Government Minister André Ouellet accepted the recommendation
of the Board of Review and signed the revocation order restoring Zündel's
mailing privileges on November 15, 1982. Canada Post turned over bags and
bags of mail to Zündel. All cheques were stale-dated and Zündel's
business suffered near ruinous losses. His mail order business never regained
the lost market share and customers.
The Canadian Jewish Congress obtained a copy of the Board of Review's ruling
almost immediately from Canada Post. Ben Kayfetz of the Canadian Jewish
Congress announced to the press that they were "appalled" by
the decision and particularly angered by the finding of the Board of Review
that what was before it was "a much larger problem or struggle
between two peoples i.e. the Germans and the Jews..." (Ottawa
Citizen, Dec. 11, 1982; letter to the editor Jan. 7, 1983)
Zündel himself, however, did not receive a copy of the Board of Review's
ruling even though the case involved his mailing privileges and resulted
in disastrous consequences for his business. In a letter to Zündel
replying to his complaint that he had not been given a copy of the report
, the Office of Prime Minister Trudeau replied that the report had been
"mistakenly released" to the Canadian Jewish Congress but that
the Minister responsible for Canada Post was well within his discretion
to refuse to give Zündel a copy. (Letter, Martin Blumenauer, Correspondence
Assistant, Office of the Prime Minister, March 15, 1983)
Zündel attempted for years through letters to the Minister and others
to obtain the decision. It was only after Zündel initiated lengthy
proceedings under the Privacy Act and appealed to the Privacy Commissioner
that he was allowed access to the report in 1992, some 10 years after the
Board of Review's report was issued. He was not allowed to obtain even
a photocopy of decision; his lawyer was forced to transcribe the decision
by hand at Canada Post offices in Toronto.
"FALSE NEWS" CRIMINAL PROSECUTION
After Zündel's postal ban victory at the end of 1982 and the defeat
of Zionist activist Sabina Citron (as well as the government of West Germany
which had lobbied hard for the postal ban), there began a campaign in 1983
by Jewish organizations to have him charged under Canada's hate laws.
The Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association and Sabina Citron, political
opponents of Zündel's, wrote to Ontario Attorney General Roy McMurtry
demanding that he charge Zündel with inciting hatred under the Criminal
Code.
Ontario Liberal leader David Peterson accused Zündel in the Ontario
legislature of being "one of the world's big purveyors of Nazi propaganda"
and demanded that the Conservative Attorney General McMurtry lay charges
of inciting hatred. In an article in the Toronto Sun (June 15, 1983), Zündel
stated: "I don't hate Jews. I work with them. There are some Jews
I would not go near with a 10-foot pole, but others I like."
B'nai Brith demanded that Zündel be charged under the hate laws. (Toronto
Star, October 13, 1983)
In October of 1983, the Canadian Jewish Congress alleged Zündel was
mailing out "anti-Semitic" material and urged the amendment of
the Canada Post Act to make his activities illegal (Toronto Star, Oct.
7, 1983)
HARASSING TELEPHONE CALLS
Throughout this time period, from the early 1980s onwards, Zündel
suffered almost constant strings of terror telephone campaigns by Jewish
individuals. Metro Toronto Police traced and taped these callers in investigations
that resulted in at least three convictions that are known; one of a design
engineer for Ontario Hydro, one of a wealthy local real estate broker and
one of a stock broker in one of the largest brokerage houses in Toronto.
The prominent Jewish real estate broker who was convicted was a man named
Eugene Lawrence. He was fined $200 in 1989 and put on probation for two
years. Lawrence was a member of the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association,
the organization headed by Sabina Citron and Helen Smolack, which has pursued
Zündel with five criminal charges and one postal ban. He had a previous
criminal record of violence. In 1969, Lawrence had knocked self-styled
"Nazi" leader John Beattie unconscious in a Toronto demonstration
for which offence he was convicted and fined $25.00.
Evidence from Lawrence's trial indicated the campaign was systematic and
organized. Lawrence used different public telephones in shopping malls
and restaurants, driving in his white Cadillac along a regular route, and
stopping at regular intervals to repeatedly telephone Zündel's number.
He would let the telephone ring once, hang up and then dial immediately
again over and over. Zündel received literally hundreds of calls a
day for months. Lawrence was arrested in the act of making one of these
phone calls, quarter in hand, by one of Metro's police officers.
THEFT FROM THE MAILS
At least two of Zündel's postmen were convicted of stealing his mail.
