- It's wrong when we are denied the right to challenge
common beliefs or culture, especially when everyone knows that the books
are written by the victors. It doesn't stem from hate to say "I don't
believe" whatever. This anti free speech stuff always irks me. This
is nothing like a call to violent action even. (Steve Wozniak)
-
- That is the comment with which Steve Wozniak, co-founder
of Apple Computers (see his biography at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak/
, has recently accompanied his signature of the petition launched in France
by historian Paul-Eric Blanrue against the Gayssot Act and in favour of
Vincent Reynouard. The Gayssot Act of July 13, 1990 prohibits the diffusion
of historical revisionism on pain of imprisonment and fine. On the grounds
of this law, Vincent Reynouard, aged 41 and a father of eight, was in 2007
sentenced to one year in prison without probation and ordered to pay about
¤70,000 for having written a 16-page pamphlet entitled Holocauste
?Cequel'onvous cache... ("Holocaust? What's being kept hidden from
you...").
-
- At the request of the French authorities, who had issued
a "European arrest warrant" for him, he was arrested by the Belgian
police last July in Brussels, where he lived with his family, then jailed
in Belgium for over fifty days before being extradited to France. He is
now incarcerated in Valenciennes in northern France. And throughout the
Western world the mainstream media ignore the fact that in France an honest
man, father of eight children, is serving a year in prison and must pay
¤70,000 because he authored a piece of writing of sixteen pages.
-
- For his part Noam Chomsky has stated his position in
a letter against the Gayssot Act and in defence of Vincent Reynouard. You
may find that letter at
- https://csvr.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/the-full-statement-from-noam-
chomsky-to-the-release-of-vincent-and-the-repeal-of-the-law-gayssot/.
- Currently there are a thousand signers of the petition.
-
- I invite you to add your signature to theirs once you
have read the English version of the press release, posted at http://www.tellingfilms.netne.net/reynouard2010.htm
, presenting Mr Reynouard's case and showing the e-mail address to which
to send your name; please indicate your place of residence and, if you
wish, your profession.
-
- Thank you.
-
- Best wishes,
- Robert Faurisson
- November 5, 2010
-
-
-
-
- The full statement from Noam Chomsky to the release of
Vincent and the repeal of the law Gayssot
-
- Publié le Vendredi 24 septembre 2010 by CSVR|
Laisser un commentaire
-
- I understand that Vincent Reynouard has been condemned
and jailed under the Gayssot law, and that a petition is being circulated
in protest against these actions. I know nothing about Mr. Reynouard, but
regard the Gayssot law as entirely illegitimate, inconsistent with the
basic principles of a free society as these have been understood since
the Enlightenment. The law in effect grants the state the right to determine
historical truth and to punish departure from its edicts, a principle reminiscent
of the dark days of Stalinism and Nazism.
-
- If the justification of the Gayssot law is to ban "horrendous
views", or to protect the right to "live free from fear of an
atmosphere" of prejudice and racism, then it should be obvious that,
if such laws were applied impartially, they would criminalize a vast range
of public discourse, which, however despicable one may find it, should
certainly be permitted in a free society, and indeed is, with no question
being raised.
-
- Accordingly, I would like to register my support for
the petition protesting the application of this law in this (or any) case.
-
- --Noam Chomsky, September, 5th 2010.
-
- ----------------
-
- In France, a writer, father of eight, is in prison for
his historical research
- And nothing is said about it in the so-called free press!
-
-
-
-
-
- French author Vincent Reynouard
-
- To sign a petition in defence of Vincent Reynouard's
right to free research and expression, please visit the petition site (in
French) at http://abrogeonslaloigayssot.blogspot.com/ or send a message
to the author of this communiqué, Mr Paul-Eric BLANRUE:
-
- eugenie.blanrue@laposte.net
-
- With a wife and eight children, the Frenchman Vincent
Reynouard, aged 41, is a chemical engineer by training, a graduate of the
ISMRA ("Institute of sciences of atomic matter and radiation")
in Caen (Normandy). He readily presents himself as a traditionalist Catholic
and does not hide his ultra-conservative political opinions. But, most
important, he publicly disputes, in his DVDs and writings, the conventional
version of Second World War history. He is one of those researchers who
declare themselves to be "revisionists" and who are called "deniers"
by others because they do not believe in the existence of homicidal gas
chambers in the wartime German concentration camps.
-
- In 2005, Reynouard wrote and sent to numerous tourism
offices, museums and town halls a 16-page brochure entitled "Holocaust?
Here's what's kept hidden from youS", in which he took a view altogether
opposite to that of academic history. French justice immediately pounced
upon him.
-
- His trial in 2007 at the criminal court in Saverne (Alsace)
resulted in a sentence of one year's imprisonment, a fine of 10,000 euros
and an order to pay damages of 3,000 euros to the antiracist league "LICRA".
In June 2008 the court of appeal in Colmar upheld the prison sentence and
ordered him to pay a total of 60,000 euros (a 20,000 euro fine, damages,
mandatory publication of the ruling and court fees). Severity as never
seen before.
