Canada’s immigration minister has barred a Holocaust revisionist from entering the country.
David Irving, 54, a British historian who turned from mainstream history into rewriting the Holocaust, had intended to come to Canada after speaking engagements in the United States.
Jewish organizations here were pleased by the decision by Immigration Minister Bernard Valcourt, which reversed an earlier Immigration Department ruling that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would watch Irving but not stop him at the border.
Irving’s lawyer, Douglas Christie of Victoria, British Columbia, a defender of neo-Nazis and Holocaust revisionists, filed an appeal with the Federal Court, seeking an injunction against the ban.
John Laskin, counsel for the Canadian Jewish Congress, is asking leave to intervene at that hearing.
Irving, author of pro-Nazi apologia, such as “The Destruction of Dresden” “Churchill’s War” and “Goring,” had been slated to be in British Columbia on Oct. 28 to receive the Canadian Free Speech League’s eighth annual George Orwell Award for courageous defense of free speech.
His tour would have included addresses to Holocaust revisionist groups in Calgary, Alberta; and Kitchener, Hamilton, Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario.
Irving was told of the decision while he was in Los Angeles for a speaking engagement. The United States did not bar his entry.
On Oct. 9, he was hand-delivered a letter informing him that he was denied entry to Canada because of his criminal record and because “there are reasonable grounds to believe (you) will commit one or more offenses” in Canada.
Both the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Canadian office argued before Judge Valcourt that Irving’s conviction this year in Germany on a charge of defaming Holocaust victims made him an “ineligible class” under Canada’s immigration laws.
Irving was fined $7,200 in May by Munich Judge Thomas Stelzner for denying that Jews died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. He has long maintained that the crematoria there were built as tourist attractions.
Canada’s Immigration Act says no visitor shall be granted admission to Canada if he has been convicted of a crime in a foreign country that would constitute an indictable offense here.
The CJC and Wiesenthal Center contended that Irving’s conviction in Germany amounted to a violation of Canada’s anti-hate law.
Bernie Farber, associate national director of the CJC, said, “The Ministry of Immigration acted with speed and great sensitivity in its justifiable decision barring Irving from the country. This is yet another blow to the Canadian neo- Nazi movement.”
Irving gained notoriety in July, when the Sunday Times of London appointed him to translate diaries of Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels that were recently uncovered in a Moscow archive.
Last Friday, Irving spoke in Portland, Ore., at an engagement organized by a group called the Siegfried Society. Some 75 people paid to hear him call the Holocaust a hoax.
But an estimated three times as many people were outside the hall at Mount Hood Community College protesting his appearance, The Oregonian, a Portland daily, reported. A group of some 30 groups of Holocaust survivors, churches and others organized the protest.
With heavy security, there were no clashes between protesters and supporters. Reporters were not allowed inside, except for Philip Stanford of The Oregonian, who has been highly criticized for writing columns defending Irving’s right to speak. Police brought the members of the audience out a rear exit where there were no protesters.
About 20 people gave Irving standing ovations after he gave his view that there were no gas chambers, The Oregonian reported.
On Oct. 9, Irving addressed the national conference of the Institute for Historical Review in Southern California.
Irving’s U.S. visit was sponsored by the Milwaukee-based Siegfried Society, described as an organization for the preservation of Germanic culture and history. Its founder, born Michael Clinton but who uses the name Reinhold Clinton, was arrested in May by police in Lake Oswego, Ore., for distributing Holocaust literature.
An organizer of the protest in Portland, Shelly Shapiro of Holocaust Survivors and Friends in Pursuit of Justice, an Albany, N.Y., group, said she believes his visit was a test to see if his appearances would be allowed in the United States.
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