I just got off the phone to the Zundel-Haus. Toronto is snowed under in one of the worst blizzards ever. The city is practically paralyzed. Last night I heard on CNN that only 20 percent of the streets are even passable.
Yet! Today is the day!
Will the court abide by the censors' wishes and stay or delay the all-important Judicial Reviews in the Human Rights-Zundelsite case?
Last night we didn't even think that Doug Christie, Ernst's attorney, could fly in from the West Coast. We knew he was on the way, but the airport reported that flights were diverted to places like Chicago.
Barbara Kulaszka, Ernst's other attorney, is snowed in in her little Ontario town.
Ernst told me that he has dug out a pair of old, massive rubber boots for Doug, and that the two of them, since taxis are nowhere in sight, will brave the dunes of snow and walk on foot to court, their court papers in backpacks on their backs, to battle once more with the Canadian censors - for Freedom of Speech on the Net!
I asked Ernst not to forget to take photographs for history!
Two days ago, totally overwhelmed by the subtleties, complexities, twists and turns of this case, I called Ernst and asked him to help me to boil down and simplify for my ZGram readers the essence of what's going on.
Here is what I received back:
Written 12:58 - 1: 54 A.M., January 13, 1999
Further to your questions about what will happen this Friday in Federal Court in Toronto and again on Monday in Provincial Court in Ottawa, Canada's capital. Let me give you my opinion:
1. The Canadian Jewish Congress, speaking for all the intervenors, is bringing a motion to stay or delay (until after the Human Rights Tribunal hearings are over) or dismiss as "premature" or "vexatious" all our Judicial Review applications, for which we have been assigned court dates already.
2. The attempt by the C.J.C. and the intervenors is clear:
(a) They desperately want the Tribunal to go on to drain me financially and to tie me down, wasting my time on legal matters and sitting in court for days and weeks on end, while my business is rudderless -
(b) They desperately want to get a finding of my being "guilty" of "spreading hate" to hinder if not stop my work, even my presence - ostensibly only on the Internet -
(c) In reality, once they have a finding of "guilty" by the CHRT, they will run to the police to have me charged under the old - or by then, updated expanded, "new and improved" - Hate Laws which specifically address computer "hate crimes" etc., for which they have lobbied noisily for years -
(d) A "guilty" verdict would further damage my reputation and help them immensely in demonizing me coast-to-coast. It will almost certainly unleash yet another media-born vilification blitz. That always serves their goals of making me an example to the rest of the Canadian public: "Cross us, and we destroy you!"
(e) They will undoubtedly run to the Immigration Department and put on pressure, asking for my speedy deportation - a goal they have pursued for 20 years. By that time, the "new and improved" revised (first time since 1882!) Extradition Act, which specifically mentions websites committing "hate crimes" in other, even overseas jurisdictions like Germany as an extraditable offence, would kick in. Germany would simply ask specifically for my extradition because they do not like the Revisionist Holocaust material which is posted on the Zundelsite, and Mr. Chretien's Canada would be only too happy to comply -
(f) Toward that end, the CSIS people would exploit the CHRT conviction before SIRC to good effect to help their case.
So you can see why it is important to the Canadian Jewish Congress and the other Jewish Lobby intervenors to have the Tribunal hearings continued and concluded with a "guilty as charged" decision against me - the sooner, the better for them and their censorship case.
The issues we raise in our Judicial Review applications are serious legal and fundamental issues going to the very core of the Rights-of-an-Individual in a democratic society and a modern state. I do not see how all five of our Judicial Review applications can be dismissed out of hand by the court - just to please the Shrill Minority.
We raise fundamental, core of fairness, freedom-of-speech and jurisdictional as well as statutory questions. For instance, does the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal have the right to try me for what is put on a U.S. Website by a U.S. citizen located physically in the U.S.A.? Do they have jurisdiction in the U.S.A? The Human Rights legislation talks only about telephone-taped "hate" messages - is that what the Internet is? We also talk about the whole way these Tribunals are chosen, constituted etc. and will ask the court to look into it and rule on it.
In other words: Once again, just as happened during 1985 and 1988, Ernst Zundel helps define what's what - who is entitled to do what, say what, when, where and to whom and how, in a country that has denied me citizenship for 30 years!
Sometimes, quite honestly, I step back and look at my life and the role I have played so far and wonder at my fate - really! Of 27 million people in this country, why should this role fall onto my shoulders? All I want is to live my life in peace and in freedom. I want to be treated fairly and be allowed to state my opinions - without being beaten, spat at, insulted, vilified, demonized, bombed out and burned out.
That's not too much to ask!
Or is it?
In a society and a state that calls itself "democratic" and never tires of telling me so?
Next Monday, January 18, we basically do the same to or about the power and behavior of Parliament and political elite in Ottawa. We challenge their seemingly unbridled authority to censor and vilify someone they simply don't like - or whose viewpoint they hate.
There again: Why me? Why not somebody else?
