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Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives and invite open debate. |
H
E
writes from Sweden, on Saturday, May 27, 2000
Rami's stupid prank backfires
I was reading your article by Bjorn Hanssen about the 1992 "anti-Zionist Conference" and I remembered an interview of Ahmed Rami in the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs-posten. This interview was part of a series of articles about different revisionist, among them yourself.* The date of the Rami interview is April 8, 2000.
This is a translation of part of the Rami interview about the Conference entitled "He has his own view of history. Ahmed Rami spreads revisionism among muslims" (original Swedish below):
Rami laughs when he tells about how he then fooled the mass media, the politicians and the police. We are sitting in the home of one of Ahmed Rami's friends, in a house near to the Bromma church, because he doesn't want to show us his office.
I told a friend, from Algeria, that I want to see if Säpo [The Swedish Secret Police] really is informed. I picked up the phone and said to TT [Tidningarna Telegrambyrå, a Swedish news agency] that I was going to organize an anti-Zionist world conference. And there was a great debate. Säpo started to suspect that the conference would be held in a boat. Others thought that it would be held in the Stockholm Globe Arena [a well known building in Stockholm]. Israel sent a letter of protest to the Swedish government to stop the conference. The chief of Säpo and the prime minister made statements. So much uproar about a joke!
The funny thing is that the Algerian guy phoned me up. He asked why I was pulling his leg. I'm not, I said. But you told me it was only a joke. Yes, but it is only a joke. No, it's on the TV, radio and the newspapers. It is true, he said.
This spring the joke has been news again. One of the parts in the book about the Holocaust deniers that has made the author David Irving sue Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin books for libel speaks about Rami's joke.
I hope the translation is good enough, it's quite different reading English and writing in it. As this story is quite different from the one on your website, I thought it would be interesting.
H E [name known to this website] Sweden
* The links are as follows:
Ahmed Rami: http://www.gp.se/special/fornekarna/art8.shtml
David Irving: http://www.gp.se/special/fornekarna/art7.shtml
Han har sin egen syn på historien. Ahmed Rami sprider revisionismen bland muslimer
[...] Vi sitter hemma hos en av Ahmed Ramis vänner i en villa i närheten av Bromma kyrka eftersom han inte vill visa oss sitt kontor. Jag sa till en kompis, en algerisk kille, att jag ska se om Säpo verkligen är informerad. Jag lyfte telefonluren och sa till TT att jag ska organisera en antisionistisk världskongress. Och det blev en debatt. Säpo började misstänka att kongressen skulle hållas på en båt. Andra trodde att den skulle hållas i Globen. Israel skickade protestbrev till svenska regeringen för att stoppa konferensen. Säpochefen och statsministern uttalade sig. Ett sådant rabalder om ett skämt! Det roliga är att den algeriska killen ringde mig. Han frågade varför jag drev med honom. Jag driver inte med dig, sa jag. Men du sa att det skulle vara ett skämt. Jo, men det är bara ett skämt. Nej, det är ju på TV, radio och tidningarna. Det är sant, sa han. Denna vår har skämtet blivit aktuellt igen. Ett av styckena i den bok om Förintelseförnekarna som fått författaren David Irving att stämma Deborah Lipstadt och Penguin books för förtal handlar just om Ramis skämt.
David Irving
writes:
FOR me this was no joke. After Rami's stupid prank attracted international publicity, the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian press and TV published my immediate denials that I had ever accepted an invitation to attend such a conference. The denials came too late -- my Swedish publishers Legenda Forlag and my Scandinavian literary agency Lennart Sane refused to accept any further books from me, using this "conference" as an excuse.
David Irving