Vincent Reynouard faces extradition with courage and confidence in the future of revisionism

The French revisionist scholar Vincent Reynouard, who has been held in Edinburgh prison since his arrest in November 2022, will be extradited to France next week after it became clear that there was no further avenue of appeal. (The photo above shows the late Richard Edmonds presenting Vincent with the Robert Faurisson International Prize 2020.)

As we reported a few days ago, Scotland’s most senior judge rejected Vincent’s appeal after a hearing at Edinburgh’s High Court of Justiciary. Although Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom, the UK Supreme Court in London has no jurisdiction in his case.

Vincent Reynouard issued a statement at his blog yesterday. (English translation below)

The news of my upcoming extradition having spread, correspondents wrote to me to tell me that I must be disappointed and undoubtedly demoralised. I thank them and reassure them: I am neither.

When, on the evening of January 26th, a fellow inmate informed me that Scottish television had announced the High Court’s decision, I was making a watercolour for the widow of the revisionist Carlos Porter. After asking my informant a few questions, I quietly got back to work.

Disappointment and demoralisation are consequences of our personal desires. Now, personally, I don’t want anything. I fulfil my mission by spreading revisionism. When I physically die, I will be rewarded for it.

For their part, do my contemporaries deserve the truth? If so, then I will see my work bear fruit. Otherwise, the seeds sown will germinate after my death, or perhaps never. I can’t do anything about it; It’s God’s business, not mine.

Here in Edinburgh Prison, my life has not changed one bit. In the calm of my cell, I write, I read, I draw and I meditate. Far from appearing as a fearsome spectre, the upcoming extradition presents itself as a simple door opening onto the future, a continuation which, if the ordeals are experienced positively, will prove enriching. Hence my serenity.

Last thing: according to the BBC, the High Court magistrates stressed that in the current context, all my videos were “grossly offensive” to all citizens of a modern society. Proof of the importance of World War II revisionism: it leaves no one indifferent. I had noted this for a long time. For revisionism, it is a great victory. So why would I be disappointed or demoralized?

Thank you to you who support me.

Vincent Reynouard

Both at H&D and at our assistant editor’s Real History Blog, we shall continue to report on Vincent’s case, and on the broader revisionist struggle. It appears that the UK is to be the new frontline for attempts to criminalise revisionism. If so, our enemies should be warned that there will be no surrender.

Backdoor criminalisation of revisionism confirmed by Scotland’s most senior judge

This afternoon in Edinburgh the President of the Court of Session, Lord Carloway, rejected the appeal against extradition to France of Vincent Reynouard, the exiled scholar whom Parisian courts seek to jail for his research questioning orthodox history of the ‘Holocaust’ and the ‘massacre at Oradour’.

Regular readers of H&D and the Real History blog will be familiar with the background to the case. Vincent was arrested in the Scottish fishing village of Anstruther in November 2023 and has been held in Edinburgh jail for the past fourteen months, despite not being charged (let alone convicted) of any crime under UK law.

France is one of many European countries which criminalise any historical and scientific research questioning the orthodox version of the ‘Holocaust’: the alleged murder of six million Jews in presumed homicidal gas chambers during the Second World War. But Parliament has deliberately avoided passing any such law in the UK. Instead, UK courts – including now Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge – are engaged in a cowardly criminalisation of revisionism via abuse of other laws such as the Communications Act, and via abuse of the extradition process.

Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, today rejected Vincent Reynouard’s appeal against extradition. In doing so, he effectively sought to criminalise historical revisionism in Scotland without the inconvenience of parliamentary debate or legislation.

This conveniently avoids any parliamentary debate on the merits of the revisionist case. Though the historicity of the ‘Holocaust’ was not a legal point at issue during the trial, and though he has not indicated any competence of his own on historical matters, Lord Carloway assumes the right to declaim on “the patent falsehood” of Vincent’s work. Lord Carloway makes statements about the Auschwitz death toll and about the notorious ‘confession’ of camp commandant Rudolf Höss, though no expert witness testimony was adduced at any stage of Vincent’s extradition process about these matters.

Lord Carloway does not himself claim personal expertise in 20th century history and does not indicate that he has carried out even a single hour of documentary research on such topics. Notably he relies on the Höss ‘confession’. In what other case would Lord Carloway be happy for a Scottish court to rely on a ‘confession’ obtained by torture and blackmail, or on submissions concerning the scene of the crime that were provided by the Kremlin’s military and intelligence services?

The version of history laid down by the Nuremberg trial – instituted by the victors of the Second World War, and largely based on ‘evidence’ by a Kremlin-controlled ‘commission’ – is protected in France by the ‘Gayssot Law’ enacted in 1990, appropriately enough on the initiative of a French Communist MP allied to a millionaire Jewish socialist.

This ‘Gayssot Law’ was designed to criminalise the work of the pioneering revisionist scholar Professor Robert Faurisson, who though born in Shepperton, West London, to a Scottish mother and French father, lived and taught in France throughout his adult life, latterly as Professor of French Literature at the University of Lyon.

Professor Robert Faurisson (above left) with Giuseppe Fallisi (above right) who has since founded the Robert Faurisson International Prize in the Professor’s memory.

From the mid-1970s until the day before his death in 2018, Professor Faurisson wrote and published detailed research into the alleged ‘gas chambers’, summarising his conclusions in a famous sentence:
“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.”

It is a curious coincidence that the Court of Session judgment rejecting Vincent Reynouard’s appeal was delivered one day after Professor Faurisson’s birthday, and a few hours before what has in recent years become a worldwide festival of historical ‘remembrance’ – Holocaust Memorial Day. In 1995 Faurisson directly addressed “Auschwitz: the facts and the legend” in an essay now available online at the Robert Faurisson website.

Vincent Reynouard spoke at the conference in October 2018 – organised by H&D in Shepperton, the Professor’s birthplace – at which Robert Faurisson gave his final speech, a day before his death. Vincent (who was awarded the Robert Faurisson International Prize in 2020) is today’s leading representative of the Faurissonian tradition of scholarly re-examination of the ‘Holocaust”s evidential basis, while the courts (both in Paris and now sadly in Edinburgh) have abandoned scrutiny of evidence and now prefer to genuflect in submission to ‘Holocaustianity’.

Most of the Western world has moved away from organised religion, but ‘Holocaust’ memorialisation has become a pseudo-religion, with Auschwitz-Birkenau as its Calvary and anti-revisionist legislation as the new blasphemy laws.

