OXFORD - Angry protesters clashed with police on Monday before an Oxford University student debate on free speech at which convicted Holocaust denier David Irving had been invited to speak.
Jewish and Muslim students joined raucous demonstrations outside the Oxford Union, a prestigious 184-year-old debating society that has hosted prominent figures such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton and pop singer Michael Jackson.
The protests turned chaotic when around 30 demonstrators broke through police barricades to launch an assault on the union building, where Irving had taken up his seat several hours before the event was due to begin to avoid any violence.
The start of the debate was delayed as police battled to remove several sit-in protesters from the packed union hall.
Irving had been invited to speak alongside Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, whose anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim views have sparked heated argument in the past. Four others were to debate against them.
A 69-year-old historian, Irving has written some 30 controversial books, several of which defend Hitler and deny the systematic extermination of six million Jews by the Nazis.
Irving, who frequently seeks publicity, served a jail sentence in Austria in 2006 for glorifying the Nazi Party. He has been branded anti-Semitic and a racist by a British judge.
Commentators have lined up to condemn the union for staging the debate, saying the student-led organisation is giving a platform to extremism partly in an effort to attract attention. The union has previously invited Kermit the Frog to speak.
