Los Angeles, California--(9/29/2008)--

Two fugitive British writers jailed in southern California have hired an American lawyer to make their claim for political asylum in the United States, says Paul Ballard, coordinator of a legal defense fund for the pair known as the "Heretical Two."

Bruce Leichty, a San Diego County immigration lawyer with 20 years of experience representing asylum-seekers in California, has met with the "Heretical Two" and has agreed to take their cases, Ballard and Leichty announced today. Said Leichty, "This is an vitally important Internet free speech case, where an obsessive security apparatus runs amok and punishes dissidents by making them criminals, and one does not have to share the views of the Heretical Two to appreciate the threat."

The label "Heretical Two" was applied to Simon Sheppard, 51, and Stephen Whittle, 42, when they were undergoing criminal trials in Leeds Crown Court in Britain on several speech-related charges.Sheppard created and administered and Whittle wrote under a pseudonym for a website--hosted by a server in California--found at www.heretical.com.

Sheppard has described his website as a mixture of "blasphemies, heresies, and scientific and general interest material" established to promote his ideas on subjects such as politics, race and gender relations. The site was operating legally in the United States, a fact Sheppard says he relied on; he and Whittle were prosecuted based on the charge that their writings could be viewed by persons in England and Wales.

Sheppard holds an Honors bachelor's of science degree in mathematics from the University of Sussex and published two medical scientific papers prior to becoming a publisher and web developer. Whittle is a First Class Honors B.A. graduate in languages and linguistic science from the University of York, and has written numerous books.

Sheppard and Whittle have already been held in a U.S. jail 80 days under questionable proceedings, according to Leichty. The two had apparently just been admitted to the United States under the U.S. "visa waiver" program at Los Angeles International Airport July 14 when they approached an officer at the airport to announce they wanted to seek political asylum. They were then taken into custody and have been confined in a contract detention facility of Department of Homeland Security ever since, and subjected to proceedings where their immigration judge says she has no power to release them from detention until after they have proved their case for asylum. Leichty said he is analyzing the case in order to determine how best to challenge the confinement and advance their asylum claims. Their next hearing is set for October 14 at the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

"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, culminating in criminal convictions in a Kafkaesque trial where the prosecutors never even had to prove that anyone had read their writings," 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 we must 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. "No doubt the speech of these two men is controversial and repugnant to many, but that is part of what makes a dissident. The Heretical Two are no more criminal than many of our American forebears who fled repression to settle this country--and no doubt they like to stir the pot just like many a modern-day American talk
show host. Ignore or despise them or ridicule them if you wish, dialogue if you dare, but don't imprison them."

After their convictions in a Leeds court were handed down July 13, 2008, Sheppard and Whittle made an impromptu decision to flee to the United States rather than subject themselves to sentencing, meaning that they are considered fugitives in the eyes of the United Kingdom, notes Ballard. They were charged under Britain's Public Order Act of 1986 with Internet posting of articles titled "Holohoax" and "Don't Be Sheeple" and of racially inflammatory materials, and are subjected to penalties enhanced by the British Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2000.

In choosing Los Angeles as their destination, the pair had hoped to visit with other dissidents at the Institute for Historical Review, Costa Mesa, one of whom had been designated by the defendants as an expert witness in their British case on the historicity of various standard Holocaust accounts, said Leichty.

"What is especially alarming about this criminalization of Internet speech is that such laws could just as easily be used to subject nonconformist American publishers to criminal penalties in Britain
even though their speech is protected in the United States." Ballard says the U.S. imprisonment of the two, and the legal costs associated with their defense, caught British nationalist activists by surprise. Asylum claimants are on their own in the U.S. unless they can afford attorneys. "This is such an important case with such far-reaching implications that my colleagues and I could not simply let Simon and Stephen languish in detention without counsel," he said.

Ballard is spearheading the Legal Defence Fund that has been set up in the U.K., which he says is accepting contributions addressed as follows: Croydon Preservation Society, P. O. Box 301, Carshalton, Surrey, SM5 4QW, United Kingdom.

"The need for American participation in legal defense costs is critical," he urged. "American interests are at stake here, too."

In a letter from prison dated September 10, 2008, Sheppard wrote: "Detention is stressful and disorienting. [We] appear before the Immigration Court shackled hand and foot....[We] have no access to the legal material and evidence which is stored in the baggage [we] carried on arrival....[We undertook our action to seek asylum] as a matter of principle, as a political gesture to protest an iniquitous British law which inhibits free speech and the democratic process."

To win political asylum in the U.S., claimants must prove that they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland, on one of several grounds including political opinion. While U.S. courts have frequently stated that "prosecution" does not equate to "persecution," there are cases where confinement and prosecution under repressive laws have been held to constitute persecution, says Leichty.

Leichty is best known previously for representing Ernst Zundel, an internationally known Holocaust revisionist and publisher who in 2003 was arrested in Tennessee, taken away from his U.S. citizen wife, and deported to Canada on the pretext that he had missed an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) appointment. After Leichty was hired to replace Zundel's first Tennessee immigration lawyer, Zundel won the right to a hearing in Knoxville federal court, but his initial bid to overturn his deportation was rejected in an unpublished decision of a federal court of appeals in Cincinnati, and Leichty says he is now prosecuting Zundel's remaining claims in Knoxville.