University closes campus
to gag Faurisson

Prof Robert Faurisson speaks to the international media after his lecture was banned by the University of Teramo

Robert Faurisson, former professor of literature at the University of Lyon, has once again exposed the hypocrisy of the academic and political establishment.

On May 18th the University of Teramo in central Italy took the remarkable step of closing its campus to prevent Faurisson from addressing students from a Masters course in Middle East studies.

The retired French professor, who has fought repeated attempts to silence him over more than three decades since he first began to question the orthodox historical account of the so-called Holocaust of European Jewry, had been invited to Teramo by Claudio Moffa, a professor of Asian and African history.

A month earlier Prof. Moffa had organised a three-day conference on Gagged History, where contributors included the Israeli peace activist Israel Shamir.

Showing unusual courage, Moffa resisted efforts by the usual suspects to prevent him from inviting Faurisson:
I want to specify that I am not a denier, but I think it is fair to allow a free debate and different interpretations of historical events.

Professor Claudio Moffa (right) and Professor Robert Faurisson (centre) after the University of Teramo closed its campus to prevent discussion of Holocaust history

Predictably however the Rector of Teramo University, Mauro Mattiolo, surrendered to the enemies of freedom, citing security considerations and a "climate of tension that could endanger the safety of students."

Note that there was no suggestion that Moffa, Faurisson or their supporters were responsible for endangering anybody's safety. In fact we should be well aware by now of the likely source of any violence where this subject is concerned. As the leftwing Jewish professor Noam Chomsky writes, Prof. Faurisson "was beaten practically to death by Jewish terrorists" during one of several assaults which he has suffered during the past thirty years.

Robert Faurisson after one of several
assaults by Jewish terrorists

Italy's higher education minister, Fabio Mussi, showed his colours by writing that an invitation to Robert Faurisson, since he "denies the gravity of the Shoah, has no academic merit, but merely bears witness to a mediocre provocation." (In assessing Mussi's views it may be relevant to point out that the minister was a member of the Italian Communist Party from 1966 until its dissolution in 1991, and now leads a far left post-communist faction called Democratic Left.)

Perhaps in the minister's view the murderous assaults on Faurisson were merely a response to such "provocation" - they certainly have never been denounced by the likes of Deborah Lipstadt, who in a recent blog posting presumes to describe Prof. Faurisson as "a vile human being", and adopts Dershowitz-style bully tactics against Moffa, suggesting that the invitation to Faurisson means that "Moffa's academic credentials are certainly called into question".

The U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center was not slow to join the Teramo witch hunt:
To welcome Faurisson is an embarrassment to Italian academia, offends the families of Italian martyrs who fell in fighting the scourge of fascism ... and encourages a perverse propaganda to incite a new generation to anti-Semitism and racist doctrine.

Even when Moffa and Faurisson tried to reconvene a meeting outside the university campus at a nearby hotel, violent protestors prevented them.

But there are signs from this latest example of academic gagging that even hitherto mainstream figures, perhaps influenced by the exposure of the establishment's lies over the Iraq war, or by the blatant injustice of the drive to jail historical sceptics such as Ernst Zundel, are now finding the courage to stand up and demand freedom.

Prof Moffa's latest post on his own website is headed:

Why Faurisson and the 'deniers' convince me more and more.

He asks:

Why is ... judicial harassment that smacks of manic obsession necessary if the arguments of Faurisson and Co are indeed 'unfounded'?

Why indeed?

JailingOpinions.com will soon report on Professor Robert Faurisson's latest Parisian courtroom battles, which recommence on May 30th.