CHORUS LED BY 'LORD' OF DUBIOUS REPUTE

 

Jews upset by historian's release

 

Lord Janner: Irving not welcome in UK
European Jewish Press Friday, 21 December 2006

By DAVID BYERS

LONDON — British Jewish leaders have spoken out against a
ruling which sees British Holocaust denier David Irving released
early from prison in Austria.

Veteran Jewish activist Lord Greville Janner, a former Labor MP,
led the chorus of disapproval after a Vienna court has ruled that
historian Irving, convicted on charges of denying the Holocaust,
should serve the rest of his three-year sentence on probation.

At the end of Irving’s appeal against his earlier conviction on
Wednesday, Vienna’s highest court ruled to convert two-thirds
of Irving’s three-year sentence into probation, according to the
Austria Press Agency APA.

Since Irving has already spent more than 13 months behind bars,
the ruling means he will be released from prison immediately.

His lordship dons a yarmulke.

Lord Janner, the vice president of the World Jewish Congress
and president of the Commonwealth Jewish Council, said after
the ruling: "I am sorry that he did not serve out his full term,
and I hope he will remain in Austria and not return to the United
Kingdom, where he will not be welcome."

Labor peer Lord George Foulkes said he was “shocked” by the
decision. A member of the Policy Council of Labor Friends of
Israel, he said: "It is outrageous that he should be allowed to get
away with serving such a relatively short part of his sentence.

"He will, I fear, be able to come out and cause great distress to
people by continuing to propagate his false and perverted version
of history.

"To call himself a historian is a perversion of that word, because
his version of history is fiction rather than fact. I am shocked."

'Falsifier of history'

Other Jewish activists in Britain claimed that, regardless of whether
or not Irving was released, his reputation as a historian had
been "shot."

Chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust Karen Pollock
said: "Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism dressed up as intellectual
debate and Irving’s reputation as a credible historian is shot.

"In 2000 a British High Court judge branded David Irving as a
falsifier of history and a racist who, for his own ideological reasons,
persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated
historical evidence.

"In Austria, David Irving has been convicted of the crime, regardless
of the length of the sentence he serves.

"Nevertheless, with the recent conference in Iran, attended by
deniers and neo-Nazi sympathizers, we are reminded of the need
to remain vigilant to ensure that Holocaust denial, in whatever guise
it appears, is challenged.

In custody since November 2005

"The most effective way of challenging deniers is through educating
and informing generations — the experience of Holocaust survivors
and, of course, our own British troops who fought Nazism and
liberated the Nazi death camps, speaks for itself."

Irving has been in custody in Austria since his November 2005 arrest on charges stemming from two speeches he gave in Austria in 1989 for which he was accused of denying the Nazis’ [alleged]
extermination of six million Jews.

In February, a Vienna court sentenced Irving to three years behind
bars under a 1992 law, which applies to "whoever denies, grossly lays down, approves or tries to excuse the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity in a print publication, in broadcast or other media".

Brought to court in handcuffs

The law calls for a prison term of up to 10 years. In September,
Austria’s highest court upheld Irving’s conviction.

Irving has contended that most of those who died at concentration
camps like Auschwitz succumbed to diseases such as typhus rather
than execution.

Irving was present at Wednesday’s hearing and was brought into
the packed courtroom in handcuffs.

Lord Foulkes called on the British government to express its concern
to the Austrian authorities over the legal ruling, but Irving said: "I’m
returning to England. I’m fit and well but feeling sorry for my family.

"I’m calling for the academic boycott until the German and Austrian
governments stop putting historians in prison.

"I was put in prison for three years for expressing an opinion 17 years ago," he added.

http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/uk/12380

RELATED STORIES:

'Lord' Janner Buggers Young Boy, Just for Kicks
http://www.ety.com/HRP/letters/180901a.htm

Case of Lord Greville Janner
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/Janner_Greville.html