Fed: Jews take action against SA Holocaust denier

AAP General News (Australia)
04-04-2001
Fed: Jews take action against SA Holocaust denier

By Sharon Labi

SYDNEY, April 4 AAP - The Australian Jewish community has launched Federal Court action
against a Holocaust revisionist convicted of defaming the memory of the dead.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry is seeking to have a Human Rights and Equal
Opportunities Commission (HREOC) order against South Australian man Frederick Toben enforced.

The commission last October ordered Mr Toben to apologise to the Executive Council's
national vice-president Jeremy Jones and to remove Holocaust revision material from his
Adelaide Institute website.

But Mr Toben has complied with neither order and the Jewish community is now seeking
costs as well.

Mr Toben today said he was expecting the legal action and had not complied with the
commission's orders because its procedures were flawed.

"HREOC's procedure is terribly flawed, it's an irrational business of reaching a conclusion
on the basis of hurt feelings," Mr Toben told AAP.

"The principle of free speech is at stake here."

Mr Toben has been jailed in Germany for defaming the memory of the dead.

The Jewish community had no alternative but to take legal action, Mr Jones said.

"The material (on his website) is clearly offensive, it's blatantly anti-Jewish and
blatantly racist," he said.

"We lodged these complaints because there were people whose quality of life was being
diminished by the actions of Olga Scully and Frederick Toben.

"Their quality of life is still being diminished because these acts are continuing
and that's why we feel we need to go to the Federal Court."

The Jewish community earlier this year lodged Federal Court action against Tasmanian
woman Olga Scully for failing to comply with HREOC orders to stop distributing antisemitic
material in that state.

A directions hearing for the case against Mr Toben is set down for May but Mr Toben
said he would seek an adjournment because he would be overseas.

Mr Toben was scheduled to speak at an international Holocaust deniers' conference in
Beirut last weekend but it was cancelled at the last moment by the Lebanese government.

AAP sal/rp

KEYWORD: TOBEN

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