Court bans racist website Ian Gerard SEPTEMBER 18, 2002
AN Adelaide website has been ordered to remove material that casts doubt on whether the Holocaust occurred, in a landmark Federal Court decision.
It is the first time an Australian court has upheld a complaint about racial vilification on the internet, enforces an October 2000 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission decision.
Adelaide Institute director Fredrick Toben was ordered yesterday to remove all offending material from the site within a week, and banned from publishing similar material.
Judge Catherine Branson ruled that Dr Toben vilified Jewish Australians when he published documents on the Adelaide Institute site that cast doubt over the Holocaust.
The Adelaide Institute claims the Auschwitz concentration camp had no homicidal gas chambers and states that the number of Jews killed during World War II was exaggerated.
"The director of the Adelaide Institute has published material on the world wide web which is reasonably likely, in all of the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate and intimidate Jewish Australians or a group of Jewish Australians," Judge Branson ruled.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jeremy Jones said the decision struck a blow against organised racism in Australia.
"This case won't end hate material on the internet but does indicate that if you have been vilified on the net, and thought it was too complex to deal with, you now have some legal precedent to assist you to maintain your human rights."
Dr Toben, who has spent seven months in a German jail for inciting racial hatred and defaming the memory of the dead, said the decision marked the end of free speech in Australia, and he would appeal. C'mon, you miserable bastard, where's your appeal? Surely your fan club can put together a few bucks to help you out.......loser...........Snookers comments re Toben
"It's terrible for our moral and intellectual integrity not being able to question the Holocaust," Dr Toben said.
Australian Council of Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman criticised the ruling, saying it would interfere with a person's fundamental right of freedom of speech.
"No matter how stupid and misguided Toben's views are, freedom of speech means the right to be stupid," Mr O'Gorman said.
