LIBERAL – and not so liberal - opinion is falling all over itself to defend Australia-based holocaust denier Fredrick Töben, who remains under threat of deportation to Germany following his arrest at Heathrow last week.
Töben, of course, was imprisoned for nine months in Mannheim in 1999 for propagating his execrable views, and was one of the star turns at the Tehran holocaust denial conference in 2006.
This is a man who considers the claim that Nazi Germany slaughtered six million Jews to be a straightforward ‘lie’, and moreover a lie perpetuated by ‘the holocaust racketeers, the corpse peddlers and the shoah business merchants’.
As far as I am aware, such a stance is more extreme than the public pronouncements on this issue of any leading European fascist party leader.
In language that parallels that of some publications of the left, Töben also maintains that ‘the current US government is influenced by world Zionist considerations to retain the survival of the European colonial, apartheid, Zionist, racist entity of Israel.’
Yet Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, insists that his arrest runs contrary to Britain’s tradition of free speech. Huhne maintains: I come to this as a good, classic liberal. It is a fundamental part of our system that we believe in freedom of speech and, like Voltaire, I may disparage what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
As far as I can make out, Melanie Phillips’ opposition to extradition – in a full page article in today’s Daily Mail – is largely motivated more by the hard right’s europhobia than concern for any abstract consideration of freedom of speech.
The extradition request, you see, comes on the back of a European arrest warrant. Thus British nationals can in theory be arrested here and shipped to other EU countries that accuse them of committing a crime, even if the alleged crime is not a crime according to British law. Philip Johnston, writing in the Daily Telegraph, makes much the same case.
But need those against Töben’s extradition be particularly worried? It’s just that my mind goes back to October 1998, when former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet - in London to seek medical treatment at a private clinic off Harley Street - was arrested on a Spanish provisional warrant for the murder in of Spanish citizens during his free market dictatorship.
Five days later, he was served with a second provisional arrest warrant, charging him with systematic torture, murder, illegal detention, and forced disappearances. These are matters incomparably more grave, of course, than the online inculcation of holocaust denial.
Spain’s case was largely founded on the principle of universal jurisdiction, which is the idea that certain crimes are sufficiently serious to constitute crimes against humanity, and should thus be open for prosecution in any court, anywhere in the world.
The British House of Lords ruled that Pinochet had no right to immunity from prosecution as a former head of state, and could be put on trial. And New Labour’s response?
After placing Pinochet under house arrest - during which he received ample visits from many of his Tory fan club, such as Lady Thatcher - the then home secretary Jack Straw in March 2000 ruled that he should be released on medical grounds.
To put it mildly, this craven display of cowardice, motivated in part by Straw’s inability to stand up to the pressure exerted by this murderer’s monetarist admirers, was not this government’s finest hour.
Just how ill Pinochet was is open to question. On his return to Chile in March that year, his first act on landing back in his native country was to rise up from his chair to acknowledge the loud applause and cheering of his supporters.
The caudillo died peacefully in his bed in December, 2006, without having been convicted of any of the undoubted crimes committed during his dictatorship.
For the record, I think Huhne is on balance right, and Phillips and Johnston are correct, in so far as the narrow point of law they raise goes. For exactly the reasons they state with varying degrees of eloquence, Töben should not be sent to his country of birth. But after the Pinochet case, that somehow doesn’t seem much of a risk.
Posted at 13:58, 6 October 2008
Comments (15)
Irrespective of Toben's alleged views it does seem a worrying precedent that someone can be extradited on the basis of something they've written on the internet that contravenes a law in another country - I can see the skies clouded with aircraft ferrying bloggers back-and-forth across jurisdictions!
I wonder what Jock McTrousers' view of it is.
"For the record, I think Huhne is on balance right, and Phillips and Johnston are correct, in so far as the narrow point of law they raise goes."
what fucking planet are people on?
Don't they realise that Holocaust Deniers are the intellectual footsoldiers for National Socialism?
They are the scum that wish to whitewash the Nazis crimes, their job is not like the neo-Nazi skinheads tackling the opponents on the street, no theirs is a far more insidious role, to humanise Nazi beliefs.
That's what they do, they try to exculpate Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
So why anyone, let alone socialists, should cry, worry or be otherwise concerned when these apologists for Nazism are in trouble, is beyond me.
I positively rejoice when fascists are defeated in the streets, I smile when these bastards lose elections, I absolutely welcome their downfall, any way shape or form, that's what anyone half politically sensible would do and I am sure others feel the same.
so why, oh why do some people suddenly feel the need to cry over a be-suited neo-Nazi who's about to get his just desserts?
Bad judgement, Dave. If it wasn't for the swearing, I'd entirely agree with modernity.
Huhne has made himself look a mug by quoting a man who had some of his savings in the slave trade. When Voltaire said "you", he didn't include everybody.
And then there is Pinochet, and the deft and asute handling of the case by then Foreign Secretary Straw. By the time Pinochet went home, lots of enquiries and investigations had got under way within Chile, which is surely even more important than the bold action of the Spanish prosecutor.
Mod
Some of the Baltic states - Estonia is one, I believe - have made it a criminal offence to display communist emblems, such as the hammer and sickle.
Parts of the British left, foolishly in my book, cling to this imagery.
But technically, that could render many tankies liable to extradition, to suffer such penalties as provided for by Estonian law.
Not a development the left should support.
Have we just entered a political twilight zone? since when is it likely that a few octogenarian Tankies would be extradited to the Baltic states?
It is more likely that you would be named as the head of News International, along with George Galloway being promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer before that happens
Complete nonsense.
