{"id":1303,"date":"2023-10-12T20:38:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T20:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jailingopinions.com\/realhistory\/?p=1303"},"modified":"2023-10-12T21:07:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-12T21:07:09","slug":"criminalising-history-edinburgh-court-orders-vincent-reynouards-extradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jailingopinions.com\/realhistory\/criminalising-history-edinburgh-court-orders-vincent-reynouards-extradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Criminalising history \u2013 Edinburgh Court orders Vincent Reynouard\u2019s extradition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[This article is also available in Spanish \u2013 Este art\u00edculo tambi\u00e9n est\u00e1 disponible en espa\u00f1ol.<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today an Edinburgh judge took a step towards criminalising historical revisionism in the UK, when he ordered the extradition of the French scholar Vincent Reynouard, whose \u2018crime\u2019 is to have made videos and written books questioning aspects of Second World War history. The detailed judgment by Sheriff Chris Dickson (against which an appeal is likely to be made) amounts to a shocking assault on academic freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[American readers might be confused by the judge\u2019s title: in Scotland a \u201cSheriff\u201d is a judge in the lower courts, not a police official.<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As regular H&D<\/em> readers will know, Vincent has been imprisoned in Edinburgh for the past eleven months, despite there being no UK law against historical revisionism. He has repeatedly been dragged into court for extradition hearings, in a courtroom normally used for terrorist murderers and gangsters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In most of Europe, there are laws of various kinds that imprison scholars for questioning the alleged homicidal \u2018gas chambers\u2019 or other aspects of \u2018Holocaust\u2019 history. In some countries \u2013 such as France \u2013 \u2018nazi crimes\u2019 completely separate from the \u2018Holocaust\u2019 are also protected from historical investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the UK, Parliament has chosen not to introduce any such law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zionist lobbyists have therefore used other laws to criminalise historical revisionism indirectly (including the racial incitement provisions of the Public Order Act, plus a section of the Communications Act that was originally drafted to deal with people who use the telephone for harassment and indecency).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Vincent Reynouard (above left) consulting his lawyer during an earlier trial in France. In the background (left) is Jer\u00f4me Bourbon, editor of Rivarol.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the present case, French prosecutors had at first obtained Vincent\u2019s arrest so that he could be extradited to serve a 12 month prison sentence that had been upheld by a French appeal court in 2015. This sentence was imposed under the \u2018Gayssot Law\u2019, originally introduced to criminalise the eminent revisionist Professor Robert Faurisson<\/a>. Communist politician Jean-Claude Gayssot and millionaire Jewish socialist Laurent Fabius joined forces to bring in a law that makes it illegal in France to question the decisions of the Nuremberg war crimes trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No other area of history is protected in this fashion by French law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2015 sentence condemned Vincent for two online videos in which he raised questions about the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and described the \u2018Holocaust\u2019 as a myth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we reported last month<\/a>, due to the length of time that Vincent has already served in Edinburgh jail while awaiting extradition, this initial arrest warrant was dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So today\u2019s judgment was on a second warrant which French prosecutors issued in December 2022 and which was certified by ever-compliant UK authorities (the National Crime Agency) in March 2023. Again each of the offences detailed in this warrant would attract a prison sentence of up to 12 months, and though in theory Vincent would face a trial in France (rather than serving a sentence that has already been imposed), few observers have confidence that justice would be served in the French courts.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This second warrant related to seven separate videos posted online. Some of these videos again questioned the feasibility and historical veracity of \u2018gas chamber\u2019 allegations. Others involved the so-called \u201cmassacre\u201d in the French village of Oradour in June 1944. Vincent Reynouard has made a particular study of Oradour, and his updated and detailed book on this topic was recently published<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today\u2019s judgment, Sheriff Chris Dickson ruled that Vincent\u2019s alleged crimes committed in these videos would also be offences in Scotland under the Communications Act, due to being \u201cgrossly offensive\u201d. In this sense he accepted the prosecution argument advanced last month (see my earlier trial report<\/a>). On the other legal point at issue he sided with Vincent\u2019s defence barrister, Fred Mackintosh KC, in rejecting the notion that the videos could amount to a \u201cbreach of the peace\u201d by threatening \u201cserious disturbance to the community\u201d and causing \u201calarm to ordinary people\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheriff Dickson\u2019s ruling that the videos were \u201cgrossly offensive\u201d and therefore criminal in Scotland (and grounds for extradition) amounts to the most serious assault on academic freedom that any UK court has yet attempted. It was a truly shameful judgment: an infamous day in the UK\u2019s legal history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In paragraph 38 of his judgment, Sheriff Dickson accepted that \u201cthere is no crime of Holocaust denial in Scotland and that a \u2018message or other matter\u2019 which consists of or includes Holocaust denial can only be contrary to section 127(1)(a) if it is grossly offence [sic<\/em>].