Latest on Fred Toben

Adelaide Institute director Dr Fred Toben has just written after his first four months in a German jail -- held without trial on account of materials posted on his Australian Website, to which the notorious German public prosecutor Hans-Heiko Klein [right] had taken exception. Toben, an Australian revisionist, was arrested in Klein's Mannheim, Germany, office in April 1999.

His German lawyer, Dr L Bock, has confirmed that the formal indictment was filed with the Landgericht, or Provincial Court, on June 21,1999; he has one month in which to reply to it. His trial is not now expected to be before October, 1999 therefore.

There has been speculation that Dr Toben expected to be arrested when meeting Herr Klein in the Prosecutor's office, and even courted prosecution; Dr Toben has denied this. In an article published on Feb. 22, written 1999 before leaving Australia, he stated that he did not seek to confront the law or challenge it directly; he did expect to visit Klein for purposes of discussion. He had met Klein previously without threat of arrest.

The Adelaide Institute charges that their director Dr Toben was the victim of entrapment. Not unexpectedly, Alexander Downer, of the Australian Foreign Ministry, has refused to challenge the decision of the German government to arrest Dr Toben, and has extended to him the normal consular service due to an ordinary Australian citizen.

Freedom of speech on the Internet in Australia, notes the Institute, has been threatened by the passage of an Internet Censorship Bill on Jun. 30, 1999, despite vigorous opposition from many campaigners for free speech, notably Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) which described the censorship Bill as "draconian".

A letter received from Dr Toben's German jail cell shows that he is determined to maintain his commitment to free speech:

"I am in my fourth month in a prison cell, and although I'm still here, I would do it all over again. Only now do I understand the true value of free speech -- in the past having belonged to the talkers. But talk about free speech is cheap.

"Now the real fight is on, and Adelaide Institute and its supporters are showing the way - viam monstrare (a reference to the Adelaide Institute motto, "to show the way") into the global electronic village, lit up by the flame of truth.

"The evil forces of censorship may have succeeded in passing the Internet Censorship Bill, and would-be smalltime dictators may label us "racist", but we shall continue to provide uncensored historical material.

"Our only criterion is truth-content, and in the Internet-library of the universe, we shall soon become irrelevant if we tell lies!

"Mature adults do not wish to be told what they ought to see and read. The dictators who want to enslave our minds fear the Internet because it gives us our humanity- the freedom to think and speak.

"Those who say we indulge in 'hate' talk by raising historical issues, ought to see and read. The dictators who want to enslave our minds fear the Internet because it gives us our humanity -- the freedom to think and speak.

"Those who say we indulge in 'hate' talk by raising historical issues, ought to tell us where we are lying. We maintain that there is no proof that Germany systematically exterminated German Jewry in homicidal gas chambers during World War II. Why cannot Mr Jeremy Jones [of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry] show us or draw us a homicidal gas chamber? Or show us the alleged four insertion holes in the alleged homicidal gas chamber at Auschwitz-Birkenau? Or just shut up and admit that there is no proof, and you are either ignorant or historical facts or worse still, that you are lying.

"Thank God for the liberating forces of the Internet, and I thank all those individuals who have supported our battle financially and morally. On paper and on the Internet we have won this war. The final background is in the law courts, the most difficult one ... even in Germany, truth is no defence [a reference to the fact that, after a challenge to the Adelaide Institute Website by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry to the Human Rights & Equal Opportunity Commission, the Commission refused to accept factual historical evidence, because :"truth is no defence"]

"This makes any court case a joke, and immoral. Where truth is no defence, the lies flourish. Where lies flourish, evil triumphs and good people begin to suffer and hurt.

"This is not what is in Australia's best interests."