Reporters without borders denounces harassment of radio journalist Daniel Mermet

Reporters Without Borders today denounced legal action being taken against French radio journalist Daniel Mermet for having re-broadcast an interview last year with a doctor who once performed scientific experiments on prisoners in the World War Two Auschwitz concentration camp in Germany. The journalist, who works for France-Inter, is accused of "stirring up racial hatred" by the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra), Lawyers Without Borders and the French Jewish Students' Union (UEJF) for having aired the interview with the doctor, Hans Münch, at a time of crisis in the Middle East. He appeared before a Paris court on 10 September and the verdict will be announced on 15 October. "These groups, which have already criticised Mermet for a number of broadcasts on the Middle East, are lumping things together in an unacceptable way and aiming at the wrong target," said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard. "Mermet's only purpose was to show the odious and racist nature of this legendary person. Such permanent harassment and abusive legal action must stop so journalists can do their job without pressure and self-censorship." The interview with Münch, originally done in 1998, aimed to destroy the myth that had grown up around the doctor, who was the main assistant of the notorious Dr Josef Mengele and was acquitted by a court in Krakow (Poland) which said he had saved Jews at the time of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp. The programme, which was called "Such a nice Nazi" and put out on Mermet's regular radio programme "Là-bas si j'y suis" ("Life on the other side"), revealed the true character of Münch, who made racist remarks about Gypsies, calling them "a wretched lot" and saying that "sending them to gas chamber was the only solution." Reporters Without Borders notes that it was Mermet himself who alerted Licra and the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP) to Münch's remarks during the interview. The journalist's work enabled Münch to be put on trial and Mermet gave evidence in court for the civil parties in the case. The case against Münch was initially dismissed on grounds that he was senile. On 19 September last year, when the appeal was to be heard against the dismissal, Mermet broadcast the interview again to show that Münch was in fact lucid and coherent. Münch was convicted by a French court in 17 October that year of "stirring up racial hatred" and "justifying crimes against humanity." For having re-broadcast remarks stirring up racial hatred, in the very tense atmosphere of the Middle East crisis, Mermet's former allies, with the exception of MRAP, are now suing him.