One was a man who had delivered mail for seven years along Zündel's
street. He stated that he stole the mail and "destroyed" it because
he hated Germans. When, arrested, he had on his person DM 120 in cash and
an envelope containing West German postal banking statements with names
and addresses of Zündel's West German donors and customers. This information
could have been sold to anyone interested in knowing Zündel's mailing
list, particularly his financial contributors. He was sentenced to four
months in prison and Zündel received a letter of apology from Canada
Post.
Bank statements regularly vanished from the mail. Credit card and tax bills
were destroyed which caused damage to Zündel's reputation and business.
His divorce decree mailed to him from the Supreme Court of Ontario was
stolen from the mail and never received. Registered mail was stolen over
the years. Air mail special-delivery registered letters and audio tapes
of interviews with Dutch political figures were detained for almost seven
months, then released without explanation. Other mail of a time and deadline-sensitive
nature was held up for months, thus sabotaging Zündel's business in
myriad's of ways during years of harassment.
THE FIRST TRIAL - "SPREADING FALSE NEWS" (1985)
Throughout 1983, there were continuing calls to have Zündel charged
under the hate laws. On November 10, 1983, Zündel wrote the Attorney
General of Ontario, Roy McMurtry, to ask for guidelines on what constituted
"hate literature." He wrote:
"You have been quoted in the press and in Hansard in reference to your discussions with some five federal ministers of justice and your constant consultation with the committee of lawyers in your ministry regarding the content of my writings which your ministry has been assiduously studying for years. You have declared publicly that these ongoing studies of my publications are being conducted with the purpose of discovering grounds sufficient for the laying of criminal charges against me and against Samisdat Publishers Limited and you have unjustly and erroneously gone on to accuse me of being 'behind a lot of the very vicious material that has been disseminated', although you yourself admit that this is merely a belief on your part and that insufficient proof exists with which to substantiate your allegations. (...) I would like to suggest and request that your committee of lawyers supply me with their guidelines and criteria on 'hate' content so that I may apply them to my writings in advance of publication. Similarly, these guidelines should be available to all writers, educators, media representatives, etc. so that everyone in the community can know exactly what the rules are in Ontario. I make this request solely in the interests of insuring greater community harmony, the lessening of inter-ethnic tensions and misunderstandings and for the relief of current anxieties and uncertainties on the subject of 'hate literature.' If your motive is really the elimination of so-called 'hate literature' from our society and not actually the malicious persecution, entrapment and victimization of Ernst Zündel and Samisdat, then I see no reason why you would be reluctant or embarrassed to provide me and the general public with information abut your thought-crime guidelines; otherwise you are keeping us all in ignorance of the law as it is currently interpreted and enforced."
Zündel never received an answer from the Attorney General. McMurtry,
however, refused requests by the Jewish lobby groups to lay hate charges
against Zündel.
On November 18, 1983, Sabina Citron of the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance
Association laid two private charges against Zündel of "spreading
false news" in the publications "Did Six Million Really Die?"
and "The West, War and Islam." Both publications had been the
subject of the postal review and found not to constitute hate literature
within the meaning of the Criminal Code. Notwithstanding this, Citron's
charges were taken over by the Crown which meant the state assumed the
entire cost for the persecution of Zündel through prosecution on behalf
of the Zionists. Zündel began what was to become a nine year costly
legal battle for his civil rights.
In the fall of 1984, officials from the Ontario Attorney General's office
visited Holocaust author and "survivor" Elie Wiesel, asking him
for advice and assistance in the preparation of the case against Zündel.
Wiesel refused, telling the prosecutors that "on the basis of his
own personal experience he had decided that it was imprudent to use the
courts in fighting the Holocaust debunkers." The personal experience
Wiesel referred to was a meeting of leading American judges who had cautioned
him that a "verdict overturned on the basis of legal technicalities
would be used by neo-Nazis as a validation of their doctrines." (Canadian
Jewish News, May 21, 1987)
On September 9, 1984, shortly before Zündel's first trial was to begin,
a pipe bomb exploded at the back of his house damaging his garage, two
cars and sending metal shrapnel flying through neighbouring yards, lodging
in the wall near the bedroom windows of the home of two Jewish neighbours.
The Globe & Mail newspaper in Toronto reported:
"A man called the Globe & Mail last night on behalf of a group he called the People's Liberation Movement of the Jewish Defence League, to claim responsibility for the bomb." (Globe & Mail, Sept. 10, 1984)
Notwithstanding this important lead, no arrests were ever made.