Vincent Reynouard in Shepperton, West London – Robert Faurisson’s birthplace – for the Professor’s final conference in 2018, organised by H&D

Though the UK has no such laws, Lord Carloway affirms in his judgment that Vincent’s online publications are extraditable offences because they can be deemed “grossly offensive” under s.127 of the Communications Act 2007. This is an updating for the internet age of a law originally designed to criminalise obscene telephone calls.

In this instance, the law has been stretched to cover offending “members of the Jewish and other communities whose members perished at Auschwitz and Birkenau.  The same applies to those living with the memory of Oradour.  It is not necessary to be a member of the relevant communities to be grossly offended by such statements; any reasonable person would be.”

Lord Carloway makes the dire implications clear: “Although it is not an offence to hold these views and, in certain contexts, to express them, it is a breach of section 127 of the 2007 Act to communicate them to the public on the internet.”

By Lord Carloway’s implication, online revisionism is to be deemed criminal in the UK, even when expressed in scholarly terms, and even without a specific parliamentary statute.

This is a blatant attack on fundamental human rights: an attack on the basic principles not only of UK law but of European civilisation’s accepted intellectual standards.

We shall report soon on the next stage in the fight for Vincent Reynouard’s freedom and the fight for real history.

Vincent Reynouard’s appeal heard in Edinburgh

The appeal hearing in the case of Vincent Reynouard was heard in Edinburgh on Thursday, 11th January 2024 before a panel of judges of the Court of Session.

Regular readers will remember that Vincent was arrested fourteen months ago and has been held in Edinburgh jail ever since, despite not being charged (let alone convicted) of any crime against UK laws. The French authorities are seeking his extradition under their notorious ‘Gayssot Law’ which forbids any questioning of historical orthodoxy regarding the ‘Holocaust’ and certain other alleged events of the Second World War.

Here is a translation of Vincent’s report which first appeared in French at Vincent’s website (the report also now appears in German and in Spanish at the Real History blog):

My lawyer was more incisive that in the trial of first instance.

After recalling that the videos that are the target of French prosecutors mainly dealt with the Holocaust, he emphasised that I challenge official history with rational arguments, without polemicising.

Then he came to the fourth video, which deals with the Jewish question.

“Mr. Reynouard,” he said, “declares himself in agreement with Hitler on the existence of a Jewish problem. This statement may shock, even alarm. However, when he claims to go further than Hitler, it is not to incite murder, quite the contrary. My client explains that going further in his reflections, he deduces that the Jewish problem arises from the faults from which our societies suffer (loss of spirituality, hedonism, etc.).

“The sentence which states this was omitted from the arrest warrant on which the trial judge relied. However, it is crucial, because it explains that my client does not advocate the genocide of the Jews or the eradication of Judaism. At first instance, the judge also recognised that Mr Reynouard was not calling for the extermination of the Jews.

“I add that, unlike Alison Chabloz, my client is neither satirical nor sarcastic: his speech is calm and thoughtful.”

The late Richard Edmonds presenting the Robert Faurisson International Prize to Vincent Reynouard

At this point, a judge intervenes to declare that the assertion that Hitler was right to denounce a Jewish problem was itself grossly offensive. My lawyer replied that the message should be judged not by extracting a few statements, but by considering its totality.

Then, he recalled that the United Kingdom had refused to criminalise revisionism.

“Mr. Reynouard,” he concluded, “is a revisionist. He is being prosecuted for this reason. Ordering his extradition by invoking Section 127 of the Communications Act — a section that was originally intended to crack down on obscene telephone calls — would be an abuse of that law.”

Speaking in his turn, the prosecutor said: “Mr. Reynouard not only denies the Holocaust; he also disputes the massacre of Oradour by the SS, which left 643 victims.” With this allegation, the prosecutor wanted to present me as a madman who denies the deaths of civilians, which I never did. The aim of this dishonest manoeuvre was to undermine the defence contention that I rely on rational arguments.

The prosecutor continued by asserting that the trial judge had correctly analysed the grossly offensive nature of my videos, but he did not dare to claim that by declaring that I went further than Hitler, I was manifesting “terrible anti-Semitism”, because that would have been really too ridiculous.

Then, he considered the question of whether I’d had committed a breach of public order law. We remember that at first instance, the judge dismissed this accusation. The prosecutor maintained that this was an error: “There is a risk that the videos targeted by French prosecutors could be viewed by a certain section of the public who, after listening to Mr Reynouard, will be incited to perpetrate anti-Semitic acts.”  Here we recognise the main argument of the opponents of freedom of expression: “You can express yourself freely, provided that your words do not risk inciting hatred among certain people.”

Edinburgh’s Court of Session, where Vincent Reynouard’s appeal was heard on 11th January 2024

My lawyer replied that in my videos, I did not call on anyone to act, but that I encouraged viewers to think by providing them with food for thought, which is unrelated to the sort of violent messages, such as racist insults, satirical-sarcastic songs, shouting and unambiguous gestures, which are ordinarily judged as undermining public order.

The judges will make their decision on February 1st. At the end of this hearing, I will not hazard any predictions, for one simple reason: everything will happen in the heads of these three judges whose state of mind I do not know.

In reaching their judgment, they will have the choice. If, out of respect for freedom of expression, they wish to release me, then they will accept the Defence arguments. Otherwise, they will favour those of the Prosecution. They will not have to answer for their decisions, at least in this life.

However, I remain calm, because whatever the outcome, I will serve the revisionist cause. Some say that I would be more useful in freedom than in prison. I think that’s not necessarily the case. Suffering repression also allows us to bear witness to the truth. Future generations will note: “He put forward rational arguments and offered fair debate; they pursued him as far as a remote corner of Scotland and gagged him.” The facts will lead to inescapable conclusions.

Shortly before boarding the prison bus, a guard whispered to me: “You are a hero. Yes, a hero.” I don’t think I’m one; I consider myself a man who fulfils his duty to his people. However, this mark of respect coming from a simple civil servant touched me. I see it as a sign from Providence which indicates to me that, in the shadows, my work is spreading and revisionism is progressing.

I will never give in.

Thanks again to everyone who supports me.

Peter Rushton’s report on the initial trial of Vincent Reynouard is still on our website. Further discussion of the case and its implications for revisionism will appear both in H&D and at Peter’s Real History website.

Scottish justice or “due deference” to French-Zionist lobby? The Reynouard case hangs in the balance [report now translated into four languages!]

