Canada deports Ernst Zundel to Germany after trial with secret evidence [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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 () earthlink net>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

...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
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