Moments ago, notorious antisemite and Holocaust denier Alison Chabloz was jailed for eight weeks, of which she will serve at least four. She was also ordered to pay court costs of £175 within 10 weeks.
District Judge Jonathan Taaffe found Ms Chabloz guilty of breaching the conditions of her suspended sentence after blog posts that she published since June 2018 were found to constitute a breach of a social media ban. Ms Chabloz was handcuffed in court to begin her sentence as her parents, who were in attendance, looked on. The trial in Chesterfield today follows contact between Campaign Against Antisemitism’s lawyers and the National Probation Service.
Last year, Ms Chabloz was convicted on three charges of sending grossly offensive communications via a public communications network. That case began as a private prosecution by Campaign Against Antisemitism, which was then taken over and continued by the Crown Prosecution Service. The charges related to three self-penned songs in which she denounced a supposed Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world and attacked the Holocaust as a fraud perpetrated by Jews for financial gain.
The conviction set a new precedent in British law, effectively delivering a landmark precedent verdict on incitement on social media and on whether the law considers Holocaust denial to be “grossly offensive” and therefore illegal when used as a means by which to hound Jews.
Ms Chabloz was sentenced to a twenty-week prison sentence suspended for two years, 180 hours of unpaid community service, an indefinite order against contacting two leaders of Campaign Against Antisemitism, as well as an order banning her from social media for twelve months. She was also ordered to pay a £115 victim surcharge, and costs of £600. Earlier this year, the conviction and sentence were upheld at Southwark Crown Court, where Judge Christopher Hehir, sitting with lay magistrate Ms M Rego, said of Ms Chabloz, “She is a Holocaust denier…she is manifestly antisemitic and obsessed with the wrongdoing of Jews,” adding that, on the subject of the Holocaust, “she has lost all sense of perspective.”
Ms Chabloz has also been banned from entering France, where Holocaust denial is illegal, for forty years until 2059.
Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “We are delighted that justice has taken its proper course. Today’s trial follows contact between Campaign Against Antisemitism’s lawyers and the National Probation Service, and we are grateful for their cooperation. We hope that this sentence will send a message that antisemitism is unacceptable and that the courts will not hesitate to use the powers at their disposal to bring offenders to justice.”