Hundreds of demonstrators protested outside the Paris Olympia concert venue Friday in support of a French comedian whose show was canceled after he performed a "Nazi Jew" skit on national television.
The Olympia announced Wednesday it was giving refunds for the 1,500 tickets sold for the comic Dieudonne's show, which was to have taken place Friday, because of an apparently organized campaign of telephone calls and faxes opposing the performance.
Some were so threatening that the police advised the hall that it would be jeopardizing public safety if it did not implement security measures including X-ray machines and bag checks for explosives.
PHOTO: AP
Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala -- known simply as Dieudonne in France -- told Europe 1 radio on Friday that "this is the first time in France, I believe, that an artist has been banned from the stage like this."
"Free Dieudonne, freedom of expression," the crowd shouted outside the venue in central Paris, which blocked traffic on the street while the comedian held his arms aloft to salute his fans.
"There are a lot of people here, that is a great compensation to me," he said.
"The fact that today they have stifled the voice of a black man has great importance for these people. There's no need to censor people, you shouldn't cut short the words of Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala and blacks in general," he said. "The real racism is against the blacks and the Arabs."
The uproar surrounding Dieudonne started on Dec. 1, when the comedian went on national television dressed as an Orthodox Jew and jokingly urged France's disaffected youths -- many of them from Arab backgrounds -- to "join the Axis of Good: the American-Zionist Axis."
He finished the skit with a Nazi salute, saying "Israel heil."
The incident elicited immediate outrage from French Jewish groups, a reprimand to the network from the broadcasting regulator and a court hearing for Dieudonne that is yet to be set.
Dieudonne, a 38-year-old atheist born in France of a French mother and a Cameroonian father, has repeatedly apologized to "people who might have been offended" by the skit, but insists he has always parodied various religious, political and ethnic groups in the name of humor, but without malice.
"I played an Israeli extremist -- hey, they exist.," he said.
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