14/04/00 - Holocaust denial: Chris writes to The Daily Mail

Holocaust denial

The judgement in David Irving's high-profile court case has revealed the historian to be a cynical manipulator of historical information.

Irving has steadily become obsessed by his own perverse, far-right ideological sympathies.

His views are distasteful, extreme and offensive to the vast majority. However, this does not excuse the disgraceful behaviour outside the court of members of the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) who threw eggs at Mr Irving.

It must always be remembered that the crimes of the Nazis were far from unique. The mass murder carried out in the name of international communism surpassed even the evil of Hitler's NSDAP.

The ANL, a movement affiliated to the communist Socialist Workers' Party, should be ashamed of its own history. We must not allow communist sympathisers and apologists to brand their form of extremism as purely anti-Nazi. It is not.

Hard-line extremists, whether of the right or left, must continue to be exposed for what they are: Cynical manipulators of the truth.

CHRIS D. KELLY
Wolverhampton.