Ernst Zundel first came to my attention around a decade ago when he created a website called, of course, the "Zundelsite." It became one of the more popular Holocaust denial (Zundel would probably call it "Holocaust revisionist") destinations around. That by itself would be mostly unremarkable, though it was early enough in Net.history that the idea of Nazi apologists setting up websites was still somewhat unusual. What made Zundel's case noteworthy at the time is that the German government tried to coerce some of its domestic network providers to block access to the "Zundelsite," which was hosted in the U.S. I recall that Germany eventually backed down, perhaps as a result of the controversy. Anyway, Zundel went on publishing his "The Hitler We Loved and Why" variety of screeds, and nobody really paid much attention to him for the next few years. At some point he moved from Canada to the U.S. and became entangled with the immigration authorities -- missed an immigration hearing or charges of that nature. That proved to be a terrific mistake. It gave the Feds an excuse to ship Zundel back to Canada, and gave Canada an excuse to put him on trial as being a "national security threat" because of his writings and possible ties with right-wing groups. That brings us to the present. Zundel lost his court battle in Canada and is now in his native Germany, where he was arrested as soon as his plane touched down in Frankfurt this week. I wouldn't be surprised if he remained in prison for life. Let us stipulate that Zundel likely has extensive contacts with Nazi-sympathetic groups. Let us further stipulate that even apart from his political views, he's nutty (he postulated secret Nazi UFO bases in a "hole" in the south pole). And if Zundel and his allies were in power, freedom of speech would scarcely be respected -- rather, it would be crushed under a stormtrooper's boot. But legal process is important, and Zundel's deportation does not appear to be justified. He has no criminal record. There is no public evidence of Zundel conspiring with any other Nazi-sympathizers to break U.S. or Canadian law. He was held under a worrisome Canadian law that permits the indefinite detention of anyone deemed a threat to national security without any charges needing to be filed. Secret evidence, never revealed to the public, was used to convict him. The judge presiding over his trial wrote: "Mr. Zundel has never advocated violence. This has been the basis of his position throughout the hearing. How can defending ideas, however unpopular or insulting, pose a safety concern for Canada?" But Judge Blais eventually concluded that the secret evidence tipped the scales in the opposite direction. "The information made available to me paints an entirely different picture. Mr. Zundel is not the avuncular figure looking on with some indulgence on the wayward excesses of some misguided souls who fail to understand his message of non violence. The evidence points to his own direct involvement with groups he pretends to know very little about..." There's a reason the ACLU famously defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie: process is important. Denying one group, no matter how reprehensible, the right to speak paves the way to further abridgements (who decides what's reprehensible?). Relying on secret evidence is no way to run a free society, and punishing someone for even odious political views is wrong. (Remember this the next time Ottawa lectures Washington on human rights.) If the police had evidence of criminal mischief, it should be presented in open court, not offered as innuendo. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association was correct to decry Canada's bizarre procedures and unseemly haste to be rid of a political problem. -Declan PS: We've covered Ernst Zundel before: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04443.html http://www.politechbot.com/p-03056.html Photos here (Zero Knowledge must love the free advertising): http://www.mccullagh.org/image/5/ernst-zundel-1.html http://www.mccullagh.org/image/5/ernst-zundel-2.html Background here: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/z/zundel-ernst/ http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1109683146179_5/?hub=CTVNewsAt11 -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Politech] Reporters Without Borders condemns "repressive" nations at U.N. Net-summit [fs] Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:49:58 -0500 From: Al Cabal <al.cabal@private> To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private> ...and Ernst Zundel is to be deported from Canada to Germany after 2 years in solitary confinement with the fluorescent lights on 24/7 after having been snatched from the arms of his American wife by jackbooted Feds before lunch on a gorgeous winter's morning in their home in the mountains of Tennessee. It all reminds me of that old Chicago song --- "Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?" Where is Frank Zappa now that we really need him? Who are the Brain Police? >From Hell, Alan Cabal _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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