Australian Jews protest Irving film

Australia's Jewish community on Friday protested plans by a Melbourne festival to screen a film made by British historian and Holocaust-denier David Irving.

The Jewish Community Council of Victoria state said it had asked the Equal Opportunity Commission to challenge plans by the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) to show Irving's "The Search For Truth in History".

According to the MUFF website, the film is Irving's response to being repeatedly denied a visa to enter Australia, partly because of his 1992 conviction in Germany for defaming the memory of the dead.

"We hope that the Equal Opportunity Commission demonstrates leadership and allows MUFF to demonstrate some good sense in not proceeding," said Michael Lipshutz, president of the Jewish council.

If the commission fails to act, Lipshutz told the Australian Associated Press, the council will apply for a court order to stop the festival from going ahead with its planned screening of the film on July 10.

"The issue is not one of freedom of speech, the issue is one of racial vilification," he said.

"All around the world it is now recognised that Holocaust denial is anti-Semitism."The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewery, Jeremy Jones, also called for legal action against the film.

"I've seen the film on video and I think that anyone who is screening this is running the risk of deliberately breaking Australia's anti-racial legislation," he said.

Festival director Richard Wolstencroft was unfazed by the criticism.

"They don't believe in freedom of speech for people like David Irving," he said."We particularly believe in protecting unpopular speech. I don't agree with his beliefs, but I do believe he has the right to hold them."

But he did apologise to the people who lived through the Second World War and may find the decision to screen "hurtful".

"We're standing up for an ideal that stops society from returning to something like Nazi Germany," he said.

Irving has written numerous accounts denying the reality of the Holocaust -- Nazi Germany's systematic slaughter of some six million Jews between 1933 and 1945.

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