http://germarrudolf.com/persecute/asylum.html
Well, off the top of my head here are a few individuals I know personally,
all of them political prisoners of Germany at some point during the last ten
years, sentenced to prison terms for their peacefully expressed political or
historical views: Fredrick Toben, Udo Walendy, Hans Schmidt, Fred Leuchter, Günter
Deckert, Hans-Jürgen Witzsch, Ernst-Günther Kögel, Erhard Kemper and
currently Ernst Zundel.
Since 1993 the German government tries to force Germar Rudolf to believe in
the official version of German history with all measures of persecution by
prosecution. To find relief from this persecution, Germar Rudolf applied for
political asylum in the United States in late 2000. His case will soon be heard
by a U.S. Federal Court. It could prove to be a landmark case when it comes to
the question whether or not Germany and other European countries should be
allowed to put people in prison merely for their unpopular scholarly views on
history or politics.
Because the U.S. State Department does not recognize Germany as a persecuting
country, and because the INS cannot overrule State Department policies, it
had to turn down Rudolf’s application. Even though this negative decision was
expected, when turning down Rudolf’s application for political asylum, the INS
also decided – and the INS Board of Appeals agreed – that Rudolf’s
application for political asylum was frivolous.
As a result of this, the INS ordered that Rudolf is subject to involuntary
departure, meaning that he will be sent back to Germany in handcuffs; that he
will be banned from the USA for a lifetime, meaning that he will never be able
to return to the US; and that there is no remedy to change this, meaning that
not even his marriage to a U.S. citizen and having a child with her can avert
that deportation and banning. This decision will be brought to a Federal Court for appeal.
The reasons for appeal are, i.a.:
1. The harshest accusation the INS can make against an asylum seeker is
that he filed a frivolous application. The harshest penalty the INS can hand down
on an immigrant is involuntary departure, banning for a lifetime, and no
remedy. In other words: under immigration law Rudolf was accused of the most
severe crime he could possibly commit, and he was punished with the hardest penalty
possible. The problem with this verdict is the following.
a. A frivolous application is defined by case law as an application either
not back-up with any evidence for persecution or by committing treacherous acts
against the INS during the asylum proceedings, like lying to the INS judge,
forging evidence, manipulating witnesses, and the like.
b. Because of the severity of the consequences of filing a frivolous
application, the immigration judge must notify the defendant (=immigrant) during
the hearing that he considers categorizing his application frivolous, and the
Judge also has to inform the defendant what the evidence is upon which he bases
his assumption, so that the defendant can defend himself against this most
severe accusation.
2. This decision of "frivolousness" was made without any notice,
warning, or opportunity to clear up any discrepancies. This was in violation of
Immigration Service regulations and rulings by various Federal Courts, which
require that there be sufficient opportunity for the applicant to account for all
discrepancies. This decision also openly contradicts the comments of the
Immigration Judge during the hearing. He confirmed not only the seriousness of Rudolf's
application (Transcript of Hearing, p. 209), but also that the record of
evidence was extensive both in scope and scale (Transcript, pp. 18, 22, 25, 29,
149, 163, 208, 222, 312). As a reason for calling Rudolf's application
"frivolous", the Judge mentioned two items to support his claim:
a. A letter Rudolf wrote back in 1994 to his godmother, in which he had
denied to have used the pen name "Ernst Gauss". Of course, this proves
only that he had lied to a relative some ten years ago, but not to the immigration judge.
To the contrary: both during his German trial back in 1995 and in his
application form for political asylum, Rudolf admitted to have used this pen
name. If the fact that a person once in his life has lied to a relative is sufficient
reason to deny political asylum, then the institution of political asylum
would cease to exist, as it can be safely assumed that every human being at some
point in his/her life has lied to a relative. It may also be pointed out that
the immigration judge's claim, this lie would shed bad light onto Rudolf, is
also false. After all, Rudolf had a good reasons to deny the use of this pen
name back in 1994, because at that time his scientific revisionist anthology
"Dissecting the Holocaust" (German edition) was yet to appear, so he needed
the secrecy of his pen name to protect himself from political persecution.
b. The immigration judge argued that Rudolf tried to hide the truth from
him
about his close relationship to the German rightwing extremist Otto Ernst
Remer in a similar way as Rudolf tried to hide it from the German court back in
1995. As prove the judge indicated that Rudolf had not mentioned in his
application form for political asylum that he had temporarily resided with Remer
after he had fled to Spain. In his application form, Rudolf only mentioned
“with various friends and in holiday apartments.” That Rudolf indeed resided at
Remer's place can be seen from a newspaper article that Rudolf himself submitted
to the court as evidence for his persecution. However, the article referred to
by the juge only mentions that Rudolf "stayed with Remer." This is
already a distortion by a journalist whose only interest was to link Rudolf to alleged
Nazis. The article does not mention how long and for what purpose Rudolf stayed
at Remer's residence. As a matter of fact, Remer's apartment served only as a
meeting point with other individuals upon Rudolf's arrival in Spain. This
point was chosen because Rudolf knew where Remer lived, since during his trial
in Germany back in 1995, the entire German court had traveled to Spain to
interrogate Remer as a witness. When Rudolf left Germany in March 1996, he was
neither told who he would meet in Spain nor where he would be temporarily
lodged.
