WORLD BRIEFING / AUSTRALIA
An Australian who has denied the Holocaust occurred was sentenced to three months in prison for defying an order to stop publishing anti-Semitic material on his website.
Fredrick Toben remained free after the judge gave him two weeks to lodge an appeal.
Justice Bruce Lander of the Federal Court found Toben, 65, guilty on 24 counts of contempt of a 2002 court ruling that barred him from publishing anti-Semitic material on the website of his organization, the Adelaide Institute.
The material found to be in breach of the order included suggestions the Holocaust did not happen, questioned whether there were gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp, and challenged the intelligence of Jews who questioned Holocaust deniers’ beliefs.
Toben said the ruling was a defeat for free speech.
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