Holocaust Denier Loses Canadian Appeal

AP ^ | Sep 30, 11:16 PM EDT | Staff

[Anti-Bubba182]

OTTAWA (AP) -- A German lost another bid Thursday to challenge Canada's claim that he is a security threat and should be deported to his native land, where he faces charges for alleged anti-Semitic activities.

The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear Ernst Zundel's argument that he is being treated unfairly because some of the evidence against him remains secret.

The government filed court papers last year saying Zundel posed a threat to national security and should be deported. The determinaton was based on secret intelligence, some of which has been shared with a Federal Court judge but hasn't been made public.

Zundel wanted to force the government to hand over the whole file.
        

Canada's Federal Court rejected the demand. That decision will stand now that the Supreme Court has refused to get involved.

Zundel remains in custody while the deportation case against him continues. He faces prosecution in Germany for his neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denying activities.

Court documents have linked Zundel with white supremacist leaders. Since the late 1970s Zundel has operated Samisdat Publishing, one of the leading distributors of Nazi propaganda. He is also a provider of Internet material dedicated to Holocaust denial, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Born in Germany in 1939, Zundel emigrated to Canada in 1958 and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001. Canadian officials rejected his attempts to obtain Canadian citizenship in 1966 and 1994.

He moved to the United States and lived in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee until he was deported back to Canada in 2003 for alleged immigration violations.

[JSteff]

Did he try to say that he was just avoiding the draft in the US? He could stay there forever.

[Swordmaker]

I am familiar with Ernst Zundel's case because I have met Ernst and his wife of 10 years, Ingrid Rimland. I have been assisting Ingrid's son, a developmentally disabled adult who lives in a sheltered environment, keep his computer running. Just today I spent several hours updating his old iMac from OS 9 to OS-X. He uses his computer for email, simple games and surfing the internet.

What are Ernst Zundel's crimes?

Ernst Zundel is in prison, unconvicted of anything, because he published books that denied the Holocaust. He did not write them; he merely printed them. As you can see from the article, much of the indictment is "Secret" and Zundel and his attorneys are not allowed to know the charges.

Much as I disagree with his position and ideas, I think the Canadian and US treatment of Zundel is a gross violation of his civil rights. It seems that, in this instance, free speech is free only if the speaker says things the governments agree with.

After living legally in the United States for over 10 years, Zundel was summarily deported from the United States and officially denied re-entry for 20 years, for not appearing at an immigration hearing which he, his wife Ingrid Rimland (a naturalized American citizen), and his attorneys all say he was never informed was scheduled. The hearing had been arbitrarily cancelled, literally at the last moment at least twice before even though Zundel and his attorneys were sitting in the hearing room having travelled several hundred miles to be present. According to the attorneys this smacks of harassment.

SEVEN armed officers came to his home to arrest him... after which he was held incommunicado, transfered from jail to jail, unable to communicate with his wife, until he was deported to Canada.

In a hearing before Canada's Hate Crimes Tribunal, when Zundel's lawyers attempted to stage a defense, the head judge made the extraordinary ruling, that although the testimony and evidence they intended to present was true, "Truth is not a defense" and refused to allow it. This is the same tribunal that is now bringing fundamentalist pastors up on hate crime charges because of their preaching on the sins of homosexuality from the Bible.

The best way to handle such "thought criminals" as Ernst Zundel is to rebut their tripe and prove it to be false, not imprison them on "secret" charges without the right to confront their accusers or to even know exactly of what they are accused. By imprisoning them in such an extra-legal fashion only elevates them and their ideas beyond their importance and makes them living martyrs for their cause. It also makes it look as if there may be something they are saying that the government wants to hide.

Why is this important? I am speaking up because it is the liberals who have created the concept of "hate crimes." It is the liberals who shout down speakers with whom they disagree. It is the liberals who want to imprison people for the contents of their minds and the words they might say rather than the actions they do... or for just who they are.

Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller, who in 1937 was arrested and convicted of treason by the Nazis for preaching against the arrest of Jews, who spent WWII in Sachsenhausen and Dacchau concentration camps and who narrowly missed execution for his thoughts and words in the last days of the war, wrote the following immortal words:

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

For me...

First they came for Ernst Zundel...

[JSteff]

"The best way to handle such "thought criminals" as Ernst Zundel is to rebut their tripe and prove it to be false, not imprison them on "secret" charges without the right to confront their accusers or to even know exactly of what they are accused."

I agree and I was not poking fun at him but at Canada. You air out (on Free Republic what you wrote to me. If it is factual it will elicit responses from the community. It is a good story about what you wrote.

"Why is this important? I am speaking up because it is the liberals who have created the concept of "hate crimes." It is the liberals who shout down speakers with whom they disagree. It is the liberals who want to imprison people for the contents of their minds and the words they might say rather than the actions they do... or for just who they are."

I am sorry for his plight and it is indicative of liberals in general.