CyberLaw Blog

Archive for October 4th, 2008

YouTube censors Pat Condell’s latest video | EuropeNews: “YouTube censors Pat Condell’s latest video

October 01 2008

The outspoken English comedian Pat Condell (official web site here) has had his latest video blocked by YouTube. You can watch it here, below the break.

The most urgent message in his video is this: If you live in Britain please sign this petition against the creeping poison of sharia law before October 4th when it closes.”

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PayPal to refund shoppers defrauded on eBay – Times Online

See also Online shoppers: ‘Buying isn’t entirely safe’

From The Times, October 4, 2008

Rebecca O’Connor

PayPal, the payment service used by 20 million online shoppers in Britain, has given in to consumer demands to offer full refunds to buyers defrauded on eBay.

Previously, anyone using PayPal to buy items such as a laptop or furniture risked losing hundreds of pounds on something that might not work or even arrive.

Consumers who buy an item worth more than £150 using PayPal on eBay will now have protection.

The decision to remove the present limits comes after years of pressure from PayPal users, who make up more than half of all UK eBay members. They felt that the previous limits were unfair and made eBay shopping less safe than buying on the high street.

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Civil servant charged over porn-site blog which describes kidnap, rape and murder of Girls Aloud | Mail Online: “”

By Paul Revoir, Last updated at 10:02 PM on 02nd October 2008

A civil servant who allegedly wrote an internet article imagining the kidnap and murder of pop group Girls Aloud is being prosecuted under obscenity laws.

The prosecution of Darryn Walker, 35, is regarded as a historic test case which could affect censorship of the internet.

Walker allegedly described the kidnap, mutilation, rape and murder of the girl band in a 12-page ‘murder blog’ posted on a fantasy pornography website.

Experts are claiming the action is one of the most significant obscenity cases since the trial over the novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

It is expected to be the first test of the law since pornography became easily available online and is one of the first involving the written word in recent years.

The blog, headlined Girls (Scream) Aloud, is said to have been written about band members Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh.

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Fantasy Sex Blog Author on Trial in U.K.: “Darryn Walker, a 35 year old British civil servant is at the center of a historic obscenity case that could affect Internet censorship in the U.K.”

Key trial can be key to define online pornography in Britain

By Christopher Karwowski, Saturday, Oct 4, 2008

LONDON — Darryn Walker, a 35 year old British civil servant is at the center of a historic obscenity case that could affect Internet censorship in the U.K.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, Walker allegedly detailed the kidnap, mutilation, rape and murder of pop band Girls Aloud’s five members. The post to his blog, which ran twelve pages, is the subject of a closely watched prosecution by Scotland Yard.

Britain’s Obscene Publications Act deems material that “tends to deprave and corrupt” is illegal. The act is usually enforced only in cases of explicit depiction of genitalia in print or on television or DVD.

The Girls Aloud case is seen by many experts as one of the most significant obscenity cases since the 1960s trial of D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterly’s Lover.” In that case, a not guilty decision defined Britain’s modern permissive publishing environment.

The Walker case, however, has taken center stage in the country’s legal community. It is the first case to test the act’s application to Internet publication.

The blog was maintained on a server located outside the U.K., but prosecution is permitted due to Walker’s British citizenship.

Walker was charged on July 10 and has subsequently entered a no plea and was granted bail.

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

Max Hardcore Sentenced to 46 Months in Federal Prison: “A federal judge today sentenced Paul F. Little — aka Max Hardcore — to 46 months in prison and fines of more than $1.4 million.”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)

Should we extradite Holocaust deniers? | Politics | guardian.co.uk

What should we do about Dr Fredrick Töben, detained at Heathrow this week under a fast-track EU arrest warrant issued by the district court in Mannheim?

Dr who? I know, it’s been a busy week, and I hadn’t heard of him either until he popped up to be remanded in custody by Westminster magistrates. By the time you read this he may be on a plane to Germany – or home to Australia.

Töben is a 64-year-old German-born historian who runs something called the Adelaide Institute. He denies frequent accusations that he is a Holocaust denier, but judging by some of the things he says and writes he makes a pretty good job of passing himself off as one. Phrases like “Holocaust racketeers, the corpse peddlers and the Shoah business merchants” characterise some of his scholarship.

In other words he believes that the six-million-dead German Holocaust which took place during the 1933-45 Hitler regime, a well-documented narrative accepted by most historians, did not occur, or did so on a much smaller scale. If you challenge the Holocaust you must expect persecution and abuse, he says.

Well, plenty of people, not all of them Jewish, have pursued him during a teaching career on three continents – from New Zealand to Nigeria. In 1999 he served nine months in a German prison for breaching the Holocaust law there that forbids the “defaming of the dead” in this way. Needless to add, Töben attended the Holocaust revisionist conference held in Tehran in 2006.

A nasty piece of work by the sound of it, and some nasty websites are exercised on Töben’s behalf.
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Irving supports Australian ‘Holocaust denier’

Irving supports Australian ‘Holocaust denier’

Controversial historian David Irving has jumped to the defence of Gerald Frederick Toben, the Australian man who was detained by British police earlier in the week on a German arrest warrant.

Germany alleges the Australian denies the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis in World War II.

Denying the Holocaust is an offence that carries a five-year jail sentence, and the German authorities are seeking his extradition.

