Neo-Nazi’s Lawyers Argue That Anti-Semitic ‘Troll Storm’ Is Free Speech

Andrew Anglin at a rally of a Greek nationalist movement in an undated photograph. Image by Southern Poverty Law Center

By Ari Feldman December 5, 2017

Lawyers for a prominent neo-Nazi are arguing that his call for a “troll storm” of threats against a Jewish woman in Montana is protected as free speech, the Washington Post reported.

Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit against him brought by Tanya Gersh. Anglin published Gersh’s contact information and address on his site in May and urged his readers to call her and threaten her.

“If a local business were discriminating against black customers, the NAACP can exhort its members to send correspondence to it,” Anglin’s legal team wrote in a court brief. “And, conversely, the KKK can ask its members to send letters of protest to an establishment that treats all races equally.”

The Montana state supreme court has held that the constitution does not protect any “right to cause substantial emotional distress by harassment or intimidation.”

As a result of Anglin’s own exhortation, Gersh and her family received numerous death threats. One person photoshopped an image of her son being crushed by a truck with a swastika on it.

“Overnight, my life was stolen from me,” Gersh told the post in the spring, when the threats were made.

Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at feldman@forward.com. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

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