In a press release, Zündel denounced the bombing and warned Canadian
authorities of escalating violence by the Jewish Defence League and other
like-minded groups:
"A bomb was exploded in downtown Toronto on the premises where I work and live. A self-styled "Jewish" group has claimed responsibility for this premeditated act of terrorism which has escalated from telephoned death threats to physical intimidation outside my door at the hands of masked and hooded thugs accompanied by guard dogs on leashes. From intimidation, it was but a short step to physical assault, as occurred repeatedly on my way to the courthouse to face my Zionist accusers. Day after day, my friends and I struggled through mobs of howling, spitting, punching, kicking Zionist hoodlums. And now, bombs...Where will this lead us?
At the outset, taped death , arson, bombing and kidnapping threats were forwarded to police, the newsmedia and politicians such as Messrs. Rae, Peterson and McMurtry. Their reaction or lack thereof was most informative. In particular, the media which had accused and 'tried' me as a 'hatemonger' and which were largely responsible for stirring up the Zionist mob sought to hide their responsibility in this matter by blaming me, the victim of the bombing, for my own misfortune. This is tantamount to an inciter of a lynch mob blaming the victim for being hanged.
The so-called Jewish Defence League or some other fanatical Zionist terror group may indeed have planted the bomb outside my home, but they are only the tip of an iceberg of malice, prejudice, venal politicians and pro-Zionist media prostitutes who are setting me up for murder. Ignorance cannot be the excuse! The police, politicians and the media are perfectly aware of the Jewish Defence League's worldwide reputation for arson, bombing, sniping, assault and murder. Further to their well-documented knowledge of this Zionist hate and terror group, I have provided them with evidence of the JDL's violence-prone hostility toward me with tapes and film of these thugs in action. What more can one do?
Those who bear responsibility for violence include many more than the deluded, the criminal or mentally-ill members of the JDL. They include the politicians who have spread calumnies upon my reputation in order to feather their own political nests; they include the prostitutes of the media whose sensationalist lies and distortions single me out for violence. Others have set the stage and so far, those in authority have given the JDL free rein to do largely as they please. So far we have seen that violence feeds on violence. The JDL is testing Canada to see how far they can go. How they would love to turn Toronto into another Deir Yassin or a Sabra and Shatilla! The JDL leaders recognise no law and no limitation to the scope of their actions, so they will go as far as they are permitted. In public statements, their spokesmen have bragged that murder is permissible whenever they deem it to be in 'Israel's interests', as they see them. It is a well-known fact that the racist, psychotic leader of the JDL, Meir Kahane, is anathema to righteous Jews who refuse to allow him and his terrorists to act in their name in the state of Israel. Similarly in Canada, the same good, decent Jewish people have recoiled from the JDL in horror, but not so, unfortunately, in the case of certain politicians who may be deluding themselves into thinking that they are currying Jewish favour by adopting a 'hands off' policy in regard to JDL hoodlums. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Regardless of Zionist threats, intimidation, dirty tricks and terrorism, I shall confront my accusers in court and I shall expose their global extortion racket within the context of the law. In the meantime, I am allocating funds for the prosecution of the unscrupulous hatemongers of the media and the political prostitutes who incite these terrorists against me and refuse to apply the laws of this land equally to prevent needless deaths."
During court appearances in the winter and spring of 1983 - 1984, Jewish
Defence League members attacked Zündel and his supporters on the steps
of the court house, kicking and screaming and knocking Zündel to the
ground with karate chops. At some court appearances, canes and 1 x 2 inch
planks used to mount placards were used by the Jewish Defence League to
beat Zündel and his supporters over the head. (Zündel and his
supporters would subsequently wear construction hard hats for protection.)
Both Zündel and his lawyer, Lauren Marshall, received harassing telephone
calls and death threats. One media account stated that in "a trembling
voice, Marshall said she and her client and their families are harassed
daily and have received death threats. Later she told reporters one caller
told her seven-year-old, 'If your mommy goes to court, she'll be killed.'"
(Toronto Sun, Jan. 17, 1984)
In an open letter to members of Parliament and the media, Zündel warned
that the administration of justice in Canada was being endangered by allowing
Jewish mobs free rein against him:
"Need I remind Canadians that it is not only Ernst Zündel who is on trial; the eyes of the world and of Canada are watching these proceedings with great interest. No government, no nation can allow its system of justice to fall into disrepute. No state can allow its laws to be ignored or to be applied selectively, without losing the confidence of its people. I, the accused, am respectful of the law, as I have shown [in] over 25 years of political activity. As the accused, I am deemed innocent until proven guilty. This principle forms the basic fabric of our civilized laws, without which we are no better than the many dictatorships which we so vociferously deplore."
