Pressitems140399

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On March 14, 1999 the British press began leaking items about the broadcast, from which it was plain that it was not “Storyville,” and not about “Bans” or “Free Speech” at all:- The Mail on Sunday London, March 14, 1999 [Radio & TV programmes] FEAR AND LOATHING: JOURNEY TO THE RIGHT BBC2 , 9.05pm [March 20, 1999] Nick Fraser travels from Scandinavia to Italy in this first in a season of programmes about the Far Right.

He finds fascism and ideologies of hate being not just tolerated, but actively promoted. The film includes interviews with Jean-Marie Le Pen , British historian David Irving and leaders of extreme groups who continue to pledge their allegiance to Hitler’s ideals of racial purity. The Observer, March 14, 1999 Journey to the heart of the Far Right.

From Nazi songs on Danish radio and a German board game called Pogrom to the leisure wear of an Austrian politician, race hate is alive in Europe, reports Nicholas Fraser […] I took the game with me to London, unpacking it in the presence of David Irving, far right historian, at Speaker’s Corner. He affected to believe that it might have bneen made for the purposes of provocation, by Jewish interests. But would he play it?

Certainly not,” said Irving huffil;y. “I have better things to do.” […] Nicholas Fraser wrote and presented “Journey to the Far Right”, which can be seen on BBC2 at 9 p.m. on Saturday. The Scotsman Edinburgh, March 19, 1999 The new little Hitlers After Auschwitz, what kind of fool flirts with fascism. Nicholas Fraser , who has spent a year crossing Europe talking to the ones who still do, takes a hard look at how to deal with race hate […]

Censors are invariably ridiculous figures, most of all when they claim to act in our name as guardians of democracy. In Germany, state surveillance of fascists has reached grotesque proportions — and I don’t believe it ever stopped anyone shaving his head or attacking Turks. In most European countries (there are plans for similar legislation in Britain) it is a criminal offence to deny the Holocaust.

But banning Holocaust deniers, and their supporters like David Irving , has merely given publicity to the views which it was intended to silence. […] Evening Leader (Chester) Friday 19th March 1999 Page 11 Journey To The Far Right, Saturday, BBC2, 9.05pm. RACISM AND extreme forms of nationalism are still intact in dark corners across Europe.

Despite the current drive for unification, there are plenty of people who want to see Europe’s nation members waving the flag for their own countries again. Could Nazism erupt once more? The programme includes interviews with right-wing political leaders including Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, Austria’s Jorg Haider , and British revisionist historian David Irving . NEXT ITEM IN THIS DOSSIER: 1999