On 21st September, a Scottish Crown prosecutor asked an Edinburgh court to show “due deference to France” and extradite a man who is accused of no crime under Scottish law. H&D’s assistant editor Peter Rushton reports from the court. This article and related material also appears at Peter’s Real History blog and now also in Spanish by clicking on this link. Also now available in German translation at this link and in French translation at Vincent’s own blog. And Vincent’s open letter to President Macron is now also available in German translation for the first time.

The revisionist historian Vincent Reynouard was appearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for a full hearing of his extradition case. This was almost exactly ten months after his arrest in the Scottish fishing village of Anstruther, where Vincent had been working quietly as a private tutor and completing his most important historical revisionist work concerning the so-called “massacre” at Oradour.

He was arrested in a raid by Scottish police, working with Scotland Yard detectives, at the request of French prosecutors who wish to jail him for revisionist videos concerning both Oradour and the alleged homicidal ‘gas chambers’ at Auschwitz.

None of these revisionist works contravenes Scottish or English law, but the UK authorities were heavily lobbied by the Jewish charity ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ and by the ultra-Zionist peer Lord Austin (formerly Ian Austin MP).

The sheer absurdity of this situation – the criminalisation of a scholar – was brought home to me by two incidents (one trivial, one serious) at the Edinburgh Court while waiting for Vincent’s case to be heard.

A sticker for the Edinburgh branch of the St Pauli supporters’ club was displayed in the lavatory at the Court. Supporters of St Pauli (a football club based in Hamburg) are notorious worldwide for their violent ‘anti-fascism’ and Marxism. It is impossible to imagine that a sticker promoting any violent ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’ group (from, for example, supporters of a club such as Lazio, Chelsea, Millwall or Oldham) would have been allowed to remain on display at a court!

The other incident was more serious. Vincent’s case was being heard in a courtroom that specialises in extradition, which of course meant that more than two hours were taken up (before Vincent’s case began) by a long procession of procedural, pre-trial discussions of a range of unconnected defendants, including alleged gangsters from Eastern Europe.

Terrorist and assassin Antoin Duffy appeared at the same extradition court a few minutes before Vincent – illustrating the absurdity by which revisionist scholars and advocates of national socialism (none of whose conduct is criminal in the UK) have been put on a par with some of the world’s most dangerous murderers.

By far the most serious of these procedural discussions involved a defendant appearing by video link. This was the notorious ‘Real IRA’ terrorist and assassin Antoin Duffy (aka Anton Duffy), who in 2015 was jailed for 17 years for conspiracy to murder two ex-UDA members (Johnny Adair and Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory) exiled in Scotland after their expulsion from the UDA.

Duffy is still serving this sentence in a top-security Scottish jail, but he is also now wanted by police and prosecutors in the Irish Republic, to face charges of murdering Denis Donaldson, an MI5 agent inside the IRA, who was killed in 2006. This is why Duffy was appearing on the same day as Vincent, in the Edinburgh extradition court.

H&D cannot yet comment on the latest specific charges – but it is beyond dispute (based on earlier convictions and years of police and MI5 covert surveillance) that Duffy is one of the UK’s most dangerous terrorists. Extradition procedures are designed for those accused of actual crimes: yet this week in Edinburgh (and in fact for the past ten months) Vincent Reynouard – a scholar, not a criminal – has been subjected to these same procedures.

As we have also seen with persistent abuse of the Terrorism Act by the UK authorities, those who simply seek to tell the truth about European history are persecuted by UK authorities who choose to follow the instructions of shadowy international lobbyists rather than UK law.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic about Vincent’s case. He was very ably represented by his solicitor Paul Dunne and advocate Fred Mackintosh KC (who also practices as a barrister in England). It should of course be emphasised that Vincent’s defence is (rightly and properly) based on legal arguments, not on his historical and political views per se. As in any other such case, it should not be inferred that either Mr Dunne or Mr Mackintosh is in any way sympathetic to Vincent’s opinions, or indeed that either of them have any views or expertise on historical or political matters. They are experts on extradition law, not on historical revisionism or national socialism.

Due to Vincent having already spent ten months in jail (for something that isn’t even a crime in the UK!) the initial French warrant has been discharged.

This initial warrant was based on his having already been convicted and sentenced (in his absence) by a Parisian court. But he is no longer extraditable on those grounds, because that sentence has (in effect) already been served in Scotland, while Vincent awaited this extradition hearing.

Having dealt with the discharge of the first warrant, Mr Mackintosh proceeded to address the second.

Since it involves new charges (rather than a prior conviction) the ‘ticklist’ of the old European Arrest Warrant (now operating in revised form post-Brexit) doesn’t apply. Mr Mackintosh therefore pointed out that the traditional extradition principle of “dual criminality” operates in this case.

In other words, the Edinburgh Court must be satisfied that the conduct of which Vincent is accused would potentially be criminal in Scotland as well as in France.

The judge should (Mr Mackintosh continued) draw inferences as to Vincent’s “intent”, by looking at his overall conduct, and by studying the entire transcripts of his videos, not merely accepting the prosecutors’ interpretation of certain phrases taken out of context.

He highlighted one video, on which the prosecutors had based a large part of their case, and emphasised that the judge should study the full translated transcript carefully. This was a video published on 22nd February 2020, whose title translates as “The Jewish Problem – what solution?”

Vincent’s counsel did not dispute that his videos contain what has been termed “Holocaust denial”, that some of them address the “Jewish problem”, and that one in particular “denies” the historicity of the “Oradour massacre”.

But Mr Mackintosh’s central argument as to why Vincent should not be extradited began with a judgment in 2015 by the European Court of Human Rights, in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland.

The relevant aspect of this judgment (which involved a Turkish political activist accused of “denying” the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War), is that the European Court spelled out the very different laws among European states regarding “denial” of genocide.

Among those European countries that have signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, the Court noted:
“there are now essentially four types of regimes in this domain, in terms of scope of the offence of genocide denial: (a) States, such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Romania, that only criminalise the denial of the Holocaust or more generally of Nazi crimes (Romania in addition criminalises the Nazi extermination of the Roma, and Greece criminalises, on top of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes, the denial of genocides recognised by an international court or its own Parliament); (b) States, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, that criminalise the denial of Nazi and communist crimes; (c) States, such as Andorra, Cyprus, Hungary, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland, that criminalise the denial of any genocide (Lithuania in addition specifically criminalises denial of Soviet and Nazi crimes vis-à-vis the Lithuanians, but Cyprus only criminalises the denial of genocides recognised as such by a competent court); and (d) States, such as Finland, Italy, Spain (following the 2007 judgment of its Constitutional Court cited in paragraph 96 above), the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian States, that do not have special provisions criminalising such conduct.”

