The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/press/35000_Debt.0201


Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/press/35000_Debt.0201
Last-Modified: 2002/01/29

http://www.ajn.com.au/driver.asp?page=main/contents/news/news-3

$35,000 debt may thwart Irving visa bid
Stefan Bialoguski 

AN outstanding $35,000 debt to the Australian taxpayer has thrown up a
further obstacle to Holocaust denier David Irving's latest attempt to
enter Australia. 

Irving's previous visa application, in 1996, was rejected because of
his history of criminal convictions and dishonesty. 

Last August, Irving filed another visa application, ostensibly to
allow him to promote his book, Churchill's War, in this country. 

But the Australian High Commission, in a letter posted on Irving's
website, has queried his application. 

Australian immigration officials have again raised the issues of his
1992 conviction and subsequent expulsion from Germany for Holocaust
denial, his lying while under oath before a Canadian immigration
adjudicator, and a British High Court judge's 1994 finding that he had
given false evidence while trying to purge an earlier contempt of
court. 

In addition, the High Commission has now raised the issue of "an
unpaid debt of $35,140 to the Australian Government for litigation
costs awarded to the Minister [of Immigration]". 

The debt was incurred by Irving's failed court challenge of the
government's refusal of his 1996 visa application. 

The government has given Irving until 8 March to put his case. 

Irving was found to be an antisemitic, racist, pro-Nazi polemicist who
deliberately falsified the historical record to make it conform with
his political beliefs by a British judge who rejected his attempt to
sue Professor Deborah Lipstadt for libel two years ago. Irving says he
plans to respond this week. 

In comments posted on his website, dated last Friday,
Irving accuses the Australian Government of "seeking
grounds to exclude me."

He dismisses the accusations of dishonesty as "absolutely
untrue" and accuses the German Government of suppressing
free speech.

He concludes: "I will get out a reply to the Australians
in the next day or two, after taking legal advice. I suspect
that the final hurdle they will put up is the $35,000
costs."

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jeremy Jones
said: "Despite the fact that he owed Australian taxpayers
this money, he involved himself in extensive, time-consuming
and costly litigation against Deborah Lipstadt - litigation
which he lost. It is staggering that he seems to believe that
Australian taxpayers should treat him as a charity case."

=30=


Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.