incitement of racial hatred. But because
these sites are posted on Internet providers based outside Germany, the
German authorities cannot act against them directly.
Most of these sites are now carried by Internet service providers in the
United States and Canada, the report noted. It added that German officials
have now turned to U.S. organizations like the Anti-Defamation League to
try to force U.S.-based providers to block such sites.
If the German authorities are able to get U.S. agreement to block such
sites -- an open question at this time given U.S. protections of freedom of
speech -- the extremist groups will likely move their sites to Internet
service providers elsewhere and continue to spread their hateful ideas.
That prospect raises three fundamental issues for the international
community, issues that officials and analysts in many countries are now
grappling with.
First, will there ever be a sufficient consensus internationally to block
the sites of such groups? On the one hand, many governments, especially
those in Europe and North America oppose restricting speech at all, even if
it is hateful, and thus will resist efforts to impose what they view as
"censorship" on the Internet. On the other hand, some other governments
and even more private organizations actually support the dissemination of
extremist ideas either because they agree with them, because they believe
that they are damaging to their political opponents, or simply because they
are interested in making a profit.
Second, is the technology going to be there to block the appearance and
maintenance of such sites if national governments do reach agreement on
what to do?
Technology is advancing so quickly that many people have come to expect it
in the very near future to be able to block extremist sites without harming
the broader communications opportunities that the Internet makes possible.
But the history of web development thus far suggests that, even in the
future, those who want to set up and maintain such sites are likely to be
able to find ways around any efforts to restrict them -- unless governments
and Internet service providers are prepared to sacrifice other values as
well.
Third, can the international community rely on the Western liberal position
that the proper response to evil speech is more good speech?
Because the speech on some of these sites is so hateful and because such
speech often provokes illegal and immoral actions against individuals and
groups, ever more governments and people are beginning to ask whether the
Western view about free speech can and should be maintained.
This is not the first time such questions have been raised. Two decades
ago, the Soviet government and many third world regimes began talking about
the need to create an international information order that would allow them
to maintain control over the media their populations had access to.
Western governments generally opposed the proposals of this group, seeing
them as undermining the free flow of information on which free societies
are based. But now faced with the power of the Internet and its
exploitation by extremist groups, even some of these Western governments
are beginning to have second thoughts.
And their reconsideration of their earlier opposition to a new
international information order threatens to reopen a debate many had
thought closed by the end of the Cold War.
And that debate by itself may come to have profound consequences far beyond
the hate sites on the Internet that have triggered it and even undermine
the very possibilities for democracy and freedom in many countries still
struggling to achieve these goals.
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WHAT'S WORTH CHECKING
stories via <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/story6/>
AP. "Report: Nazi Plot Outlined in Papers," 25 Mar 00, "Half-century-old
documents of Italy's Defense Department cite an attempt by ex-Nazi officers
to mobilize Hitler's old military to restore greater Germany, a news
service reported Saturday. The 1953-54 scheme reached an advanced stage of
planning under the protection of then-Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the
Italian intelligence reports claim, according to Italy's AGI news service,
saying it had obtained the documents." <1516.txt>
Reuters, "Czech Interior Minister Bans Ultra-Right Group," 1 Apr 00, "The
Czech government will disband a far-right political group for promoting
racial hatred, the Interior Minister Vaclav Grulich said on Friday. In
remarks carried on Czech Radio, Grulich said he had decided to revoke the
legal registration of the Narodni Aliance (National Alliance), due to
repeated violations of Czech law." <1517.txt>
PFAW (press release), "Florida Drops Unconstitutional 'Bible History'
Courses, Revamps Curriculum: Response to PFAWF's Investigation Could End
Constitutional Violations," 16 Mar 00 <1518.txt>
Chuck Crumbo (Knight Rider News Service), "Housing director battling
bigotry," 3 Apr 00, "The sign posted in the front yard said, 'For Sale,
Whites Only.' 'I thought it was a joke,' said Ralph Haile, director of fair
housing for the S.C. Human Affairs Commission. Haile went to see the
elderly seller and explained it was illegal to discriminate against a buyer
because of skin color. But she told him it was her house and she could do
as she pleased. Then she excused herself and returned moments later with a
handgun stuck in the waistband of her dress. Haile got out of the house in
a hurry and later took the woman to court. She didn't show up, the judge
ruled against her and fined her $10,000." <1519.txt>
Sam Stanton and Gary Delsohn (Rocky Mountain News), "Arson defendants,
cases contrast," 2 Apr 00, "Matthew and Tyler Williams are expected to
arrive in Sacramento this week for their first federal court appearance in
connection with last summer's synagogue arson spree, but the cases against
the two brothers likely will be polar opposites. While Matthew Williams has
admitted setting at least one of the fires and killing two gay men near
Redding, he is expected to present a series of controversial problems for
federal officials here. More problematic is the case against Tyler
Williams, which officials on both sides say is largely circumstantial and
which Tyler Williams' supporters say is virtually nonexistent." <1520.txt>
PFAW (press release), "Private School Vouchers Found Unconstitutional In
Florida: Five of Six Voucher Plans Have Now Failed to Pass the Test of
Court Challenges," 14 Mar 00, "The road that advocates had hoped would lead
to increasing voucherization of American education has today turned into
another blind alley, with a Florida court ruling that that state's program,
which began just this school year, violates the state's constitution."
<1521.txt>
Zenit, "Pope Solemnly Asks Forgiveness For Past Faults of Church's
Children: One of Most Significant Events of Jubilee Year," 12 Mar 00,
"Today John Paul II presided over a ceremony that will pass into the
history books. For the first time, in a solemn ceremony, the Pontiff asked
forgiveness for the past and present faults of the children of the Church.
This gesture has become on of the most significant signs of the Jubilee of
the Year 2000." <1522.txt>
Jan M. Olsen (AP), "Denmark Neo-Nazi Leader Sentenced," 29 Mar 00, "The
leader of Denmark's largest neo-Nazi group was sentenced to a year in
prison Wednesday for attempting to run down a group of activists outside
his organization's headquarters last year." <1523.txt.txt>
Emery P. Dalesio (AP), "Anti-government activist faces trial for bank
fraud, threats," 20 Mar 00, "A Western North Carolina anti-government
activist with ties to the Montana Freemen faces trial today on charges he
threatened IRS agents and federal judges and tried to pass worthless checks
to the IRS and banks. Peter Kay Stern, a retired engineer from Franklin and
chief justice of a self-described 'common-law' court, has been held without
bond since his arrest in September. A federal magistrate ruled there was
'evidence of threats and weaponry which could be used to kill law
enforcement'." <1524.txt>
Laurie Asseo (AP), "High Court To Rule on Hate Crimes," 28 Mar 00, "The
case of a white New Jersey man who fired shots into a black family's home
asks the Supreme Court to decide when judges can impose longer sentences
under hate-crime laws. Charles C. Apprendi Jr., who fired the shots in
1994, says a jury - not the judge - must decide whether he acted because of
racial prejudice. He initially told police he wanted to give the family a
message that they did not belong in his otherwise all-white neighborhood.
Later he said the shooting had no racial motive." <1525.txt>
* * * * *
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.
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FASCISM:
We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget.
(No permission required for noncommercial reproduction)
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