-
- Since he resides in Belgium, France launched a European
arrest warrant for Reynouard in order to make him serve the prison sentence
ordered by the Colmar court. On July 9th he was imprisoned by the Belgian
police, pending his extradition to France. All of which leads him to say:
"When people can think of no other way but imprisonment to get rid
of a verbal opponent, it's because they have no arguments."
-
- Conclusion: A 41-year-old father of eight is currently
in prison for his historical research, because of the Gayssot Act.
-
- This Act of the French parliament ("article 24bis"
of the law governing the press), having come into effect upon publication
in the Journal Officiel on July 14th 1990, prohibits the "disputing
(...) of the existence of one or more crimes against humanity as defined
by Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal [known
as the Nuremberg Tribunal] in annex to the London Agreement of August 8th,
1945."
-
- In my book Sarkozy, Israël et les Juifs (Oser Dire
publishers, [Belgium], 2009), I recall that this freedom-killing law has
been strongly criticised in the past by such personalities as the French
academician Simone Veil; the Permanent Secretary of the French Academy,
Hélène Carrère d'Encausse; the government ministers
Jean Foyer, Jacques Toubon, Alain Peyrefitte; the historians Henri Amouroux,
Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Annie Kriegel, Francois Furet, Alain Besançon,
Jacques Willequet and François Bédarida; the founder of the
Hannah Arendt Research Institute, Chantal Delsol; the 1988 Nobel laureate
for economics, Maurice Allais; the writers Michel Tournier, Louis Pauwels,
Michel Houellebecq, Philip Murray, Jean Daniel, Vladimir Volkoff, Michel
Rachline and Alain Robbe-Grillet; the judges Philippe Bilger, Alain Marsaud
and Raoul Béteille; the legal scholars Olivier Duhamel, Anne-Marie
Le Pourhiet, Emmanuelle Duverger, André Decoq and Guy Carcassonne;
the lawyers Jacques Vergès and John Bastardi Daumont; the philosopher
Paul RicSur; the comedian Bruno Gaccio; defenders of the freedom of expression
like the founder of Reporters Sans Frontières Robert Ménard
(who denounces it as a "thought police") and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit;
the journalists Dominique Jamet, Delfeil de Ton, Alain Rollat, Albert du
Roy, Philippe Tesson, Jacques Julliard and Ivan Rioufol; also by the former
president of the Ligue des droits de l'homme, historian Madeleine Rebérioux.
-
- Abroad, the American linguist Noam Chomsky has declared
himself an absolute opponent of it. For the Belgian physicist and intellectual
Jean Bricmont, "the Gayssot Act is a legal regression of several centuries".
As for Presidents Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad, they have
strongly condemned the repression resulting from this law.
-
- Henceforth it falls to us to defend free expression in
deed and not just in theory. Why is no one heard publicly denouncing the
present fate of Vincent Reynouard? What are Reporters Sans Frontières,
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch doing? No organ of the media,
either French or foreign, has informed public opinion of this case. Such
silence is abnormal.
-
- Personally, I have decided to act as a historian and
as a citizen, and to make it known, through this press release, how appalled
I am at the fact that, in our country, we have a man thrown into prison
for his opinions, however unusual, shocking and controversial they may
be. Such treatment is not worthy of France or her intellectual tradition.
It is not for the law to say how historical truth is set down: in a free
country, that is the task of historians. The Gayssot Act, which restricts
the historian's freedom, is unworthy of a democratic State; it is a wicked
law. I therefore ask for its immediate repeal.
-
- I hope to be joined soon by dozens, hundreds, thousands
of other people unable to remain indifferent in the face of a scandal that
seriously harms the image of France and flouts the spirit of the Republic.
-
- Those who wish to sign this communiqué along with
me can send me their names and contact information at the address eugenie.blanrue@laposte.net.
It is not a question of supporting Vincent Reynouard's religious, political
or historical ideas but of defending his right to express them. To challenge
them, an open, democratic, fair and honest debate will suffice.
-
- We shall go over the results of this request for signatures
towards the end of September.
- Meanwhile, thank you for circulating this text to the
utmost extent.
-
- Paul-Eric Blanrue,
- Historian,
- Founder of the research group Cercle Zététique,
- Author of Sarkozy, Israël et les Juifs (Oser Dire
publishers, [Belgium], 2009)
-
-
-
- PS:
- Vincent Reynouard can be contacted at the following address.
- Please note this is a new address, since M. Reynouard
has now been extradited from Belgium to France -
-
- Monsieur Vincent Reynouard
- N° 33034
- Maison d'arrêt de Valenciennes
- BP 80 455
- F-59322 VALENCIENNES Cedex
- FRANCE
-
- M. Reynouard is fluent is English and can receive mail,
though currently he is not allowed to receive stamps or books.
-
- +++
-
- Peace is patriotic!
-
- Michael Santomauro
- 253 W. 72nd Street
- New York, NY 10023
-
- Call anytime: 917-974-6367
-
- E-mail me anything:
- ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com
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