The European Court was clear, Mr Mackintosh said, that the UK had not chosen to make any form of “Holocaust denial” a specific criminal offence.

He added that in Vincent Reynouard’s case, the prosecution therefore had to satisfy the Scottish court that Vincent’s conduct (as alleged in the extradition warrant) met the test either for a S.127 Communications Act offence, or a breach of the peace (a common law offence).

The question of what behaviour can constitute a “breach of the peace” under Scottish law has been revised several times during recent decades – and is a matter on which Mr Mackintosh has special expertise, having for example written an article for Scottish Legal News on this very topic.

Such conduct must be serious enough to “cause alarm to ordinary people”, and it must “threaten serious disturbance to the community”. The relevant judgment was delivered in 2014 by Lady Clark of Calton, and Mr Mackintosh said that Lady Clark had reminded the lower courts that “for conduct to be likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm there has to be something further than annoyance and distress”.

Mr Mackintosh explained that the test of whether conduct “threatens serious disturbance in the community” necessarily involves considering the full context. He quoted several cases in Scottish courts involving racial and sectarian abuse at football matches, where a crucial element was that this abuse had been directed at (or delivered in close proximity to) rival supporters, in the incendiary context of a football match attended by supporters of opposing teams.

In a 1981 case against communist activist Mike Duffield, the Sheriff Court had ruled that shouting pro-IRA slogans while selling the Marxist newspaper Fight Racism Fight Imperialism and the pro-IRA newspaper Hands off Ireland was a breach of the peace, despite this being carried out at the stadium of Glasgow Celtic, where many fans hold similar views.

And on the other side of politics, there had been a breach of the peace case involving a National Front activist selling the Young NF paper Bulldog outside the Hearts stadium in Edinburgh.

But in all these cases – and especially bearing in mind recent clarifications of the law in Scotland – it was essential to assess the wider context of the words used – in Vincent’s case, words used in videos broadcast online.

There were eight such videos referred to by French prosecutors in the present warrant. The first related specifically to Oradour. The second, third and fourth presented detailed arguments as to why (in Vincent’s considered opinion) there had been no homicidal ‘gas chambers’ at Auschwitz, explaining that conventional ‘Holocaust’ history is based on specious evidence. The fifth and sixth discussed the “Jewish problem” or “what to do about the Jews”. And the seventh and eighth returned to the topic of Auschwitz, the ‘gas chambers’, and broader ‘Holocaust’ themes.

Mr Mackintosh emphasised that in the case of six of these eight videos, Vincent Reynouard had not been calling for any form of action. None of the content potentially qualified as personal abuse, and none of it could be seen as “threatening”. The videos amounted to a historical critique – which might well be controversial, but not illegal in Scotland.

In the case of videos 5 and 6, Vincent was responding to a correspondent. The prosecution had chosen to isolate certain phrases out of context, but Mr Mackintosh said that once seen in context it was clear that Vincent was stating his opposition to any policy of “exterminating” the Jews.

The test that the court had to apply was not whether “reasonable people” would reject Vincent’s views, but whether these views threatened “serious disturbance to society”. Were the court to accept the prosecution’s argument, it would amount to ruling that discussion of controversial arguments regarding the ‘Holocaust’ had become a crime in the UK. Mr Mackintosh said it was open to Parliaments in London and Edinburgh to make ‘Holocaust denial’ a crime, but they had (so far) chosen not to do so.

Therefore to be criminal, Vincent’s words would have to cross a further line, a further evidential test, in order to be regarded as a “breach of the peace”.

Mr Mackintosh then turned to the alternative test, S.127 of the Communications Act. For Vincent’s videos to be considered criminal in this context, they would have to be not merely offensive, but “grossly offensive”.

Prosecutors had rested much of their argument on the precedent of the Chabloz case, as tried in the London courts during recent years – not a binding precedent, but, they argued, very much a “persuasive” precedent in this case. [Chabloz has in recent years been excluded from British revisionist circles, due to her treacherous and malicious conduct in betraying Robert Faurisson’s final meeting to the ‘anti-fascist’ publication ‘Hope not Hate’. But her earlier actions have, as we predicted at the time, served as a precedent to threaten the liberty of Vincent Reynouard.]

On appeal, Chabloz’s conduct had been found to go beyond satire, having crossed the legal line into deliberate, malicious abuse. By contrast, Mr Mackintosh argued, the judge in the present case would find (if he examined the full transcripts of Vincent’s videos) that his arguments – even when highly controversial – were delivered as a calm, academic analysis, not as crude anti-semitic abuse in the Chabloz style.

Mr Mackintosh referred to the leading S.127 case in relation to interpretation of what is “grossly offensive”, namely the Collins case, and the judgment of Lord Bingham.

This had made clear that what is “grossly offensive” has to be assessed in the context of the standards of an “open, just, multiracial society” – a contemporary context that is “reasonably enlightened, but not perfectionist”.

In other words, Mr Mackintosh emphasised, the words complained of had to cause gross offence, not simply “to people who care about the Holocaust” and who, for whatever reasons, hold different views to Vincent, but to broader society.

Were ‘Holocaust denial’ or disputing the historicity of Oradour to be deemed criminal per se, the question would necessarily arise – what about the Amritsar massacre, what about the Armenian genocide, and many other controversial historical subjects?

Mr Mackintosh concluded his argument by addressing the question of proportionality. An extradition court is required to consider whether the alleged offence is sufficiently severe to attract a custodial sentence. For example, recent instructions to the lower courts had emphasised that defendants should not be extradited for minor public order offences.

He noted that even in the Chabloz case – where the defendant had been convicted for gross offensiveness which was of a very different character to Vincent’s videos – this had not led to custodial sentences.

It would therefore, Mr Mackintosh argued, be both wrong in law and disproportionate for the Edinburgh Court to extradite Vincent Reynouard to France.

In his argument, the prosecutor (Advocate depute Paul Harvey) insisted that Vincent’s videos did pass the evidential test for the Court to regard his conduct as either (or both) a breach of the peace, and/or “grossly offensive” under S.127.

He invited the judge to consider Vincent’s words in one of the video transcripts, where he had stated that “there is a Jewish problem”, and that in his analysis of this problem he would “go further” than Adolf Hitler. “Naturally, the Jews exploit the situation: to dominate, even to subjugate us.”

