- Dear Free Speech Supporter:
-
- This has been a terrible week for those who believe in
free speech in Canada. On Thursday, Mr. Justice Pierre Blais brought down
his decision finding it reasonable for the government to believe -- that's
not the same thing as finding the case to be true -- that Ernst Zundel
is a threat to Canada's national security because he is an honoured senior
stateman in the "White supremacist movement." It's clear that
it's Ernst Zundel's ideas -- his skepticism about the 6-million claim,
etc. -- and his skills as a publisher and communicator what have so annoyed
the Canadian government and the Jewish supremacists who so relentlessly
lobby and back them.
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- Judge Blais was in blatant conflict of interest judging
evidence provided by the Canadian Security and Intelligence Agency (CSIS),
Canada's spooks, as he was the former boss of CSIS. He three times refused
to recuse himself.
-
- Blais also accused Zundel of "destabilizing"
the German government and, therefore, being a threat to their national
security. In the mind of this bullet-headed state apparatchiik, any opposition
to a government is a threat to national security.
-
- I was talking to Mr. Zundel this afternoon. He called
me from prison. He will be deported to Mannheim, Germany on Tuesday. Normally,
the flight number is revealed to relatives. Not so for Mr. Zundel. Neither
relatives, friends or his own lawyers will be allowed to see him off. "National
security," you know.
-
- Ernst wants me to let all his supporters around the world
know that the fight will go on. He has not given up. There is an arrest
warrant for him in Germany and he faces up to five years in a German jail
for publishing his views. [Didn't someone say we fought WW II to help bring
'democracy' to Germany?] The Canadian act in this free speech drama is
over. His persecutors are merely changing stages for the next act in the
farce.
-
- He also wants to thank all in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere
who helped with their donations, their letters to the authorities and their
many cards and messages to him.
-
- Paul Fromm
-
- Director
- Canadian Association for Free Expression
-
- =====
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- Statement from Ernst Zundel's Lawyers
-
-
- This statement concerns the pending deportation of 65
year old Ernst Zundel, who lived in Canada from 1958 to 2000, who has no
criminal record in Canada and who faces no criminal charges in Canada.
-
- Mr. Zundel has been in solitary confinement for 2 years
and is about to be deported after a largely secret proceeding against
him. The Crown and the presiding judge met secretly throughout his case,
in the absence of Mr. Zundel and his lawyers. The Crown repeatedly presented
evidence and made arguments to the judge in a Star Chamber type proceeding.
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- At the public proceeding, Mr. Zundel was told literally
hundreds of times, when he asked for specific evidence of the case against
him, that there was "nothing in the unclassified materials" .
He was repeatedly blocked from asking questions of witnesses on the basis
of "national security".
-
- The presiding judge made repeated serious errors, forgot
submissions and repeatedly misstated the appropriate legal test about what
evidence should be kept secret. The same judge then evaluated the secret
evidence.
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- Mr. Zundel complained of reasonable apprehension of bias
by that judge. The same judge rejected Mr. Zundel's argument and later
ordered him deported.
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- The Federal Court of Appeal rejected his appeal regarding
bias. It appears that the Crown will not wait to see whether the Supreme
Court of Canada will hear the further appeal Mr. Zundel has already filed
on the bias issue. The Crown will deport him NOW.
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- The Supreme Court of Canada has been asked, in Mr. Adil
Charkaoui's case, to consider the constitutionality of the law which allows
secret evidence by which Mr. Zundel is deported. The Crown will not wait
until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear that appeal. If the law
is ultimately ruled to be unconstitutional, Mr. Zundel will likely hear
about it from a German jail cell.
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- Probably no one cares because Mr. Ernst Zundel is notorious
and reviled. The powerful and the popular do not need to rely on the fairness
of our legal system. The marginalized and the reviled do. Our system has
failed Mr. Zundel. We should care. But we fear most of us don't give
a damn.
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- Mr. Zundel will not initiate any further court proceedings
in Canada. His repeated request that Canadian courts recognize his rights
to basic fairness and justice have been unanswered. He will not beg for
those rights.
-
- Mr. Zundel has gone through the entire security certificate
process, unfair though it was, to a conclusion. He has no right to appeal
or to judicial review. He has gone to every available level of court in
Canada.
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- For 42 years, he has vigorously defended his freedom
of expression within the Canadian justice system. All legal avenues have
now been exhausted, as has his faith in the Canadian justice system and
this security certificate system, which has been characterized by a Canadian
journalist, after witnessing part of Mr. Zundel's proceeding, as a "frightening
charade of justice".
-
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- Peter Lindsay
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- Chi-Kun Shi
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- Counsel for Ernst Zundel
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