Gerald Frederick Toben arrested @ Heathrow

Update (October 4) : Unkle Fred’s extradition hearing has been adjourned, and he’s been remanded in custody. Word on the street is that the remand centre has a swimming pool, hospital, brothel, dentist, daycare and theatre. His next hearing is scheduled to take place October 10, followed by a full hearing October 17. According to The Guardian: A small group of supporters, including the controversial British historian, David Irving, attended today’s hearing. Outside the courtroom Irving, who was jailed in Austria for denying the Holocaust, said: “Either you have freedom of speech or you don’t. Freedom of speech means the right to be wrong.” Asked if he agreed with Toben, he said: “I disapprove of some of his views but he has the right to express them. This case is about the right to say what you think and the right to be wrong.” SMH: Also present at the hearing was ‘Lady Michele Renouf’, aka Countess Michèle Susan Mainwaring Griaznoff Peacock Sangster Renouf … a LADY of the New Right.

Update : According to a report in Deutsche-Welle, “In 1999, Toben spent seven months in jail in Germany and has served an 11-month sentence in Austria for Holocaust denial. In 2006, [as] a speaker at a controversial two-day conference in Tehran organized by the Iranian government and attended by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… he described as “mere puffery” the assertion that Jews were killed by the Nazis.” The Australian Jewish News (Toben could face jail in Germany and Australia, Peter Kohn) reflects on the ramifications Mr. T’s trial may have for current proceedings against him Down Under.

Poor old Unkle Fred. Or should I say ‘Gerald’? According to Aunty:

Man accused of Holocaust denial
BBC
October 1, 2008

An alleged Holocaust denier has been arrested by police after flying into Heathrow Airport in London. The Metropolitan Police’s extradition unit detained Australian Gerald Töben, 64, under an EU arrest warrant issued by the German authorities. He is accused of publishing material on the internet that “denies, approves of or plays down the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis”. He is due to appear at London’s City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court. The arrest warrant alleges that Mr Toben committed the offence in Australia, Germany and other countries, and that the material is also “of an anti-Semitic and/or revisionist nature”.

Interesting stuff. An Australian citizen, Unkle Fredrik is apparently being arrested, in England, on the basis that his Internet publications may be read in Germany — where Holocaust denial is a crime.

Töben is of course a close comrade of Welf Herfurth, the ‘national anarchist’ and fuehrer of the New Reich Right, a fascist political formation most recently championed — albeit sneakily — by Darrin Hodges of the Australian Protectionist Party. In 2007, Herfurth addressed the Inverell Forum on the topic of how ace the NPD is; at the same conference, Richard Krege, another denialist, also spoke. Like Krege, Töben attended the Holocaust conference in Tehran (‘the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust’ to give its full title) in 2006. The APP, for its part, is arranging for the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, to tour the colonies in December. He too, is on record as denying the Holocaust.

Above : Fredrick Töben (Adelaide Institute) and Welf Herfurth (ex-One Nation, Australia First Party) annexe Sydney using the MaGiCaL pOwErS invested in Horst Mahler‘s flag and on behalf of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, January 27, 2005.

This is not the first time the madcap amateur anti-Semite Unkle Fred has been in trouble:

Australian historian faces German jail over Holocaust views
ABC
April 20, 1999

Now to the case of the Australian revisionist historian whose arrest in Germany has become an international test case for freedom of speech on the Internet. Dr Fredrick Töben, who is the director of a group called the Adelaide Institute has been charged under a German law which prohibits defaming the memory of the dead. German authorities allege Dr Töben has questioned the scale of the Holocaust and dismissed accounts detailing the use of gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps. If found guilty he faces five years in jail…

As a result, Unkle Fred was imprisoned for nine months (or possibly seven, or ten — depending on the source) at Mannheim Prison for breaching Germany’s Holocaust Law, Section 130, that prohibits anyone from “defaming the dead”. Well, sorta… the relevant section of Section 130 of the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, StGB) reads:

3) Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or renders harmless an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the type indicated in Section 220a subsection (1), in a manner capable of disturbing the public [peace] shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine.

(4) Subsection (2) shall also apply to writings (Section 11 subsection (3)) with content such as is indicated in subsection (3).

(5) In cases under subsection (2), also in conjunction with subsection (4), and in cases of subsection (3), Section 86 [Use of Symbols of Unconstitutional Organizations] subsection (3), shall apply correspondingly.

Section 220a Genocide:

(1) Whoever, with the intent of destroying as such, in whole or in part, a national, racial or religious group or one characterized by its folk customs by:

1. killing members of the group;

2. inflicting serious physical or emotional harm, especially of the type indicated in Section 226 on members of the group;

3. placing the group in living conditions capable of leading, in whole or in part, to their physical destruction;

4. imposing measures which are intended to prevent births within the group;

5. forcibly transferring children of the group into another group,

shall be punished with imprisonment for life.

(2) In less serious cases under subsection (1), numbers 2 to 5, the punishment shall be imprisonment for not less than five years.

Most recently (August 2008), Unkle Fred was awaiting a verdict on charges of contempt of court for defying the Federal Court’s 2002 order to remove Holocaust-denial material from his website, in a case brought by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).

Incidentally, Martin Fletcher of Downunder Newslinks launched an appeal on behalf of Unkle Fred in April last year following news of Jeremy Jones’ court action: “Help Dr. Fredrick Toben; Help Free Speech”, Martin appealed, writing that “Dr. Frederick Toben, fearless Revisionist, is being persecuted by Australian Jewry for not telling their version of the Holocaust on his web site”. Earlier, in January 2007, Martin opined: “It is disgraceful to see [a] great mind being silenced for searching for the truth behind the Holocaust. The “facts” need to be brought out into the public for all to see instead of being covered up and buried. Many people throughout the world have been jailed for questioning the events of the Holocaust. Why would researching the Holocaust be made against the law in so many countries? Something to hide?” In March 2008, Martin commented: “Good to see Dr Toben is still fighting hard against Australian Jews”.

Martin is, of course, a close ally of Darrin Hodges, and co-moderates the APP’s ‘Australian Identity’ forum. His own website, at least for the moment, is down.

Also of interest in this context is the curious case of Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle, UK citizens convicted of similar crimes who fled to the US, where they now sit in jail in Los Angeles, while the courts decide what to do with the dynamic duo.

See also : Germany Convicts Non-Resident Blogger for Inciting Hatred by Denying Holocaust, Kelly O’Connell, IBLS, September 18, 2008 | Electronic Frontiers Australia. And let’s hope the authorities don’t deny they’ve got Unkle Fred in custody eh?