Toben set up the Adelaide Institute in 1994, an organisation that is considered to be a Holocaust denial group.

Overnight the South Australian appeared in a London court where he fought against his extradition, and there to support him was Mr Irving.

Mr Irving says the prosecution of people he calls revisionist historians is a direct attack on free speech.

‘I think it’s a contagion that’s going around the world. It began in Australia, it began in Canada,’ he said.

‘I think if you have one version of history that is government-approved then all society suffers.

‘It’s the job of us, the revisionist historians, to ask questions, even if they’re awkward questions, questions that governments don’t like.’

Despite his show of support, Mr Irving is not holding out much hope for the extradition fight and he expects Toben to come before a German court.

‘What scandalises me is that this is obviously a political offence that he is being charged with, and you cannot be extradited for political offences,’ he said.

‘This used to be one of the great securities of the human rights. But under the legislation in Europe now people who criticise aspects of holocaust history are denied the protection of the Human Rights Act in Europe.’

Mr Irving has offered to have Toben stay at his house and to guarantee his appearance at any subsequent court dates.

Toben will reappear in court next Friday.

The Press Association: Huhne in refuse extradition call: “Huhne in refuse extradition call

The British courts should refuse to act on a European arrest warrant requesting the extradition to Germany of a man accused of Holocaust denial, a senior politician said.

Australian citizen Frederick Toben was arrested on Wednesday at Heathrow, en route from the United States to Dubai, and has been remanded in custody awaiting an extradition hearing on October 17.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said that individuals should not be handed over to courts abroad for Holocaust denial, which is not a crime in the UK and raised issues of freedom of speech.

The former MEP said that countries could ‘pick and choose’ the cases in which they would apply warrants issued by fellow EU member states, citing the case of Belgium, which has said it would not send suspects to Poland on murder charges which related to abortion.

Mr Huhne told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There is a clear precedent for doing this and I think we should in this case.’

Dr Toben was detained under an EU arrest warrant issued by the District Court in Mannheim, Germany, which accuses him of publishing material on the internet ‘of an anti-semitic and/or revisionist nature’.

While stressing that he was completely opposed to anti-semitism, Mr Huhne said: ‘We don’t in this country tend to prosecute people for issues that we regard as issues of freedom of speech.

‘I don’t think the European arrest warrant was designed to be used in this sort of case and there are good legal grounds under Article 4 of the European arrest warrant whereby we could actually refuse to participate in this.

‘I think it is a pretty dodgy case that the Germans are bringing, both in terms of German law and in terms of the reach of it, because in fact Dr Toben didn’t actually commit this offence in Germany.

‘If somebody goes too far and incites violence or causes an attack on somebody else, then it is absolutely right they should be prosecuted, but there is a very clear distinction from something you hold as an opinion – it may be wrong and you may completely disagree with it, and I do in this case… I think we have to hold that fundamental belief in freedom of speech.’ “

(Via .)

BBC News: ‘Holocaust denier’ case adjourned

Page last updated at 15:47 GMT, Friday, 3 October 2008 16:47 UK

A historian wanted in Germany for alleged Holocaust denial has been remanded in custody in Britain after his extradition hearing was adjourned.

Dr Gerald Toben, 64, was arrested by British police at Heathrow Airport on Wednesday under an EU arrest warrant issued by the German authorities.

The warrant accuses the Australian of publishing material “of an anti-Semitic and/or revisionist nature” online.

A bail hearing is scheduled to take place on Friday, 10 October.

It will be followed by a full hearing on 17 October.

Dr Toben is accused of posting information online between 2000 and 2004 that denied, approved of or played down the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis.

Appearing in the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, Dr Toben described himself as a victim of “legal persecution” and said he did not consent to being extradited to Germany.

Tina Whybraw, representing the authorities in Mannhein, Germany, told the court Dr Toben was arrested on an aircraft at Heathrow Airport while it was in transit from the US to Dubai.

Well known Australian Holocaust Denier Frederick Toben Has been arrested at the Heathrow Airport under an EU arrest warrant issued by the German authorities. Holocaust Denial is not a crime in the UK.

BBC News: Holocaust key to extradition case

Page last updated at 15:56 GMT, Friday, 3 October 2008 16:56 UK

The arrest and attempted extradition to Germany by British police of an alleged Holocaust denier would set a ‘crazy and dangerous’ precedent, say campaigners.

Dr Gerald Toben was arrested by British police under an EU arrest warrant issued by the German authorities.

That warrant accuses him of publishing material online “of an anti-semitic and/or revisionist nature”.

Dr Toben has been remanded in custody after his extradition hearing on Friday was adjourned, but will face a bail hearing on Friday 10 October and a full hearing on 17 October.

Dr Toben, an Australian national, was convicted in Germany in 1999 for breaking a German law that prohibits denying or “playing down” the mass murder of the Jews under Hitler.

‘No laws broken’

Officers from Scotland Yard’s Extradition Unit arrested him on Wednesday while he waited on a plane at Heathrow airport.

Appearing before City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court the same day, Dr Toben said he was the victim of “legal persecution”.

He added: “It’s a witch trial mentality in Germany concerning this matter, which is not the case in England yet.”

Human rights campaigner James Panton, of the Manifesto Group, said that Dr Toben should not be extradited, because he had not broken any British laws.

“Extraditing this man – however unpleasant a character he may be – would set a crazy and dangerous precedent,” he said.

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