[images added
by this website] Melbourne, Australia, September
17, 2004 - 6:13PM Irving
banned from boarding NZ flight CONTROVERSIAL historian
David Irving was today [Thursday, September 16,
2004] refused permission at Los Angeles airport
to board a Qantas flight for New Zealand.
Irving, who
has gained notoriety as a Holocaust
denier, said he would take his
fight to enter New Zealand to the courts.
He had earlier said he was
determined to visit New Zealand this week to speak
to the National Press Club despite a government
ban. [click
picture below for our website picture
report] 
New Zealand Associate Immigration
Minister Damien O'Connor said Irving
presented himself at the Qantas check-in at Los
Angeles today and was refused permission to board
the plane. "Mr Irving's status as a
prohibited person under the Immigration Act (S7)
means that he cannot enter New Zealand without a
special direction," O'Connor said in a statement,
"and no special direction has been granted."
 Irving
said tonight the airline staff were very polite and
it was not their fault that Prime Minister Helen
Clark (right) and Deputy Prime Minister
Michael Cullen had behaved in an very
un-British manner.
"I've visited New Zealand before
on two occasions, so why shouldn't I be allowed to
come on a third occasion," he said on National
Radio. He said he had read in the New
Zealand media that he would not be allowed to go to
New Zealand -- "the huffing and puffing of the
government in Wellington". "I was quite impressed actually
and rather proud that Helen Clark should have paid
attention to the arrival of one single tourist in
my person." Irving said he had "instructed a
very good lawyer in Auckland to take the matter
further". "We have certain steps we are
going to take that would be extremely uncomfortable
for the government in New Zealand. "We will now require them to
produce their papers and lay their cards on the
table -- exactly as happened in Australia
all those years ago... when I fought action after
action against the Australian government."
Irving's lawyer in New Zealand,
Colin Amery, said he was sure Irving would
fight the matter through the courts. He said the government had acted
in a duplicitous manner in stopping Irving from
coming to New Zealand by using rules designed to
intercept stop terrorists. Earlier this week it was reported
that Irving's name had been on an Immigration
Services computer alert for several weeks since the
Government said he would not be allowed into the
country, after being banned
from Canada 13 years ago.
The Immigration Service said his
name was on the Advanced Passenger Screening System
to which all the world's airlines subscribed.
Immigration Service spokeswoman
Michelle Williams said airlines were aware
that a banned person would not be allowed to land
and would have to be returned at the airline's
cost. Amery told radio network Newstalk
ZB that Irving had been put on the list on May 23.
He asked why,
when that had happened, the government had
allowed negotiations to be carried out with a
view to obtaining a waiver for Irving. "My simple argument is, are we
using a system which presumably is to prevent
alleged terrorists from coming to New Zealand to
stop historians from getting on planes," Amery
said.  Last
week, Cullen (left) said New Zealand's
borders were closed to Irving.
"He can say whatever he wants to.
Nobody is going to stop him saying it... it's just
not going to be here," he said. Cullen, who is also a historian,
has made it clear he is not impressed by Irving's
theories on the holocaust or insinuations that the
New Zealand Government was being manipulated by a
small group of people. "Underlying that is that long
historical paranoia about some notion there is some
Jewish conspiracy to run European civilisation.
"It is just vomit-inducing,
that was the background to what happened in the
1930s and 1940s," Cullen said earlier this year.
 - NZPA 
Dossier:
attempts by New Zealand Jews to stop David
Irving's 2004 visit
FAQ:
Answers to frequently asked questions about Mr
Irving's visit-
NZ
Parliament's stance on Irving, anti-Semitism
eases strains with Israel
 -
Dossier:
The Books of David Irving: Free
downloads
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write to David
Irving