Shortly after the Gayssot Act—a statute that prohibited Holocaust denial—was enacted in 1990, Faurisson was convicted of Holocaust denial in a French court. In 1991, Faurisson was removed from his university chair under the Gayssot Act on the basis of his denialist views. He challenged the statute as a violation of international law, specifically the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, at the Human Rights Committee. Faurisson filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1993; in 1996, the Committee rejected Faurisson's claim that France's prosecution of him was a violation of the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee upheld the Gayssot Act as "serv the respect of the Jewish community to live free from fear of an atmosphere of anti-semitism" and necessary "to serve the struggle against racism and anti-semitism".