Mr Harvey described these words as “the most appalling anti-semitism”, and asked the judge to view all of the videos complained of in the French warrant, in the light of this “anti-semitism”.

Questioned by the judge on this point, Mr Harvey said that (in the prosecutors’ submission) each video should be looked at as a separate breach of the peace offence, but should also be interpreted overall as a “course of conduct” by Vincent.

The mere fact that the UK had no special provision criminalising “Holocaust denial” did not in itself absolve the defendant. When expressed in the terms used by Vincent, Mr Harvey insisted that “Holocaust denial” could be interpreted as criminal under UK as well as French law.

Quoting the case of Rangers fan William Kilpatrick, who had posted on Facebook endorsing the sending of “bombs and bombs” to Celtic manager Neil Lennon, Mr Harvey argued that under Scottish law, intending or inciting a specific action was not necessarily relevant to whether certain words were a “breach of the peace”.

Mr Harvey maintained that some of Vincent’s words in the video could reasonably have led to his being charged with a breach of the peace under Scottish law, because they were calculated to provoke a disturbance of public order.

In fact, he argued that Vincent’s words were potentially a more serious crime than breach of the peace in a football stadium: because they could be viewed online at any time, anywhere in Scotland. Incitement to specific criminal action did not, the prosecution argued, have to be proven.

Mr Harvey added that Vincent’s “crimes” had to be looked at in the context of the very different cultural context in France, and the more serious risk of “anti-semitism being incited”. While the words Vincent used could, Mr Harvey argued, be prosecutable even in Scotland, the Court should take account of the fact that in a French context, they were even more serious.

Unsurprisingly, the prosecutor rejected the defence argument that Vincent’s words were calm, academic discourse. He said they were comparable to the Chabloz case, where it had been established that once a clearly anti-semitic motive had been established, espousal of “Holocaust denial” was ipso facto grossly offensive.

Mr Harvey accepted that (under UK law) not every instance of “Holocaust denial” was criminal, but he maintained that in the cases of both Chabloz and Vincent Reynouard, denying the “Holocaust” did amount to “gross offensiveness”, and therefore contravened S.127.

The prosecutor said the judge would need to apply the proportionality test very carefully. Unlike, for example, a drugs or theft case, Vincent’s criminal conduct was highly context-specific, where the appropriate sentence might differ enormously between Scotland and France. The judge should therefore “respect and give due weight” to French circumstances involving their history, and even present day “racial relations”, which meant that a French court “is justified in taking a severe approach to this”.

Given Vincent’s long and repeated record of “criminal conduct”, Mr Harvey concluded that a custodial sentence in France was not only possible but highly likely: “I urge you to show due deference to France and their different traditions.”

In a brief reply concluding the hearing, Vincent’s counsel Fred Mackintosh said that if the judge accepted the prosecution’s argument, it would amount to saying that any “racist” statement on Facebook or YouTube, regardless of context, would be a breach of the peace. He urged the judge to reject this argument and to recognise that “Holocaust denial” when expressed in Vincent’s terms, is not a crime in Scotland – neither a breach of the peace, nor grossly offensive.

The judge said that he aimed to have read all relevant material and considered the arguments fully, in time to pass judgment on 12th October.

Clearly, the Vincent Reynouard case has become a vitally important test of whether historical revisionism will be criminalised in the UK via a ‘back door’ route, without any honest and open discussion in Parliament.

We shall make a further assessment of the broader context soon. But it should be recognised by all concerned that there will be no surrender of the basic principles involved. In the UK, Spain and Canada, European traditions of free historical inquiry are under attack. We shall defend those traditions, by any and every method that proves necessary.

[UPDATE: On 12th October the Edinburgh judge Sheriff Dickson ruled that Vincent should be extradited to France. For a report on this extraordinary judgement, click here. Vincent remains in Edinburgh Prison, pending an appeal in January 2024.]

Criminalising history – Edinburgh Court orders Vincent Reynouard’s extradition

[Now also available in French translation at Vincent Reynouard’s blog]

[This article is also available in Spanish – Este artículo también está disponible en español.]

[Earlier trial report from September now available in German translation]

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 ‘crime’ 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.

[American readers might be confused by the judge’s title: in Scotland a “Sheriff” is a judge in the lower courts, not a police official.]

As regular H&D 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.

In most of Europe, there are laws of various kinds that imprison scholars for questioning the alleged homicidal ‘gas chambers’ or other aspects of ‘Holocaust’ history. In some countries – such as France – ‘nazi crimes’ completely separate from the ‘Holocaust’ are also protected from historical investigation.

But in the UK, Parliament has chosen not to introduce any such law.

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).

Vincent Reynouard (above left) consulting his lawyer during an earlier trial in France. In the background (left) is Jerôme Bourbon, editor of Rivarol.

In the present case, French prosecutors had at first obtained Vincent’s 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 ‘Gayssot Law’, originally introduced to criminalise the eminent revisionist Professor Robert Faurisson. 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.

No other area of history is protected in this fashion by French law.

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 ‘Holocaust’ as a myth.

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

So today’s 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.

This second warrant related to seven separate videos posted online. Some of these videos again questioned the feasibility and historical veracity of ‘gas chamber’ allegations. Others involved the so-called “massacre” 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.

In today’s judgment, Sheriff Chris Dickson ruled that Vincent’s alleged crimes committed in these videos would also be offences in Scotland under the Communications Act, due to being “grossly offensive”. In this sense he accepted the prosecution argument advanced last month (see my earlier trial report). On the other legal point at issue he sided with Vincent’s defence barrister, Fred Mackintosh KC, in rejecting the notion that the videos could amount to a “breach of the peace” by threatening “serious disturbance to the community” and causing “alarm to ordinary people”.

Sheriff Dickson’s ruling that the videos were “grossly offensive” 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’s legal history.

In paragraph 38 of his judgment, Sheriff Dickson accepted that “there is no crime of Holocaust denial in Scotland and that a ‘message or other matter’ which consists of or includes Holocaust denial can only be contrary to section 127(1)(a) if it is grossly offence [sic].”

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.

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 “(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.”

Sheriff Chris Dickson, the judge responsible for today’s assault on academic freedom

The Sheriff’s reasoning was (in part) that the videos were “derogatory towards the Jewish people”, though he accepted that Vincent had at no time called for violence against Jews, still less for their extermination.

In fact Sheriff Dickson took the view that “all of the offences specified in the extradition warrant” amounted to gross offensiveness under the Communications Act.

