Heretical Two Denied Political Asylum In U.S.

source

5 April 2009

Dear Harold,

You were right. Our asylum claim has been denied, as has witholding of removal. We were thinking of appealing and sticking it out, but really this place is replete with people hanging on hoping for a miracle that's never going to happen, and we don't want to join them.

Our barrister told us when he visited to testify for us that this immigration judge, Rose Peters, has granted asylum to an IRA murderer who had killed two policemen, supposedly on political grounds, so that's the level of hypocrisy we're up against. Better we think to go back to England, face the music, and get it over with.

The ground for refusing asylum was that our prosecution in the UK did not constitute persecution (i.e. the government attorney and the IJ, both women, agree with it. The government attorney even argued against the First Amendment.) I believe that because this is a subjective assessment it is quite difficult to appeal against, and we could spend years taking it through various courts.

Best wishes,
Simon Sheppard
(also signed by Stephen Whittle)

UPDATE: The Jewish Chronicle reports on the decision.

Race-hate pair rejected by US

From The Jewish Chronicle
April 20, 2009

Two racists convicted of publishing racially inflammatory material on the internet have been refused asylum in America and will be returned to Britain to serve their sentences.

Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle fled to the United States during a trial at Leeds Crown Court last year. The jury had returned 11 verdicts of guilty out of 18 counts when the men jumped bail, travelled to Ireland and then flew to Los Angeles, where they claimed political asylum. It was the first prosecution of race hate on the internet.

The pair claimed they had been the victims of a “three-year campaign of harassment” by the government.

They have been held in Santa Ana prison in California since their arrival and now immigration judge Rosa Peters, in a reserved judgement, has told them that their applications have been refused.

The expectation was that the pair would draw out the process by lodging appeals to the decision.

But in a letter published on the website of the extreme right wing British People’s Party, Sheppard, 52, from Selby in Yorkshire, revealed that they will come home to “face the music.

Sheppard wrote: “We were thinking of appealing and sticking it out, but really this place is replete with people hanging on hoping for a miracle that's never going to happen and we don't want to join them. Better we think to go back to England, face the music and get it over with.”

The Crown Prosecution Service decided to hold a retrial for Sheppard in absentia on the counts on which the jury did not reach verdicts and in January, he was found guilty of a further five counts, making 16 in all. Whittle, 41, from Preston in Lancashire, was found guilty on all five counts with which he was charged. The pair are due to be sentenced at Leeds Crown Court on May 15.

An investigation into their activities started after a pamphlet called “Tales of the Holohoax” was pushed through the door of Blackpool Reform Synagogue while another copy was sent to a Jewish academic.

Some of the material was also published on Sheppard’s websites, for which Whittle wrote articles under the pen-name Luke O’Farrell. They were charged with three different offences of publishing racially inflammatory material; distributing racially inflammable material and possessing racially inflammable material with a view to distribution.

Report on the first asylum hearing for the "Heretical Two", Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle

Thanks to Thoughtcrime for the heads up:

Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle have finally gotten their first hearing on their application for political asylum in the United States, after eight months in prison. Most asylum seekers with black or brown skins are routinely given low bail, or simply released into the community, and given a perfunctory court date at which they are politely asked to show up, in the full knowledge that's probably the last that will be seen of them unless and until they commit another crime and are arrested later.

Sheppard and Whittle, however, are Caucasian and dangerous thought criminals to boot, so they have been imprisoned for eight months for the "crime" of asking America to fulfill its promise and let them be free.

From the Heretical Two's website:

The Report on the Hearing on March 12 follows:

To-day the Heretical Two’s asylum hearing proceeded before the U. S. Immigration Judge, Her Honour (I suspect that should be Honor!) Judge Rose Peters. Simon Sheppard and Steve Whittle (who were brought into court in handcuffs and leg irons, which, they confirmed, is standard procedure when asylum seekers are held in detention pending the hearing of their case, and not victimisation of themselves) presented their own cases, as their attorney, Bruce Leichty, had withdrawn from the case by leave of the Court, since he was not satisfied with the (substantial) retainer that he had received from friends of Simon and Steve. The U. S. government was represented by its attorney, Miss Myers.

The Court heard evidence from Simon and Steve about their experiences at the hands of the British police and Crown Prosecution Service, and also from their English counsel, Adrian Davies, who gave evidence about the relevant provisions of English law (the Public Order Act 1986, as amended) and the English Court’s assertion of jurisdiction over web pages hosted on a server located in Torrance, California.

The hearing was conducted in a very fair, courteous and thorough manner, though inevitably Simon and Steve were at some disadvantage, because they are not lawyers, and are moreover being held in prison, where they have had very limited facilities to prepare for the hearing. After a lengthy sitting, the Court adjourned to 1 p.m., West Coast time, on 24th March, when Simon and Steve will address the Court on their own behalf, and Miss Myers will make representations on behalf of the U. S. government.