Is it because for 300 years no one thought to insist on their rights versus these power-drunk, latter-day dictators who seemingly are of the opinion that, once they are elected to Parliament, they are above the very laws they legislated for all the rest of us to follow?
Every day, I am amazed anew that this simple concept of the rights of an individual to hold unpopular opinions is not appreciated by the media, the political elite and opinion makers - or even the great masses of people in Canada. I cannot, for the life of me, see why everybody else cannot see what's happening - or why I say what I say, or do what I do! Germans have a right to defend themselves against propaganda lies - even if these lies are promoted by Jewish writers like Elie Wiesel or movie makers like Steven Spielberg!
It is all so simple:
The rules promulgated by British and Canadian law makers of many generations over almost 800 years since the Magna Carta, the great Charter of the English liberties, and even before in Anglo-Saxon Common Law, say over and over again, in simple writing and in statutes, that people have rights!
Natural rights! God-given rights! And in Canada since 1982 even Charter rights!
People have the right, for instance, to appeal an unfair, biased, wrongly constituted body's behavior and decisions to a higher jurisdiction overseeing the actions of this subordinate or lower body - such as the Human Rights Tribunal in my case! The law calls for "summary applications" in such cases.
I believe because I am Ernst Zundel, the court has dragged these supposedly "speedy" proceedings out for almost 2 1/2 years!
It is a British and Canadian legal tradition for an accused to have the right to appeal. I have that right. I would be remiss in exercising my rights and duties as a citizen if I did not use this right and do this - which is to appeal to a higher authority, the Federal Court of Canada, to stop the abuse of my rights by a lower authority!
That is what real democracy and civilized government is all about - and has always been.
In America, every American swears to uphold the Constitution. In America, this is a sacred duty. In America, it is the obligation of a citizen to oppose and bring to justice all those who subvert or work against the Constitution. President Clinton is finding that out this week! Without citizens exercising their rights, stepping in and saying: "Stop abusing my rights! My rights are guaranteed by the Constitution!" civilized government and a civilized social order would not be possible.
The same holds true for what I am trying to accomplish next Monday in Ottawa, January 18, 1999 - once again an august date for a German: The day the Second German Reich was proclaimed by Bismarck in the Mirror Halls of Versailles, I think in 1872.
People won't believe this because they have been taught to hate me and to impugn and question every one of my motives, but the American example is my guiding principle: "Congress shall enact no laws which are in contravention of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and all the Constitutional Amendments!"
In 1996, President Clinton forced the Communications Decency Act through Congress. Congress should have known that it violated the First Amendment - yet fearful of the lobbyists and censors, they passed it! Citizens challenged the CDA in the lower courts - and the Supreme Court upheld the citizens' rights to First Amendment protection and told the censors in the Congress and the White House: "Paws off the Internet!" The highest court in America declared that repressive legislative abomination of an attempt at Internet censorship was UNCONSTITUTIONAL - because it was so! Clinton tried to bully and bluff his way through - and was stopped in his tracks by responsible citizen activism, and eventually the Supreme Court!
Lucky America!
My challenge is very similar in response to Parliament's unanimous decision last June to try to prevent me from telling Canada the alarming news that in Human Rights cases before Inquisition-like Human Rights tribunals, Truth is no longer a defense. Just like American Internet Freedom of Speech fighters three years ago, I challenge Parliament's heavy-handed censorship and violation of my Charter Rights.
Now we will have to see, one more time, if there are Canadian judges who can put aside their media-induced dislike or even hate for me because of what I say and who I am - who will decide some simple, fundamental questions of law.
Simply put, these questions boil down to this:
1. Does the Charter of Rights and Freedoms - our Bill of Rights in Canada - really have any teeth, any force and power, like the American version? Or is it just window dressing that might look nice on scrolls and posters hanging in schools and public buildings? Does it protect everybody's fundamental right to free speech, to free assembly, to hold an opinion - however unpopular this viewpoint might be?
***Does it - or does it not?***
2. Does Parliament have the right to ban a taxpayer - a man who has lived in Canada peacefully for 40 years and who is known for his unblemished pacifist record - from the entire precincts of Parliament, simply because he holds a still perfectly legal, constitutionally protected but unpopular viewpoint on history and the "Holocaust"?
To ask the question means to supply the answer!
3. My attorneys and I, along with some constitutional experts, feel and believe that Parliament has recklessly overstepped its authority with this ban of me from Parliament, just like the Congress of the United States did in its push for the CDA. In my opinion, the Canadian Parliament overstepped its authority because they thought that they could get away with it, because I am Ernst Zundel, the man the media loves to hate - and what they decided, voted on, legislated and enacted was UNCONSTITUTIONAL! It offended against the letter and the spirit of the law! Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms!
In my opinion, the Parliament of Canada, just like the President and Congress of the U.S.A, does not have unlimited or dictatorial power!
***Or does it?***
That's the gist of our two cases. History will record the outcome on Friday, January 15 and, even more importantly, on Monday, January 18, 1999.
As always,
Ernst Zundel
Thought for the Day:
"When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
(From "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent" by Edmund Burke)
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