It’s 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’s office, in which Collins had “ranted and shouted and made reference to ‘wogs’, ‘Pakis’, ‘black bastards’ and ‘niggers’.”

It is in the context of this Collins case that Sheriff Dickson was assessing Vincent Reynouard’s 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 “grossly offensive” in the same sense as the Collins telephone calls.

Video 1: suggesting that the deaths at Oradour occurred as the result of an explosion rather than a ‘massacre’ by the SS.

Video 1 (second offence): making a reasoned case as to why alleged ‘homicidal gas chambers’ at Auschwitz-Birkenau did not exist, and describing orthodox historical accounts of this topic as “the official thesis”.

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 ‘fake’; summarising part of his argument analysing the roof of this structure, with the words “no holes, no Holocaust”.

Professor Robert Faurisson, the French scholar against whom the anti-revisionist Gayssot Law was originally promulgated, with then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Video 3: analysing orthodox ‘Holocaust history’ as being, in the words of the warrant, “a belief made up of multiple lies, errors or half-truths that build on each other”; denying that inmates were massacred, and arguing that deaths at the camp partly “attest to the death of hundreds of cripples who could not withstand the transport”; describing the display of hair as though it were evidence of mass killings, as the “most blatant deception”; stating that two buildings referred to by other historias as homicidal gas chambers were actually intended for hygienic purposes; again using the words “no holes, no Holocaust”.

Video 4: with reference to a correspondent’s questions, arguing that “there is a Jewish problem. A problem that Hitler saw clearly”; stating that Jews have exploited society’s flaws and that “it is true that the Jews exploit the situation to dominate us, even enslave us”, but that “to remove them [the Jews] would be pointless”.

Video 5: stating that “revisionism exposes the great lie from which [the Jews] profit”; arguing that the Holocaust myth “imposes a deadly anti-racism for White Europe” and that “this is why Hitler is the most slandered man”.

Video 6: describing stories of Nazi atrocities as being “crude slanders”; suggesting that the Allied victors of the Second World War did not themselves believe in the tales of German homicidal gas chambers.

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 Höss, used at the Nuremberg trial, was forced from him; “in short, poor Rudolf Höss was treated so that he would say what the victors expected”.

Polish authorities themselves have drastically lowered the official death toll at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex – but attempts to dispute the old orthodoxy are viewed by French law (and now by the Edinburgh Sheriff Chris Dickson) as illegal and “grossly offensive”.

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’s videos to have been “grossly offensive” 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’s reasoned historical arguments are closely comparable to a man telephoning his MP and emitting repeated abuse about “‘wogs’, ‘Pakis’, ‘black bastards’ and ‘niggers’.”

Adding to this extraordinary judgment, Sheriff Dickson goes out of his way to state that “there 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.”

Let us be clear about what Sheriff Dickson is saying here.

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 ‘Holocaust denial’.

Yet he has opted to stretch the meaning of ‘grossly offensive’ digital communications, so that serious historical debate (whether or not one agrees with the historical arguments being put forward) can be deemed ‘grossly offensive’.

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.

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.

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 ‘Holocaust’ 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.

Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, wartime intelligence supremo and ‘Holocaust’ sceptic, photographed in 1947. Would he be criminalised in 2023 for expressing “grossly offensive” doubts about homicidal gas chambers?

One wonders how Sheriff Dickson would deal (for example) with the wartime chairman of London’s 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 “publicly giving credence to atrocity stories for which we have no evidence. … I feel certain that we are making a mistake in publicly giving credence to this gas chambers story.”

Today’s 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.

Vincent Reynouard is almost certain to file an appeal against this judgment, and H&D 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.

[A two part interview with Vincent Reynouard appears in issues 115 and 116 of H&D.]

Vincent Reynouard reports from his Edinburgh jail on the eve of his extradition trial

Scottish justice will soon decide whether to extradite me to France or release me. Knowing that, if I am extradited, I will probably spend years in prison, we can say that my fate will be decided on September 21st.

My lawyers are optimistic. Indeed, having served the entire prison sentence which earned me the first arrest warrant, only the second remains. Paris is asking me to judge me for several videos. However, to be extradited, these videos must constitute crimes in both France and Scotland. My lawyers’ argument is clear: my comments do not transgress UK laws.

My opponents invoke the precedent set by the conviction of singer A. Chabloz in 2018. However, A. Chabloz was convicted for having composed, performed and broadcast “grossly offensive” songs. In question here were the vocabulary chosen, the tone adopted and the criticisms formulated against the Jewish people in general. My videos are totally different. Although they may shock and offend, they are never grossly offensive and, therefore, remain within the bounds of freedom of expression as conceived in the United Kingdom.

Many of my relatives are therefore optimistic about the outcome of this hearing. For my part, I am neither pessimistic nor optimistic, because I have learned not to hope for anything and not to fear anything. The reason is always the same: I trust in Providence. So far, she has protected me in my mission. I am therefore convinced that the decision of September 21 will be the most likely to serve the revisionist cause. Certainly, for me, it will undoubtedly be the occasion for new trials, but the trials are there so that we improve by overcoming them.

I will therefore accept the final truth, whatever it may be, and will continue to place the revisionist cause above my personal destiny, because revisionism serves the Common Good and, as a National Socialist, I have always advocated the primacy of the common good over particular interests. Therefore, I will not back down now. My personal destiny is of no importance.

Some will call me a fanatic. However, when we see how the anti-revisionists treat us, we understand that only diehards can endure the fight on the front line. If I wasn’t one, I would have given up a long time ago. Providence raises up the right people where they are needed. Our adversaries being fanatics, She opposes fanatics to them. It’s in the natural order of things.

So I calmly wait for September 21st. In the calm of my cell, I continue my activities of reading, writing, meditation and drawing. After ten months, a daily routine was established. I hardly notice that I am in prison anymore. I’m like on a ship where life unfolds peacefully. For the past few weeks, I have been the oldest on my wing. I know the staff and the inmates know me, because I am a somewhat unusual prisoner.

I should have been released on August 10th, once my prison sentence was fully served. However, the Scottish justice system decided to keep me in prison on the grounds that I could take advantage of my release to escape again. Knowing what I have done since October 2021, this fear is understandable. I would add that, even if this extension of my detention were illegal, I would not claim any compensation, because I did not suffer – far from it – in Edinburgh prison.

