International Campaign for Real History

 

Reuter's Version of the Berkeley Riot

 


DURING the mid-1990s DAVID IRVING was invited several times to address functions at the University of California, at Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech movement of the 1960s. The local Jewish and communist organisations staged violent protests to prevent audiences from hearing him.

Quick navigation

Fighting disrupts controversial historian's lecture

Saturday, October 15, 1994 07:28:01 GMT


BERKELEY, California, (Reuter) - A riot broke out after 100 demonstrators clashed with people attending a lecture by controversial British historian David Irving, who has cast doubt on the Holocaust, police said Friday.
Five people were slightly injured in scuffles Thursday night after the demonstrators marched on a building where Irving was giving the lecture in the college town of Berkeley, Berkeley police inspector Jim Gaebe said.
"It was a confrontation with some people who didn't have the same ideological bent as Mr. Irving," Gaebe said. Berkeley is home to a branch of the University of California, with a campus known for its long history of left-wing politics.
Gaebe said some of the marchers entered the YWCA building where Irving was speaking and fights erupted between opposing groups. He did not know how many people were inside the hall. Most of the people attending the lecture stayed in the building, but some went outside and fighting spilled into the streets, he said.
Some rocks and bottles were thrown, Gaebe said. Forty police officers arrived and sealed off nearby streets to traffic, he said. The streets were soon cleared and no arrests were made, he said.
Gaebe said Irving was able to finish his lecture after the incident.
Irving has stated that the Holocaust, the killing of millions of Jews in Nazi death camps during World War II, was exaggerated and happened without Adolf Hitler's knowledge. click to helpHis views have outraged mainstream historians and Jewish groups. In the past, he has been deported from Canada, excluded from Germany and refused an Australian visa.

REUTER Reut15:12 10-14

Reuter N:Copyright 1994, Reuters News Service

Return to top of page | Mr Irving's version of this | Communist version |

© Focal Point 1998 write to David Irving