January 27, 2006
Authorities in the German state of Brandenburg have imposed a six-month travel ban on the neo-Nazi Horst Mahler to prevent him from traveling to a Holocaust conference in the Iranian capital Tehran, to which Iranian authorities have invited him. Under German law, authorities can temporarily seize a passport to prevent its holder from "endangering substantial interests of the Federal Republic of Germany". Mahler is a notorious Holocaust denier and a leading member of extreme-right NPD party. In the 1970s, he was an attorney for many members of the left-wing terrorist group RAF. Brandenburg's Interior state secretary Eike Lancelle described him as a "fanatical anti-Semite and falsifier of history who repeatedly denies the Holocaust". If Mahler were to speak at the Tehran conference and spread theses against Israel and the USA, he would harm the reputation of German in the world, Lancelle said.