Posted on 03/22/2005 3:55:33 PM PST by Unam Sanctam
BOBBY FISCHER, the former world chess champion incarcerated for the past nine months, may be freed this week after a diplomatic confrontation between Japan and Iceland.
President Grimsson of Iceland is expected to sign into law today a Bill granting citizenship to Mr Fischer. It represents the culmination of an extraordinary campaign by Reykjavik to save Mr Fischer from deportation to the United States where he faces criminal prosecution.
John Bosnitch, head of the Tokyo-based Committee to Free Bobby Fischer, said: “The Icelandic parliament, the Althingi, has . . . made history by standing up to the Earth’s sole superpower and demonstrating that it can no longer bully individuals or nations.”
Chieko Nono, Japan’s Justice Minister, acknowledged for the first time yesterday that Mr Fischer might be allowed to travel to Iceland.
Mr Bosnitch said: “Bobby Fischer is standing up as a hero of every oppressed individual in the world.”
Mr Fischer is an unlikely prisoner of conscience, an extreme anti-Semite who has spoken openly of the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001 as “wonderful news”, and of his hope for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews.
He cut a very different figure in 1972 when he won the world chess championship against Boris Spassky, the Soviet grandmaster, in Reykjavik. His victory was regarded as a symbolic Cold War defeat for the entire Eastern Bloc. He has been seen since as a national hero by many Icelanders — hence their Government’s intervention after his arrest in Japan last June.
Mr Fischer faces criminal charges in the US over a return match which he played against Mr Spassky in the former Yugoslavia in 1992. US sanctions in place at the time made this a crime for an American citizen and he has not set foot in his native land since.
Last July, as he was about to fly out of Tokyo where he had been living unnoticed with his Japanese girlfriend, he was arrested by immigration officers. Without informing Mr Fischer, the US authorities had revoked his American passport; since then he has been detained because he lacks a valid travel document. The Icelandic Government offered him residency, but Japan refused to release him. Then Iceland issued him with an “alien” passport, which was also judged inadequate.
Mr Bosnitch said: “Then we went into the last alternative, which was to get Bobby Fischer citizenship. We’ve now gone through every hoop that the Japanese Government has set up for us.”
Playing a chess match in Yugoslavia is hardly on the same level as mass murder. And if we are going to arrest Fisher for that, then let's arrest Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio for traveling to Cuba and meeting with their hero Fidel Castro.
Is this guy for real? What a drama queen.
Fischer will stew in his own hatred wherever he resides.
Hey, they can keep him for all I care!
Exactly, addition by subtraction.
No, it's not, and I didn't mean to imply that it was, but it is hardly an act of oppression for the United States to try and enforce its own laws.
Worth a shot.
Forget the rest of the piece--what has he ever done that merits this kind of praise? A hero of every oppressed individual in the world?
Just as long as we don't grant asylum to Bjork.
Fischer is a schmuck, not a mass murderer. Quoting myself from an old thread:
Our munificent government (under George I, I believe) decided he was violating some embargo or other on Yugoslavia, and indicted him for crimes against The People. (He played a chess match there against Boris Spassky, a French citizen now I think, who has certainly visited the United States many times since that match in the early 90's.) My guess is that Fischer is the only person ever so charged. Jane Fonda kissed the ground in a variety of countries on the State Department blacklist, and all she ever got was adulation.ML/NJ
Is it just me, or does that sound like an Arabic techie term?
I agree. The people you mentioned should have been
arrested, charged and prosecuted.
Well, in 1972 he was. I don't think history records another example of one man, virtually alone, humiliating a great "Evil Empire" the way Fischer did.
Some historic places can still be found in Reykjavik. Remember, this was the place for the first settler, Ingolfur Arnarson. In the Old Town you find most of the historical buildings; The Cathedral, Stjornarradid (offices of the president and the prime minister), The Allthing (The Parliament) and Fogetinn, the oldest house. A very impressing modern building is The Hallgrimskirkja. The famous summit between US President Ronald Reagan and The Sovjet leader Michail Gorbatjov was held in The Höfdi House in 1968.ML/NJ
Nicely put, Mr. Jeeves, however, there was a young black athlete that did humiliate the Nazis in the Olympics a while back...
I spent some time in Iceland. :-)
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