LONDON (EJP)---Oxford University has invited Holocaust denier David Irving to speak at an upcoming event, the British newspaper The Guardian reported over the weekend.

The move drew widespread criticism from student groups and anti-fascist campaigners.

Luke Tryl, president of the Oxford University Union debating society, told the paper that he had asked Irving and also neo-Nazi British National party chairman Nick Griffin to speak at the Union’s Free Speech Forum, due to take place at the end of November.

He added that Lukoshenko, the president of Belarus, accused of human rights abuses by the EU, had also been approached to address students later in the term.

Tryl added that no formal decision had been made on who would be invited to appear.

"The Oxford University is famous for its commitment to free speech and although I think these people have awful and abhorrent views, I do think Oxford students are intelligent enough to challenge and ridicule these people," he told The Guardian.

In a joint statement, Oxford Jewish Society presidents Daniel Bloch and Steven Altman-Richer said: "It will be a disgrace if these discredited speakers are allowed a platform at a forum on free speech. They have an embarrassing history for disregard of legal restrictions. It will certainly go down as a black mark on the reputation of the Oxford Union."

In 1998, Irving lost a libel suit in Britain against US writer Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books. The court ruled he is "an active Holocaust denier, anti-Semitic, racist and he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo Nazism."

The BNP said Griffin would attend the event if it went ahead.

The invitation to Lukashenko was blocked by the British Foreign Office, which said he was subject to an EU travel ban.

The 69-year-old David Irving denied that he had received any formal approach from the Oxford Union but added that he would like to speak to the students there.

"I have had many invitations to speak there in the past but they normally get withdrawn after threats of violence and intimidation. It is a pity because I think there are a lot of students who would like to hear what I have to say."

Speaking tour

Last month, British Jewish community leaders had expressed dismay over Irving’s announcement that he was preparing a nationwide speaking tour and a new series of books.

Irving is notorious for attempting to claim that Adolf Hitler was not party to the Nazis’ genocide of European Jews during World World II.

Last month he declared in an interview that he believed the Jews were responsible for what happened to them during WWII and that the "Jewish problem" was at the root of most of the wars of the last 100 years.

Irving was arrested in Austria in 2005 and sentenced by an Austrian court to three years in jail after a judge ruled that two speeches he made in 1989, dismissing the Auschwitz gas chambers as a "fairy tale" and questioning the existence of extermination camps, breached Austrian law.

His appeal was upheld and he spent 13 months in jail in Austria before being expelled to Britain.

Among EU members, laws against denying Holocaust exist in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Spain.

Countries like Britain, Italy and Denmark have resisted common rules as violating the civil liberties.