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HISTORIAN David Irving has been banned again from entering Australia to give evidence at an anti-Semitism hearing.

Mr Irving, who says the Holocaust never happened[1], was advised by Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock last week.

His visa was denied because he was not of good character as a result of convictions in Germany.

Mr Irving was keen to give evidence on behalf of the Adelaide Institute at the federal Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission.

The hearing has since been postponed to a date to be fixed. Fredrick Toben, of the Adelaide Institute, is fighting a claim by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry that he has published anti-Semitic literature on the institute’s website.

The executive vice-president of the council, Jeremy Jones, is seeking an order to ban Mr Toben from continuing to publish such material on the Internet, saying it contravenes the racial hatred provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

“The well-connected Jewish lobby wants to signal to those who are aware of their various rackets and schemes that if you ‘cross’ them as an individual or as a nation then they will boycott, hound, persecute and ultimately punish you using gentile government agencies and gentile taxpayers’ money,” the site says.

Mr Irving — who has been refused a visa in the past — has provided the Equal Opportunities Commission with a detailed written statement accusing the Australian Jewish community of lobbying to keep him out.

Mr Toben said Mr Irving’s bad-character status stemmed from his having told “the truth” about the Auschwitz gas chamber fabrication at a meeting in Germany.

“David Irving’s witness statement reveals which minority pressure group is controlling the current Minister of Immigration,” Mr Toben said.

A spokesman for Mr Ruddock would not confirm or deny Irving’s visa application.

Mr Jones, meanwhile, said he was not seeking compensation or heavy penalties but simply an order for Mr Toben stop publishing the material on the website.

— AAP

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