But let's step back a bit, 20 or 30 years ago, when the NF and various British fascist groups were advancing Holocaust denial did anyone on the Left, or anyone remotely opposed to them, feel sympathy for them?
no, of course, not
So why on earth should we cry a river for a provocative fascist who's aim is similar, if not worse, to Martin Webster and John Tyndall's?
Why not acknowledge that these Holocaust Deniers have an express purpose, which is the rehabilitation of National Socialism?
Why not acknowledge that simple fact and think through the ramifications?
so please, let's have a bit less masochistic liberalism ("I will defend to my death, etc"**) and a bit more old-fashioned antifascism?
On Socialist Unity, at the moment, they are discussing how to defeat the BNP, a great topic, and very timely, yet we should also make that obvious connection between the rise of the Extreme Right and how Holocaust Denial is used to aid these fascist beliefs.
**
see my linked to the Onion which covers this point
I think this is the only deportation I've ever supported. First time for everything, I suppose.
Also, Chris Huhne is an idiot. If he does mean it, then I'd argue that when there are so many good causes you could die for, choosing to die for the right of a Nazi to propogate racist views is a pretty poor choice. But I suppose if the religion of socialism is the language of priorities, classic liberalism is the language of really stupid priorities.
Of course, really it's just hyperbole - which undermines the entire sentiment. If this Nazi does get deported, I'm willing to bet any sum of money that Chris Huhne will not die in an attempt to stop the deportation.
Fascism is irrelevent here. As far as I can see, he is being arrested for a crime in Germany when he published literature in Australia, now, it's a matter of basic self defence. I've been told it is a crime in Germany to advocate the abolition of Germany (thjough some others have said its not) but, if it were, and I do advocate the abolitionn of Germany and its constitution, then I risk being extradicted there for writing this, apparently.
In most countries it's illegal in some sense to be against the constitution, which also explains the background to the situation in, say, the Baltic states, and also in Germany (where a swastika is an illegal symbol; a few anti-fascists have been charged for anti-constitutionalism for wearing badges where a swastika is put into a bin). I'm not aware though whether calling for the "abolition of Germany" is an offence or not. You'd have to ask the anti-Germans on that one.
Saying all that: I can go to the police and report you if you wish, Deathy... - or you could do it yourself here https://www.berlin.de/polizei/internetwache/index.php
(On the same page you can complain about your treatment and also inform the police of any planned demonstration for your release. A one-stop-cop-shop, if you wish; all details will be passed over the internet via a secure connection).
D.Z., please, do report me, and I shall fly into the night, I ahve a thousand voices, I am a master of disguise, I shall become like the ultra-left scarlet pimpernel.
I'll ask an anti-German next I see him...
Agree with Modernity here, we shouldn't have any sympathy with Töben.
Holocaust 'revisionism' and denial isn't the product of dispassionate intellectual curiousity or people lying just for the sake of it, it has a specific purpose underneath the guise of accurate historical study.
This is the resurrection of national socialism and the creation of ethnically 'pure' states as viable political alternatives.
That said, we shouldn't be calling on the state to deal with this character because any extension of state power ostensibly used to deal with the far right is invariably used against socialists as well.
"Fascism is irrelevent here."
Quite the contrary, for political activists and anyone with a sense of history, fascism is very much the point of this issue.
It is hardly coincidental that we have seen the rise of the far right in the wake of Holocaust denial.
Steadily on before the 1960s there were rather unsophisticated attempts at denying the Nazis crimes, but over the years that became a fairly sophisticated enterprise and the Internet has allowed the wider dissemination of this filth.
It is not coincidental that Holocaust denial and the rise of the Far Right go together.
After all Holocaust denial is about whitewashing the crimes of the Nazis, making equivalents, eradicating their murderous record, etc which makes joining the Far Right more palatable, ready-made excuses are available for every wannabe neo-Nazi or besuited fascist.
So antifascists should not only be concerned with the rise of the BNP and European groupings, but also the intellectual linchpins which allow that to happen: Holocaust denial.
The ready availability of Holocaust denial material helps the growth of Far Right parties, it provides them with ammunition, arguments, reasoning.
Therefore, Holocaust denial needs to be tackled straight on, in all its forms and with any readily available mechanism.
If you wouldn't shed a tear for David Irving or David Duke, then don't become weepy over Toben.
Surely the main difference between this and the Pinochet case is that the government of Chile opposed Spain's extradition warrant while Germany seems to want to get Toben.
If you will remember Straw had also used the "medical grounds" argument to oppose the extradition of Bernadette Devlin's daughter to Germany on IRA charges because he felt that this would damage the peace process.
If there are grounds for opposing Toben's deportation (I have not followed the case) they are presumably that holocaust denial is not a crime in Britsh law. I don't the Pinochet precedent comes into at all though.
You are usually more nuanced in your arguments Dave.
this issue seems to be getting clouded, so let's look at it another way:
suppose instead, that Toben had been scheduled to talk to, invigorate and help the BNP and allied neo-Nazi groupings organise in Britain, should socialists oppose him and the BNP?
I hate to ask that question, as it seems rather elementary, but who would answer in the negative ?
so if you would oppose Toben actually assisting fascists and neo-Nazis in the flesh, then why not apply that same attitude to this situation ?
Place of Publication is not the issue soome people think it is.
There was a trial, I think involving Images of child molesting, a few years ago. The Judge said he wasn't going to get involved in long and complicated arguments about where servers or Internet Service Providers were located; If the material had been downloaded in England and Wales, that constituted publication and he would try the case. This judgement has not been challenged, or even queried.
Why shouldn't a Judge in Gernmany, or any country, take a similar view? Any alternative is just too messy to think about.