British "heretical two" convicted on more bogus "race hate" charges by tyrannical UK jewdicial court

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/north_yorkshire/7818792.stm

Men convicted of race hate crimes Thursday, 8 January 2009Two men have been convicted of publishing "obnoxious and abhorrent" racist material. Simon Sheppard, 51, of Brook Street, Selby, and Stephen Whittle, 41, of Avenham Lane, Preston, have been found guilty of a number of offences. A trial at Leeds Crown Court heard they printed leaflets and controlled websites featuring racist material. The pair, who are currently in the hands of US immigration authorities, will be sentenced in March. Sheppard and Whittle were originally convicted of race-hate offences at a trial in July last year. At an earlier hearing, Sheppard was found guilty of 11 offences and Whittle was found guilty of five offences. The jury was unable to agree a verdict on a further seven charges against Sheppard and it was decided he would face a retrial on six of these charges. The retrial began on 8 December and concluded on Thursday. It was held in the absence of Sheppard as he and Whittle fled to America before the jury returned verdicts in the first trial. The court heard the investigation into Sheppard began when a complaint about a leaflet called "Tales of the Holohoax" was reported to the police in 2004 after it was pushed through the door of a Synagogue in Blackpool. It was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard. Pen name Reviewing lawyer Mari Reid, of the CPS's Counter Terrorism Division, said: "People are entitled to hold racist and extreme opinions which others may find unpleasant and obnoxious. "What they are not entitled to do is to publish or distribute those opinions to the public in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner either intending to stir up racial hatred or in circumstances where it is likely racial hatred will be stirred up. "The vast majority of the material in this case concerned Jewish people, but there was also material relating to black, Asian and non-white people generally, all described in derogatory terms using offensive language. "As well as printed leaflets, there was evidence of Simon Sheppard controlling websites which featured racist material, some of it written by Whittle, under the pen name of Luke O'Farrell." The pair were charged with publishing racially inflammatory material, distributing racially inflammatory material and possessing racially inflammatory material with a view to distribution. Mrs Reid said: "Both juries saw some thoroughly unpleasant material which contained views which most people would find obnoxious and abhorrent."

The British "Heretical Two", Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle, denied bail by criminal Judeo-controlled U.S. court

http://downwithjugears.blogspot.com/2008/10/heretical-two-denied-bail.html

Los Angeles, California-(10/16/2008)-Two jailed writers who were convicted in Britain of Internet hate speech on a U.S.-based web site will be forced to remain in special asylum proceedings with no right to a bail hearing, a Los Angeles Immigration Court judge ruled October 14, 2008."That is a very bad blow to their hopes of freedom in the near future, and indeed to all asylum seekers and defenders of free speech in the United States," said Paul Ballard from the United Kingdom, coordinator of a legal defense fund for the pair known as the "Heretical Two" (based on the website www.heretical.com ).The pair, Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle, have since July 14 been in the custody of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in a Santa Ana, California contract detention facility, after disembarking that same date from a plane at Los Angeles International Airport, where they immediately asked for political asylum. They fled Britain after being convicted July 11 in a Leeds courtroom of inciting racial hatred for publishing writings such as "Don't Be Sheeple" and "The Holohoax," including some published on Sheppard's website operated from a server in Torrance, California.Ballard noted that British law since 1986 allows for criminal conviction for speech if the subject speech is "likely to result" in the "stirring up" of racial hatred. A conviction requires no proof of violence or intent. [...]Leichty said the actions of the U.S. government to date have added insult to injury. "Here are two British individuals who published speech that was legally protected in the United States, for which they were criminally prosecuted in Britain," said Leichty, "and now the case has taken an even more Kafkaesque turn since the one country that should be protecting them from imprisonment in Britain has instead thrown them into U.S. jail for an indefinite period of time, based only on the fact that they requested political asylum.""Refugees are protected by international treaty; no country should treat political refugees like these two have been treated, particularly where they enter the host country legally."Leichty notes that Homeland Security admitted in its Immigration Court brief that the two were admitted to the United States under the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, and that until they made their request for political asylum at Los Angeles Airport DHS had no reason to suspect or detain them. Once the two told their story to airport officers, however,DHS attempted to revoke its decision admitting them to the U.S. and to declare the two "inadmissible" on the ground that they entered with the intent to stay in the U.S. as immigrants, which Leichty says is both preposterous on the facts of the case and in any event not within the powers of airport officers.[...]Leichty said that, although the recent and more notorious arrest of Frederick Toben in London involves a German extradition request, he is not aware of any request by the U.K. for the extradition of Sheppard and Whittle, and in any case the United tates typically does not extradite persons who are convicted of crimes which are not crimes in the U.S."It is clear that obsessive security apparatuses in two different countries have now run amok, by respectively making criminals out of dissidents and by locking them up even though they are not criminals. One does not have to share the views or style of the Heretical Two to appreciate the threat posed by this type of case to individual rights and liberties.""The laws under which Sheppard and Whittle were prosecuted could just as easily be used to subject nonconformist American publishers to criminal penalties in Britain."[...]"Both men state that they were living peaceably and civilly in Britain until the police disrupted their lives by raiding their flats and seizing their papers and property," says Leichty. The British press has repeatedly referred to them as the "race hate pair.""There are people who want to criminalize `hate speech' in the U.S., too," noted Leichty. "But as officers of the court, attorneys should remind people that even speech perceived as hateful deserves protection. One man's `hate' may be another man's passion or critique, or even another man's creed. The United States should lead the way in showing disapproval of those nations who have sought to restrict the nonviolent expression of opinion and belief."The Heretical Two are no more criminal than many of our American forebears who fled repression to settle this country--and no doubt they may say repugnant things just like other blogging Americans. Ignore or despise them or ridicule them if you wish, dialogue with them if you dare, but don't imprison them."

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