A preliminary hearing was held in June of 1984 and Zündel was committed
to trial on both charges that had initially been laid privately by Sabina
Citron. The trial commenced in January of 1985 and lasted for 39 days.
Throughout the proceedings, Sabina Citron and Helen Smolack of the Canadian
Holocaust Remembrance Association had a bench in the court reserved for
them. This in spite of the fact that hundreds of people lined up for up
to three hours each day outside the courtroom in order to see the trial.
Near the end of the trial, a busload of Jews from New York were hustled
into the courtroom ahead of Torontonians who had waited hours to get in.
Members of the Jewish lobby groups constantly advised the Crown and walked
in and out of the Crown offices.
The Crown attempted to prove the Holocaust happened by calling expert witness
Dr. Raul Hilberg, the author of "The Destruction of the European Jews",
and various "Holocaust survivors" who had been in German concentration
camps during the war. It also called the vice president of one of Canada's
major banks to prove that the banks were not involved in any conspiracies.
Zündel called in his defence expert Holocaust revisionist Dr. Robert
Faurisson, a scholar on ancient documents from Lyon II university in France,
Dr. William Lindsey, the retired chief research chemist of the giant American
chemical company, Dupont, Dr. Russell Barton who had been in Bergen-Belsen
immediately after its liberation as a young medical student, Thies Christophersen,
a German who had been stationed near Auschwitz during the war, Ditlieb
Felderer, the Swedish researcher who had taken hundreds of photographs
of Auschwitz during the 1970s, Frank Walus, a Polish American who was falsely
accused by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre of being a Nazi war criminal, Dr.
Gary Botting and newspaper columnist Doug Collins, both of whom testified
to the freedom of speech issues in the case, Jim Keegstra, the school teacher
charged with spreading hatred against Jews in his classroom, Pierre Zündel,
the accused's son. Lastly, Zündel himself took the stand as the final
witness.
During the trial, the Crown attempted to suggest that Zündel wanted
to see a civil war to effect change. Zündel disagreed and spoke of
how he was attempting to effect change:
"You need the truth. It is like this. You are in a large room a number of people, all minding their own business, not realizing that among them there is a pickpocket on the loose. Now that pickpocket is a danger to each person in that room. Until such time that the light of publicity, in this case the light of the law, maybe, points at him and follows him throughout the room - nobody has to touch the man; nobody has to beat the man; nobody has to arrest the man. All you have to do is expose the man. And with publicity, that's exactly what you can do. These people who are lying about the Holocaust are only a problem until such time that their racket has been exposed through truth." (Transcript, 1985, p. 4260)
Zündel described why modern Germany had failed to refute the Holocaust propaganda:
"These propaganda claims against Germany were made. Germany was in ruins, defeated. The entire German leadership of that particular time was either rotting in jail, was either executed, was starved to death, or was somewhere in the Soviet Gulag, so the German people were virtually abandoned. What was left was imigree leadership that had left Germany in the thirties, largely Jewish, communists who came back with the communists or quislings who occupied positions and were given the positions by the Allied powers."
A quisling is properly understood to be a person who is appointed by an occupying power doing the services of somebody else. And the constitutional conference that was held in Bonn to set up the West German State was hand-picked by the occupying authorities, and they rejected people when they didn't toe the line that the Allies had laid down for Germany. So therefore we started out with an occupational government, and it has been self-perpetuating, however much they want to cloak themselves in democratic trappings." (Transcript, 1985, p. 4344-45)
With respect to the "West, War and Islam" Zündel testified that at the time it was published there was tangible agitation by the Zionists for war in the Middle East. He was attempting to help diffuse the situation through dissemination of information to remove negative stereotypes of the Islamic peoples in the minds of Westerners. In the pamphlet, Zündel had urged leaders of the Islamic nations to spend money on information campaigns, not weapons. The pamphlet had stated:
"For the cost of one airplane, a whole nation could be informed about the true aims of one or more Islamic countries. For the cost of one tank, a public information film could be produced and shown over and over again to Western audiences, eager to be informed. For the cost of one anti-tank missile, a small booklet could be published and sent to the newsmedia representatives of the West. For the cost of one artillery shell, a well-trained speaker could present the Islamic case at a university symposium or international gathering. For the cost of one rifle, 500 information-packed tape cassettes could be sent to radio stations around the world. For the cost of one rifle bullet, stamps could be bought to mail ten letters bearing the message of truth and understanding to remote corners of the world. Are Islamic leaders so isolated in their thinking that they cannot grasp the importance and practicality of these suggestions? Are expensive and rapidly obsolescent weapons preferable to propaganda which can bring about peace?...There is a better way, the way of truthful information, our way."