This was a security measure to prevent the German authorities to find Rudolf.
Rudolf was actually lodged some 50 miles west of Remer's residence in a holiday
apartment of a Spaniard whose name he cannot recall (which is why he did not
give names) and later in the residence of an old German war veteran. Both
locations were in the Spanish town of Estepona, which Rudolf indicated on his
application form. (He does not remember the exact street addresses, though).
Remer, however, lived in Marbella. So even the immigration judge could have
concluded from these facts that Rudolf's temporary dwelling in Spain was not
linked to Remer. Apart from that: the application form for asylum asks for
“residences”, which are permanent dwellings. Neither of the locations where
Rudolf resided during his short stay in Spain fulfills that criterion, since Rudolf
never had any of his property with him in Spain, but merely luggage as one carries
during a journey or vacation. Rudolf had no residence in Spain, only temporary
lodgings comparable to hotels. And having stayed at Remer's residence for
several hours while passing through certainly does not fulfill the criterion of
a residence either.
During the hearing of his asylum case, Rudolf's short presence in Spain was
not mentioned by anyone. Rudolf therefore had no chance to refute this false
claim that suddenly appeared in the written verdict. These underhanded methods
are comparable to the German court, which back in 1995 tried to prove in a
similar mendacious way that Rudolf had allegedly tried to hide his close
relationship to Remer.
The Federal Court will have to decide whether it is legal to sentence
defendants for crimes they were not accused of during the hearing, and for which
there is no evidence. Under normal circumstances, of course, such a verdict by
any court, INS or otherwise, would never be upheld by a Federal Court. However,
since Rudolf is the world’s leading publisher of Holocaust revisionist
material, and he is increasingly successful in rallying renowned historians from
all over the world behind him, not only the US government, but also the German and
the Israeli governments will exert all the power they have to see to it that
Germar Rudolf will not be able to enjoy civil rights as they are granted to any
decent U.S. citizen, and for which the U.S. once claimed to have gone to war
against Germany.
There are, of course, other interesting aspects to this case. For example the
question whether Germany should be allowed to deny “thought crime” defenda
nts to introduce any evidence deemed to support their dissenting views, and to
even punish defence lawyers should they dare to introduce such evidence.
Imagine a U.S. judge would deny a defence lawyer to introduce evidence to
prove that the crime his defendant is accuse of did not occur in the first
place.
Imagine the same judge would turn against that lawyer for that and put him on
trial. That would cause an outrage, of course. But in Germany it is common
practice demanded by Germany’s Supreme Court.
The INS, in it wisdom, thinks that it found a way out of that by arguing that
even U.S. laws have rules where evidence can be rejected due to the question
to be proven by it being “self-evident”. In the written verdict, the INS
judge related the example of a defendant on trial for a DUI offense. If a
forensic analysis of the defendants blood resulted in the fact that he was driving a
car under the influence of illegal amounts of alcohol, then the judge would
rightly reject any witness statement offered by the defense to the contrary.
The problem is, of course, that the INS turned the facts of Rudolf’s case
upside down. To stick with the INS judge‘s example: Rudolf WAS the forensic
expert testifying in court that the defendant was driving under the influence of
alcohol (here he testified that his analysis show that the gas chambers were not
under the influence of poison gas). But instead of granting his testimony,
the German judges reject him, put him in trial for defaming all witnesses who
did or would testify otherwise, and also put lawyers on trial, who want to
introduce forensic evidence (like Rudolf’s testimony).
Imagine such a surreal situation! Imagine an expert testifying in court about
the fatherhood of a defendant, based upon DNS analysis, would be thrown in
jail because his testimony contradicts that of some “eyewitnesses”, and thus
tainting their reputation!
Hence, should the Federal Court dealing with Rudolf’s case uphold the verdict
of the INS court, then due process for immigrants and maybe even for US
citizens would be a matter of the past:
* defendants can be sentenced for crimes they were never accused of
and for which there is no evidence
* forensic expert witnesses can be put on trial because their
testimony is an insult to eyewitnesses who disagree.
You think that will never happen! Well, you better watch your back, because
when the Holocaust taboo is involved, water runs up the hill!
The human rights experts from Amnesty International have already made up
their minds: Since “Holocaust denial” indirectly amounts to accusing Jewish
eyewitnesses of having lied, it is a form of incitement to hatred. Therefore, in
the minds of AI, forensic experts coming to different conclusions than
eyewitnesses do indeed belong in jail.
Welcome to the New World Order!
by
Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
253 West 72nd street #1711
New York, NY 10023
http://www.RePortersNoteBook.com