Protest to greet supremacist film showing

A protest is being organized Thursday against a planned showing of a film that advances “white-supremacy, anti-Semitism propaganda” at the Flathead County Library in Kalispell.

A similar protest happened when a film called “The Holocaust Debate” was shown at the library in early April.

That screening was organized by Karl Gharst, a Flathead Valley resident with former ties to a white supremacist group in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

People who walked out of the screening characterized the film as a “Holocaust denial film.”

The protest this week is being supported “by an alliance of faith-based ministries,” according to a press release for the event.

The alliance is urging those interested to turn out at the library at 6 p.m. with protest signs and cameras.

“If everyone brings their camera and actively takes pictures of the bad guys going in and out, it will be immensely effective in running them back under their rock,” the release states.

In 2004, Gharst was convicted in Flathead County District Court of threatening a social worker with the state Department of Health and Human Services.

At the time, Gharst was from Hayden Lake, Idaho, and was described in court documents as “a self-admitted member of the Aryan Nations and a white supremacist,” according to Inter Lake archives.

Gharst originally was charged with a felony for threatening the state employee, calling her a “filthy mongrel”  and a “wild savage from the Flathead Indian Reservation,” but eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

In a final exchange with District Judge Ted Lympus, Gharst called the judge foul names and acknowledged him with a Nazi salute.

Gharst served five months in jail and was put on probation for two years.