French comedian Dieudonné fined for hosting Holocaust denier on stage

A court in Paris has fined the French stand-up comedian Dieudonné  M'bala M'bala € 20,000 (US$ 30,000) over an anti-Semitic stunt during a show in which he invited a notorious Holocaust denier onto stage. Dieudonné, 43, was ordered to pay € 10,000 for his "public anti-Semitic insults" and a further € 10,000 in damages and legal fees to organizations that sued him. He was prosecuted after he invited Robert Faurisson, a convicted Holocaust denier, onto stage during a comedy show to receive a satirical award from an actor dressed as a Jewish deportee. The comedian admitted at the hearing that the show had been a "comedy bomb attack" but defended his right to free expression. Anti-racism and Jewish organizations welcomed the verdict.

Dieudonné, a former anti-racism campaigner whose father originated from Cameroon, often courts controversy and earlier this year tried to enter politics by standing for the European parliament as head of an "anti-Zionist" party. In September 2007, Dieudonné was fined after he accused Jews of exploiting "memorial pornography" and attacked a "Zionist lobby which cultivates the idea of their unique suffering ... and has declared war on the black world." Two months later, he was back in court and was fined € 5,000 for having compared Jews to "slave-traders". Dieudonné remains under investigation over a video circulating on the Internet in which he appears to attack a "Yid Zionist lobby" led by "racist liars".