The Full Court of Australia’s Federal Court has confirmed a three-month jail term for the Holocaust denier Frederick Toben for publishing offensive material on the internet. The 64-year-old was taken from the courthouse in Adelaide to prison after losing his appeal against his conviction. The Federal Court ruled that his jail term, originally imposed in May this year, was in no way excessive.
"In our opinion, the sentence of three months cannot, on any stretch of the imagination, be considered excessive or unwarranted," the three-judge panel said. The judges said Toben also had a disregard for the orders of the court and had acted to undermine the authority of the court.
Earlier this year, Toben was found guilty on 24 counts of contempt for ignoring a previous court order preventing him from publishing racist material on the Adelaide Institute website. When he later imposed a three-month sentence, Justice Bruce Lander said Toben had continued to breach those 2002 orders, which prevented him from publishing specific anti-Semitic material. The 2002 orders stemmed from a racial discrimination case brought against him by Jeremy Jones, the former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ).
Current ECAJ President Robert Goot welcomed the judges’ ruling. In a statement he said: "It is to be hoped that Dr. Toben will heed the views of the Court in the future. If he fails to do so the ECAJ will not hesitate to bring the matter back before the Court."