\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very oddly, in a blatant dereliction of duty, Sheriff Dickson seems to concede in his next paragraph that he did not study the full content of each video. He does not claim to have any expertise in the relevant historical topics, nor indeed any expertise in historical method generally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Sheriff Dickson believed himself competent to decide, apparently on the basis of reading only certain extracts from the transcripts rather than weighing their full context, that the videos were \u201c(i) beyond the pale of what is tolerable in our society; and (ii) grossly offensive and that any reasonable person in an open and just multiracial society would find them to be so.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Sheriff Chris Dickson, the judge responsible for today\u2019s assault on academic freedom<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Sheriff\u2019s reasoning was (in part) that the videos were \u201cderogatory towards the Jewish people\u201d<\/strong>, though he accepted that Vincent had at no time called for violence against Jews, still less for their extermination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact Sheriff Dickson took the view that \u201call of the offences specified in the extradition warrant\u201d amounted to gross offensiveness under the Communications Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to look at the precedents on which interpretation of this law rests. The standard precedent, known as the Collins case, involved repeated phone calls made to a Member of Parliament\u2019s office, in which Collins had \u201cranted and shouted and made reference to \u2018wogs\u2019, \u2018Pakis\u2019, \u2018black bastards\u2019 and \u2018niggers\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in the context of this Collins case that Sheriff Dickson was assessing Vincent Reynouard\u2019s videos, which could not have been more different in content and style. Rather than vulgar and thoughtless abuse, Vincent employed calm and rational analysis. Yet Sheriff Dickson ruled that the following content was \u201cgrossly offensive\u201d in the same sense as the Collins telephone calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 1: suggesting that the deaths at Oradour occurred as the result of an explosion rather than a \u2018massacre\u2019 by the SS.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 1 (second offence): making a reasoned case as to why alleged \u2018homicidal gas chambers\u2019 at Auschwitz-Birkenau did not exist, and describing orthodox historical accounts of this topic as \u201cthe official thesis\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 2: arguing that a particular room in an Auschwitz crematorium was not in fact a homicidal gas chamber, as it has been portrayed by other historians; using an on-screen symbol denoting \u2018fake\u2019; summarising part of his argument analysing the roof of this structure, with the words \u201cno holes, no Holocaust\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Professor Robert Faurisson, the French scholar against whom the anti-revisionist Gayssot Law was originally promulgated, with then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Video 3: analysing orthodox \u2018Holocaust history\u2019 as being, in the words of the warrant, \u201ca belief made up of multiple lies, errors or half-truths that build on each other\u201d; denying that inmates were massacred, and arguing that deaths at the camp partly \u201cattest to the death of hundreds of cripples who could not withstand the transport\u201d; describing the display of hair as though it were evidence of mass killings, as the \u201cmost blatant deception\u201d; stating that two buildings referred to by other historias as homicidal gas chambers were actually intended for hygienic purposes; again using the words \u201cno holes, no Holocaust\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 4: with reference to a correspondent\u2019s questions, arguing that \u201cthere is a Jewish problem. A problem that Hitler saw clearly\u201d; stating that Jews have exploited society\u2019s flaws and that \u201cit is true that the Jews exploit the situation to dominate us, even enslave us\u201d, but that \u201cto remove them [the Jews] would be pointless\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 5: stating that \u201crevisionism exposes the great lie from which [the Jews] profit\u201d; arguing that the Holocaust myth \u201cimposes a deadly anti-racism for White Europe\u201d and that \u201cthis is why Hitler is the most slandered man\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 6: describing stories of Nazi atrocities as being \u201ccrude slanders\u201d; suggesting that the Allied victors of the Second World War did not themselves believe in the tales of German homicidal gas chambers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video 7: again stating that the Allied victors themselves knew that the tales of mass homicidal gassing were lies circulated as propaganda; suggesting that the confession of Auschwitz-Birkenau commandant Rudolf H\u00f6ss, used at the Nuremberg trial, was forced from him; \u201cin short, poor Rudolf H\u00f6ss was treated so that he would say what the victors expected\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Polish authorities themselves have drastically lowered the official death toll at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex \u2013 but attempts to dispute the old orthodoxy are viewed by French law (and now by the Edinburgh Sheriff Chris Dickson) as illegal and \u201cgrossly offensive\u201d.