Besides, in Edinburgh prison, the deprivation of liberty as it affects me is entirely relative. Certainly, my body is held in a penitentiary establishment, but my mind remains free. Here, I read a lot: I discovered authors like Denis Marquet (on spirituality) and Jacques Ellul (on technique). I corresponded freely with wonderful people. I was able to exercise every day, including three times a week in a well-equipped gym. I enjoyed an excellent diet that many people would envy. Finally, I improved my drawing techniques, especially watercolour.

In my eyes, I am much freer than the citizen forced to get up every morning to do an uninteresting job. My freedom is a thousand times greater than that of people without an inner life, glued to their screen and slaves to social networks.

As for the prison guards, they were very kind to me, probably because they think that there is no legitimate reason for me to be in prison. Not long ago, in fact, a guard told me: “You have been in prison for almost a year, because France does not respect the right to freedom of expression!” I think she was expressing the thoughts of the guards in general…

It is true that, from this vantage point in Scotland, we observe, incredulously, the climate of hysteria which reigns in France around real or imagined anti-Semitism. The causes of this frenzy are undoubtedly multiple.

Revisionist pioneer Robert Faurisson addressing his final conference in Shepperton, England, attended by Vincent Reynouard and organised by H&D’s Peter Rushton

First of all, I think a lot of Jews are worried. In this changing and crisis-ridden world, they fear a new persecution, even a new “Holocaust”, on the grounds that they would always have been the scapegoats. The associations which represent them therefore act to eradicate anti-Judaism from society. However, knowing that, in our part of the world, “racism” has become the capital sin, the government – whoever it may be – is obliged to support this action.

To this is probably added another fact: at a time when the Rassemblement National (RN – National Rally) is considered, rightly or wrongly, as a force capable of influencing politics, attacking the ultra-right induces Marine Le Pen increasingly to dissociate herself from the ideals of the national right. And as we always end up becoming what we say, whether by conviction or by strategy, then the more the government attacks the ultra-right, the more the RN becomes normalised .

Finally, I think that for some, hitting the ultra-right is another way of attacking the RN, with a view to preventing a possible electoral victory for Marine Le Pen. Indeed, when a government has no positive record to its credit, its only political strategy consists of presenting itself as the ultimate bulwark against the foul Beast. He can then say: “See, the foul beast is not dead. Don’t be fooled; the de-demonisation of the RN is only apparent. If Marine Le Pen comes to power or even comes close, the ultra-right will take the opportunity to resurface.” In my eyes therefore, these various causes contribute to the ambient hysteria.

As for me, I represent an intellectual danger for the government, because I demonstrate that the crimes attributed to the Foul Beast are propaganda lies. My action appears all the more dangerous to him because I denounced a particularly fragile myth: the alleged massacre of women and children in the church of Oradour by the ‘barbaric’ Waffen SS. Without denying the deaths of these people, I demonstrate that the circumstances of this tragedy were very different.

However, if the myth of Oradour falls, some might wonder about Auschwitz. The link will be all the more natural since, since 2017, the challenge to the official History of Oradour has also been repressed by the anti-revisionist law. People will then say: “The myth of Oradour was protected by the same law which prohibits contesting the existence of the gas chambers of Auschwitz; therefore, are these gas chambers also a myth?”

The guardians of Memory cannot therefore retreat: they must defend tooth and nail the myth of Oradour. Hence their interest in silencing me. This doesn’t bode well for me. However, here again, my personal destiny is unimportant. I don’t expect anything down here. The reward will come after this earthly life. This is my conviction (which I do not impose on anyone). Therefore, I am calm.

H&D will report further on Vincent Reynouard’s case and additional reports will appear in English at the Real History blog and in French at Vincent’s own blog Sans Concession.

Historic RAF site to be demolished for ‘refugee centre’: will Gary Lineker intervene?

During the past week, BBC presenter Gary Lineker has deployed wartime rhetoric to condemn government policy on immigration. He suggests that ‘asylum seekers’ are similar to refugees from 1930s Europe. As with so many liberal arguments in favour of immigrants, all the usual ‘anti-Nazi’ rhetoric is mobilised. Lineker suggests that Britain’s ‘heroic’ wartime record implies that we must roll out the welcome mat for those disembarking on our coast daily in small boats.

Yet a story has since emerged that might give even Lineker pause for thought.

RAF Scampton is one of Britain’s most historic wartime sites. In May 1943 Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his 617 Squadron led the famous ‘Dambusters raid’ from this airfield. In recent years it has been used as a base for the Red Arrows, the RAF’s aerobatic team.

617 Squadron mascot ‘Nigger’, with one of the first Lancasters issued to Bomber Command

A £300m deal had been agreed with the local council earlier this year that would preserve a museum at Scampton, restore the Officers’ Mess into a hotel, and provide 1,000 jobs to local residents.

All of this has now been scrapped on the orders of the Home Office, so that Scampton can be turned into a refugee centre to house asylum seekers.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman is keen to make propaganda about immigration, hoping that the Conservative Party can again deceive British voters. Yet it is her department that is committing this vandalism at Scampton, destroying listed buildings and riding roughshod over British heritage.

Can we expect any word on Twitter from Gary Lineker about this issue?

The gravestone of Guy Gibson’s dog ‘Nigger’, as featured in the Dambusters film, was destroyed in 2021 on government orders

RAF Scampton was of course also the home of Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s famous dog ‘Nigger’, whose name has been removed by censors from all recent broadcasts of The Dambusters film. Even YouTube now restricts a video featuring this famous dog!

Nigger featured in the film partly because of the coincidence that the dog (a much loved mascot of 617 Squadron) was killed in a car accident on the very night of the Dambusters raid: he was buried at midnight as his owner was en route to Germany. Nigger is buried at RAF Scampton, but in 2021 following ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests, his original gravestone was destroyed. Paying tribute to the black American criminal George Floyd was judged more important than Britain’s own wartime history.

Vincent Reynouard case latest: new warrant, delayed extradition hearing

French revisionist scholar Vincent Reynouard – who has been jailed in Edinburgh for almost four months despite not being accused of any crime under Scottish or English law – was handed further charges today while in the dock at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

As with the previous charges, these have been issued by French prosecutors who are seeking Vincent’s extradition to be tried under the ‘Gayssot Law’, introduced in 1990 by a French Communist MP.

This bans the expression of sceptical historical views about the ‘crimes against humanity’ defined at the Nuremberg Trial and in the 1945 ‘London Charter’ that established that trial.

Most obviously, the Gayssot Law prohibits sceptical research into ‘Holocaust’ history, which is banned in several European countries, though perfectly legal in the UK.

