Dr Fredrick Toben, who was arrested in Mannheim,
Germany, by Hans-Heiko
Klein and superintendant Mohr on April 8, 1999, on a charge of
"defaming
the memory of the dead", 'incitement to hatred'and other
charges, and who
is also Director of the revisioniost website, Adelaide Institute,
at
<http;//www.adam.com.au/fredadin>,
is to be tried at the Landgericht or
County Court at Mannheim, Germany, starting November 8, 1999.
According
to German law, no questioning of the orthodox story of the Holocaust
is
permissable: it is a federal offense to do so, and thus Germans
cannot
assess or examine this part of their real or alleged history to
check the
veracity of the claims.
RAISES SEVERAL ISSUES:
One of the issues is that of ENTRAPMENT. This
arrest arose out of a private
conversation between Toben and (the two above-named) German officials.
At
no time did Toben conduct rallies, speeches or even ordinary conversations
with ordinary German citizens that cast any doubt on holocaust
events.
Claims of 'incitement to hatred' about a discussion between Toben
and other
people are thus unsustainable. (The meeting was not public - it
took place
in Klein's office!)
FREE SPEECH ON THE INTERNET
George Orwell said that free speech means the
right to say what other
people do not wish to hear. Unless free speech is absolute, it
is not free
speech: it is conditioned speech or suppressed speech. The issue
is that of
free speech, not whether or not others agree or disagree with
the
viewpoint.
From the viewpoint of free speech, individuals
who access Adelaide
Institute website should have the chance to weigh and consider
the merits
of its viewpoint, and accept or reject it for themselves, without
Big
Brother determining its acceptability for them. This comes at
a time when
the Alston bill to censor free speech on the Internet has been
cleared in
the Australian Parliament and will come into operation next year.
INTERNET INTERNATIONAL NOT GERMAN-OWNED
The German government takes the view that downloading
Adelaide Institute
(documents) in Germany makes it German and thus subject to German
law. This
is like saying that something made in England which is sold in
France
automatically becomes French.
But cyberspace is an international medium,transcending national boundaries.
LEGAL IN AUSTRALIA
Dr Toben's revisionist viewpoints, and those
of Adelaide Institute are
legal in Australia, and it is a violation of Dr Toben's rights
as an
Australian citizen to be arrested over the issue. The Australian
government
has a moral obligation to demand his release as an Australian
citizen.
Instead, it only extends normal consular assistance to him.
These are some of the issues raised by the
Toben trial which deserve
attention; PLEASE GIVE THE MATTER SOME PUBLICITY.
Geoff. Muirden, Acting Director, Adelaide Institute ([email protected])
<end>
Mannheim Court telephone is 011-49-621-2920 and fax 011-49-621-292-1141
Trial at 8. , 10., 11. und 15 November in Mannheim,
Landgericht, Street: A 1,
9.00 a.m
See the indictment as it was written by H.-H Klein in June (original German)
This text has been displayed on the Net, and forwarded to you
as a tool for educational purpose, further research, on a non
commercial and fair use basis, by the International Secretariat
of the Association des Anciens Amateurs de Recits de Guerres et
d'Holocaustes (AAARGH). The E-mail of the Secretariat is <aaarghinternational-at-hotmail.com.
Mail can be sent at PO Box 81475, Chicago, IL 60681-0475, USA..
We see the act of displaying a written document on Internet as
the equivalent to displaying it on the shelves of a public library.
It costs us a modicum of labor and money. The only benefit accrues
to the reader who, we surmise, thinks by himself. A reader looks
for a document on the Web at his or her own risks. As for the
author, there is no reason to suppose that he or she shares any
responsibilty for other writings displayed on this Site. Because
laws enforcing a specific censorship on some historical question
apply in various countries (Germany, France, Israel, Switzerland,
Canada, and others) we do not ask their permission from authors
living in thoses places: they wouldn't have the freedom to consent.
We believe we are protected by the Human Rights Charter:
ARTICLE 19. <Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.>The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, in Paris.