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I have quoted these extracts from the judgment at length to emphasise that this was the worst that the prosecutors could say about Vincent. Readers might find this difficult to believe, but it was on the basis of the above extracts that Sheriff Dickson found Vincent\u2019s videos to have been \u201cgrossly offensive\u201d communications, and therefore to have been of the same illegal character as the ranting criminalised in the Collins case, the standard test for a Section 127(1)(a) offence. The Sheriff believes that Vincent\u2019s reasoned historical arguments are closely comparable to a man telephoning his MP and emitting repeated abuse about \u201c\u2018wogs\u2019, \u2018Pakis\u2019, \u2018black bastards\u2019 and \u2018niggers\u2019.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding to this extraordinary judgment, Sheriff Dickson goes out of his way to state that \u201cthere would, given the nature of the conduct set out in the accusation warrant, be public interest in prosecuting the respondent [Vincent Reynouard] for that conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us be clear about what Sheriff Dickson is saying here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He accepts that Parliament has chosen not to bring in any law even vaguely comparable to the French Gayssot Law, or the numerous other European laws criminalising \u2018Holocaust denial\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet he has opted to stretch the meaning of \u2018grossly offensive\u2019 digital communications, so that serious historical debate (whether or not one agrees with the historical arguments being put forward) can be deemed \u2018grossly offensive\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheriff Dickson has ruled in effect that if Jews (or rather the majority faction among Jews) are offended by a historical or scientific argument, Scottish law is obliged to regard expression of that argument as grossly offensive and therefore warranting a prison sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is difficult to imagine a more outrageous abuse of judicial power, encroaching on an academic topic well outside the competence of the judge concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Edinburgh court had accepted early on in the case that it was not a matter for the court to debate whether or not the \u2018Holocaust\u2019 occurred. Yet what Sheriff Dickson has now done is to assert that it is the business of the court to impose a historical orthodoxy which must be obeyed by all Scottish citizens (and by extension all UK citizens) on pain of imprisonment.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, wartime intelligence supremo and \u2018Holocaust\u2019 sceptic, photographed in 1947. Would he be criminalised in 2023 for expressing \u201cgrossly offensive\u201d doubts about homicidal gas chambers?<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One wonders how Sheriff Dickson would deal (for example) with the wartime chairman of London\u2019s Joint Intelligence Committee, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, who is 1943 dismissed the earliest Holocaustian tales of mass gassings as propaganda. Cavendish-Bentinck criticised Allied propagandists for \u201cpublicly giving credence to atrocity stories for which we have no evidence. \u2026 I feel certain that we are making a mistake in publicly giving credence to this gas chambers story.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s particular case involved a Frenchman, Vincent Reynouard. Yet its implications are chilling for all Britons, indeed all Europeans, who value traditional standards of academic enquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vincent Reynouard is almost certain to file an appeal against this judgment, and H&D<\/em> will report on further developments in the case soon. He stands at the frontline in defence of civilised European values against the tyranny of a privileged lobby. True Europeans will be hoping for his eventual victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This article is also available in Spanish \u2013 Este art\u00edculo tambi\u00e9n est\u00e1 disponible en espa\u00f1ol.] Today an Edinburgh judge took a step towards criminalising historical revisionism in the UK, when he ordered the extradition of the French scholar Vincent Reynouard, whose \u2018crime\u2019 is to have made videos and written books questioning aspects of Second WorldContinue reading “Criminalising history \u2013 Edinburgh Court orders Vincent Reynouard\u2019s extradition”<\/span> <\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,134,11,12,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concentration-camps","category-france","category-historical-memory-laws","category-robert-faurisson","category-vincent-reynouard"],"yoast_head":"\nCriminalising history \u2013 Edinburgh Court orders Vincent Reynouard\u2019s extradition - Real History<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n