Vincent Reynouard (above right) in 2020,with the late Richard Edmonds, being presented with the Robert Faurisson International Prize.

Vincent Reynouard has previously been convicted several times of such ‘crimes’, and is best known for his investigation into the ‘Oradour massacre’ of June 1944. His published work about Oradour dates back to the 1990s, and he recently wrote a comprehensive investigation of this topic, now available (in French) from his website.

The latest warrant seems to reflect an admission by French prosecutors that they made an error in their initial warrant, under which Vincent Reynouard was arrested in Anstruther, Scotland, on 10th November last year. He has been held in Edinburgh Prison ever since his arrest.

An interview with Vincent Reynouard, by H&D‘s assistant editor Peter Rushton, will appear in the May-June edition of Heritage and Destiny. Vincent will next appear in court for a pre-trial hearing on 20th April, and the full extradition trial is presently scheduled for 8th June, again in Edinburgh.

Updates on the Vincent Reynouard case will appear here soon.

Europeans mark two contrasting anniversaries

H&D‘s friends and comrades in Europe have marked two contrasting anniversaries in recent days.

In Dresden commemorations were held for the greatest crime of the Second World War – the terror bombing that destroyed this ancient city in February 1945. As discussed in a new article by our assistant editor Peter Rushton at the Real History blog, no one knows the true death toll at Dresden, partly because the city was packed with refugees who had fled from Stalin’s Red Army as it advanced into eastern Germany. Based on his detailed archival research, the British historian David Irving has estimated 135,000 deaths.

Dresden was the culmination of a deliberate policy of terror bombing – a deliberate decision to flout pre-war agreements (and to abandon the policies of the British government at the start of the war, maintained until Churchill took office).

Demonstration by Devenir Europeo, at the Winston Churchill park in Barcelona, draws attention to Churchill’s war crime at Dresden
Posters commemorating the destruction of Dresden were placed this week at universities and museums around Spain, including the Alcazar at Segovia (above).

The most famous British military historian, J.F.C. Fuller wrote in 1948:
“It may seem a little strange, nevertheless it is a fact, that this reversion to wars of primitive savagery was made by Britain and the United States, the two great democracies… With the disappearance of the gentleman as the back-bone of the ruling class in England, political power rapidly passed into the hands of demagogues who, by playing upon the emotions and ignorance of the masses, created a permanent war-psychosis.”

Fuller went on to acknowledge that as a consequence of the seizure of power in Britain by such “demagogues”, notably Churchill, “the obliteration of cities by bombing was probably the most devastating blow ever struck at civilisation”. Fuller wrote of “the moral decline which characterised the war.”

The Spanish nationalist group Devenir Europeo carried out a campaign of leaflets and posters targeting universities and military academies in an effort to raise awareness of the events of the Second World War and how they shaped our world. Our correspondent Isabel Peralta was very much involved in this campaign: she also marked this week’s other important historic anniversary.

This week H&D correspondent Isabel Peralta marked the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Krasny Bor, speaking at the memorial to the División Azul in Madrid.

In February 1943, 4,000 Spanish anti-communist volunteers – the División Azul (‘Blue Division’) – successfully fought off a vastly greater force of Stalin’s Red Army at the Battle of Krasny Bor, near Leningrad, allowing their German allies to regroup and maintain the Leningrad front.

Speaking beside the División Azul memorial at the Almudena cemetery, Madrid, this week, Isabel pointed out that her compatriots won at Krasny Bor not because they had greater numbers or greater weapons, but because they had greater faith in their cause – the noble ideals of the true Europe.

Spain is now at the front line of the struggle to maintain freedom of research and freedom of speech on historical and political questions. Under their new ‘democratic memory law’ some forms of historical revisionism are now illegal, although in other respects Spanish laws on ‘incitement of racial hatred’ are less restrictive than in the UK.

Isabel herself is presently facing trial in Madrid for a speech at an anti-immigration rally outside the Spanish Embassy last year.

Vincent Reynouard extradition update

Yesterday there was another court hearing in Edinburgh on the case of Vincent Reynouard, the French revisionist scholar who despite having committed no crime under UK law, was arrested at his home in Scotland on 10th November. Since then he has been held in Edinburgh Prison.

The French authorities demanded Vincent’s extradition to face charges under their law which forbids challenges to orthodox versions of 20th century history, including the ‘Holocaust’.

Vincent Reynouard is best known for his detailed investigation of the alleged ‘massacre’ at Oradour, in west-Central France, on 10th June 1944, as well as further revisionist research and analysis that can be read at his website.

The law under which he would be tried in France (and under which he has previously been convicted and served a prison sentence there) was introduced in 1990 by the Communist MP Jean-Claude Gayssot and the Jewish Socialist former prime minister Laurent Fabius.

Professor Robert Faurisson speaking at an event organised by H&D in Shepperton, West London, the day before his death in 2018.

Its original target was the French scholar Professor Robert Faurisson who was prosecuted and heavily fined several times under the ‘Gayssot Law’, and its main target today is Vincent Reynouard.

The court in Edinburgh will have to decide whether Scottish law allows for a man to be extradited for something that is not a crime in Scotland – and the case is therefore an important test of the new extradition arrangements that replaced the European Arrest Warrant system after Brexit.

Dr Fredrick Töben (above, second left) at the Newmarket Hotel, Port Adelaide, South Australia with (left to right) the late Jock Spooner (H&D patron); a visiting Cuban friend; Peter Hartung (Töben’s Adelaide Institute colleague); and Dave Astin.

In 2008 the German authorities attempted to extradite the Australian revisionist Dr Fredrick Töben from London using a European Arrest Warrant, after he was arrested while in transit at London’s Heathrow Airport. However this extradition attempt was defeated in the London courts, and after several weeks detention at Brixton Prison, Dr Töben was freed to return home to Australia.

In Vincent’s case a further preliminary hearing is due on 9th March, with the full case presently scheduled to be heard (again in Edinburgh) on 6th April.

Further reports will appear soon, both here at the H&D site, in our magazine, and at the Real History blog.

Vincent remains in good spirits. H&D readers wishing to send him a letter of support (in English or French) should write to: Vincent REYNOUARD, Prisoner Number 160071, HMP Edinburgh, Scottish Prison Service, 33 Stenhouse Road, Edinburgh, EH11 3LN.

Next Page »

  • Find By Category

  • Latest News

  • Follow us on Twitter

  • Follow us on Instagram

  • Exactitude – free our history from debate deniers