FREE ERNST ZUNDEL
Canada's Number One »Thought Criminal«

 

For nearly two years now, Canadian authorities have been holding Ernst Zundel in solitary confinement on the pretext that he is a threat to national security. In fact, this 65-year-old German-born publisher, author and civil rights activist is a peaceful man with no record of violence.

He is behind bars solely because of his views, and especially his dissident views about the »Holocaust«. He is Canada's most prominent political prisoner and »thought criminal«.

Zundel was arrested at his home in Tennessee on Feb. 5, 2003, and two weeks later was deported to Canada. He was arrested for an alleged violation of immigration regulations, even though he had entered the US legally, was married to an American citizen, and was acting diligently, and in full accord with the law, to secure status as a permanent legal resident.

His arrest and detention have generated wide media attention, and several Canadian newspapers, including Toronto's prestigious Globe and Mail, have editorially protested his imprisonment.

Jewish-Zionist groups are demanding that Zundel be deported to Germany, where he faces years of imprisonment for the »thought crime« of »denying the Holocaust«. (»Holocaust denial« is against the law in Germany, France, Switzerland and some other European countries.)

Zundel is in prison not because his views are unpopular, or because he's a »security risk«. He's in prison because Jewish-Zionist groups want him there. He's a prisoner because he promotes views that the Jewish-Zionist lobby considers harmful to its interests.

This lobby is the decisive, critical factor in the decades-old campaign to silence him. The only sustained and institutionalized effort to imprison him has come from this lobby, which includes the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, and the League for Human Rights of B'nai B'rith (with the Anti-Defamation League, its counterpart in the US).

Zundel is perhaps best known as a defendant in two great »Holocaust Trials« in Toronto, 1985 and 1988. He was brought to court on a charge of »publishing false news« by reprinting a booklet, Did Six Million Really Die?. In those trials, Zundel and his team presented detailed evidence refuting the standard »Holocaust« extermination story. Although he was found guilty and sentenced to nine months imprisonment, the country's highest tribunal overturned the verdict. On appeal, Canada's Supreme Court threw out the conviction, declaring on August 27, 1992, that the archaic »false news« law under which he had been convicted was a violation of the country's Charter of Rights.

Among the Canadians who have spoken out against Zundel's unjust treatment is Bill Dunphy, a veteran investigative journalist and editor for the daily Hamilton Spectator. He spent six years probing Canada's »white supremacist« movement, and got to know Zundel personally. Although he has no sympathy for Zundel's views, in a column (May 14, 2003) he boldly told readers:

»Our government has seized and branded Ernst Zundel, stripped him of his human rights, tried him in secret and found him wanting, and will now hand him over to a foreign government anxious to throw him in jail. Zundel - who did this country a favour by wiping off the books our disgraceful False News laws - has never once been convicted of a criminal offence in this country, never once found to have violated the hate crime laws that rest snugly around the throat of free expression in this country.
Calculating correctly that there was no political cost, no ›down side‹ to slipping on the jackboots to kick a reviled old man out of our country, our government cobbled together their best insults and innuendo, and Lord knows what secret ›evidence‹, and branded Ernst Zundel a threat to national security.
I know this man, his local and international contacts and I know this movement. And after reading the 58-page ›unclassified‹ summary of the government's case, I can assure you there is no justice here. Their 'evidence' is riddled with errors and misinformation, hearsay and inflammatory innuendo. Dead men walk again, and the shattered bits of shoddy secret networks long since collapsed under the weight of their own ineptitude are made whole and menacing once again. It is a shameful piece of dishonest, unreliable tripe.«

In the view of Paul Fromm, director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE), Zundel is »quite literally a political prisoner. He is being held in solitary confinement solely for the non-violent expression of his political views.« The allegation that Zundel might be a threat to national security »is mischievous nonsense«, says Fromm. »Zundel has been politically active in Canada for 40 years. He's a public figure. His writings and speeches are available on-line. He's been investigated for years by the police. He's an open book. Zundel has never advocated or practiced violence, nor have his followers. He's a pacifist and a publisher.«

© INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW - Mark Weber