Historical Research Criminalized: Paris Court Convicts Professor Robert Faurisson

A PARIS COURT on Tuesday this week gave Prof. Robert Faurisson — an 87-year-old half-French, half Scot who was Professor of French Literature at the University of Lyon — a four-month suspended jail sentence and a €4,000 fine. Judgement on a further charge will be given later this week. (ILLUSTRATION: Prof. Robert Faurisson with Lady Renouf at the Tehran Conference in 2006, where his speech became the focus of several criminal trials in Paris. The most recent conviction was in September 2016.)

The circumstances of Prof. Faurisson’s trial were explained at a meeting of the London Forum in July 2016 by Lady Michèle Renouf, who was the sole defence witness alongside Prof. Faurisson at his Paris trial.

In September 2016 Prof. Faurisson was convicted under the French “racial hatred” law for the 60-word sentence translated below: the Paris court taking the extraordinary view that his reference to “the State of Israel and international Zionism” amounted to an illegal attack on Jews as a “race”.

For this “offence” Prof. Faurisson received a 4 month suspended prison sentence and a fine of €4,000. He was ordered in addition to pay €5,000 in compensation and costs to LICRA, a French association combatting “racism and anti-semitism”.

Two additional charges under the French “Gayssot Act” prohibiting “Holocaust denial”, which related specifically to Prof. Faurisson’s Tehran conference speech, were set aside.

Prof. Faurisson immediately announced his intention to appeal against this latest conviction: an appeal which is of the highest importance for historical and political researchers worldwide, and in particular for anyone campaigning against the policies of the Israeli Government. It would seem that the latest judgement opens the way for any robust criticism of Israel to be criminalised in France as anti-Jewish “racial hatred”, even if neither Jews nor Judaism have been mentioned!

Further reports and analysis of this case will appear in the next edition of Heritage and Destiny.

An earlier interview with Prof. Robert Faurisson can be seen below (including English subtitles), in which he explains the background to his famous 60-word French sentence summarising his research conclusions. Prof. Faurisson’s words (again criminalised by the Paris court this week), read in English:

“The alleged Hitlerite gas chambers and the alleged genocide of the Jews form one and the same historical lie, which has permitted a gigantic political and financial swindle whose main beneficiaries are the State of Israel and international Zionism and whose main victims are the German people — but not their leaders — and the Palestinian people in their entirety.”

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Source: Heritage and Destiny magazine