Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

43. The media are contributing to this problem in a manner that looks
well-planned. For example, journalist Selma Milovanovic in The Age,
May 29, 2009, states that Justice Bruce Lander ‘rebuked’ Dr. Toben for
adding material to the website on the morning of the sentencing hearing
(April 28, 2009). That is simply false. Although at one point Justice
Lander quite justifiably told the defendant to stop lecturing and just answer
the questions, he did no rebuking – His Honour was meticulously tolerant
of both parties.
44. Also, J-Wire, an internet magazine, stated, on May 28, 2009, that the
plaintiffs in Jones v Toben ‘have also requested that action be taken
against [Adelaide Institute’s] current director, Peter Hartung.’ The
implication is that the plaintiffs can ask the court to prosecute, but in fact
the plaintiffs attorney merely said he might bring an action himself.
45. Part One of this amicus pointed out, concerning the standards of science
and historiography, that the media is playing an active role by insinuating
that holocaust denial is the kind of thing that ‘notorious’ persons do, rather
than the sort of thing that is quite ordinary among scientists and historians.
Here in Part Two it is said that media are trying to increase, rather than
decrease, the chilling effect of the Toben case on free speech.
46. It is beyond this amicus to reflect on the media’s motive in trying to
chill free speech.
47. In the past, if any scholar were to be punished for statements, no
matter how offensive, it would be met with an uproar from academia. Yet
today, at Adelaide’s three universities, we see evidence that self-censorship
is already taking hold: silence reigns.
48. For example, a Google search for ‘adelaide university, fredrick toben’
conducted on 2 June, 2009 (Exhibit A) and a yahoo search for ‘‘university
of Adelaide,’ Toben’ conducted on 3 June, 2009 (Exhibit B) failed to
bring up, on their first page, any reports of local discussions of free-speech
issues related to Toben.
49. Very likely each person says to himself ‘It is not worth jail, or loss of a
job, or getting smeared by the media, or possibly risking one’s health or
that of his loved ones, to help a man who could easily avoid jail just by
shutting up.’ Anyone can read, at 13.1 of Toben’s May 25, 2009 affidavit,
the allegation that his local Internet provider has received death threats –
and that no police investigation appears to have resulted from that.
50. The chilling of free expression in Australia also encompasses
consideration of what may happen when one travels outside Australia.
After all, Dr. Toben, who is Australian, was taken off a plane at Heathrow
in 2008 while he was transiting from United States to Dubai. He was kept
in a London jail, with threat of extradition by the European Union Arrest
Warrant. No mention was made in the press of any intervention by the
Australian government.
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