ZGram - 9/24/2003 - "An Open Letter to the Congressional Judiciary Committee, headed by Congressman James Sensenbrenner, to investigate the kidnapping of Ernst Zundel"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

September 24, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

I don't yet have specifics about how Day Two of the so-called Zundel 
Bail Hearings played out.  Is anyone holding his breath? 

I will let you know just as soon as I can.

We are making progress, however, in untangling that coil of snakes 
responsible for the arrest of Ernst Zundel.  Below is the tip of the 
iceberg, especially as it pertains to wrongdoing by an appellate 
court of the United States of America, the Sixth Circuit Court.  Just 
a few days ago, through another trickle of documents obtained through 
the Freedom of Information Act, we managed to harvest a few 
additional names - and clues as to how it was done.  It looks as 
though not only one, but two court employees were involved.  But more 
about that later. 

These days in America, whenever one places a political ad, it amounts 
to a veritable dance on eggs - you can't say this, you can't say 
that, you have to be sensitive to "minority" feelings.  Against that 
background, I managed to place Ad # 3 in the Washington Times.  I 
could not have done the same in the Washington Post, let's say - or 
better yet, in one of Canada's national papers.  However, I think 
that I managed to say plenty. 

This ad is to appear tomorrow - September 25 - full-page, large 
format paper!  No way can this  be missed by the powers that be - and 
the would-be powers that be:

[START]

An Open Letter to the Congressional Judiciary Committee, headed by 
Congressman James Sensenbrenner, to investigate the kidnapping of 
Ernst Zundel

This is the third in a series of ads planned to inform America's 
leaders and the public at large about the arrest and detention of my 
husband, Ernst Zündel. 

My first ad, titled "An Open Letter to Vladimir Putin" (6-12-03) 
	was meant to illustrate that Stalinist tactics have come to 
America.  My second ad, titled "An Open Letter to the Senate and 
Congress of the United States", (9-7-03) was a graphic description of 
how a brutal, politically motivated kidnapping was carried out.  This 
ad takes my campaign for basic human rights yet one step further - to 
free my husband, and to warn America. 

I have been cautioned not to mention America's most powerful taboo. 
Instead, I quote from a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Times, 
written by one Nelson Marans, that was published in response to my 
first two ads - it mentions the taboo for me:

While paid advertisements may be the financial lifeblood for many
newspapers, I would have hoped that The Washington Times would have 
displayed more selectivity when confronted by an advertisement from a 
Holocaust denier [page A7, Sunday]. Convicted of that crime in 
Germany and guilty of spreading his message of hate throughout the 
world, Ernst Zundel is not misunderstood and a victim, but instead an 
advocate of religious and racial hatred. He supports the 
extermination of not only
Jews, but blacks and any other members of so-called inferior races. 
(Nelson Marans, Silver Spring)

When a charge that serious is being made about an ad I placed, I am 
entitled to a full reply.  Moreover, I will pay for it so I can state 
it fully.  What I have to say, below, is part of the public record 
and can be verified by anyone. 

My husband has NEVER supported "... the extermination of not only 
Jews, but blacks and any other members of so-called inferior races." 
That is an allegation that is actionable!  With this ad, in a still 
semi-free America where an accused has the right, we all assume, to 
set the record straight, I take this opportunity to do precisely 
that. 

It is true that Ernst Zundel, a German nationalist, has been a 
political activist all of his adult life, speaking up for his 
people's maligned World War II generation.  However, he was only six 
years old at the end of World War II.  He came to Canada while still 
a teenager and lived there for more than four decades.  He chose 
Canada because it did not require conscription since, raised as a 
Christian, he abhorred war and any kind of violence, and he has never 
changed his mind.  As he has put it, then and since, "I won't take up 
a gun at governments' behest to kill another human being who has done 
me no harm." 

With an  innate artistic talent and excellent training in graphic 
arts acquired in the ruins of bombed-out, postwar Germany, Ernst very 
quickly became wealthy - and seriously concerned about an 
increasingly hysterial crescendo of post-World War II propaganda 
against the country of his birth. 

At first, his activism was a part-time hobby.  In 1967, he decided to 
get into mainstream political action, largely in token protest 
against ethnic vilification of the country that he loved.  He was an 
immigrant, the youngest candidate ever in the history of Canada to 
run for political office as head of the Liberal Party.  In an address 
to a live audience of 25,000, he pleaded for an end to anti-German 
hate propaganda and for Germany's reunification.

Shortly thereafter, to his amazement, his then pending application 
for Canadian citizenship was turned down, even though his record of 
conduct was spotless, and citizenship was routinely granted to 
successful immigrants. 

A promising mainstream political career thus cut short, he turned to 
non-violent street activism, mostly picketing of movie houses and 
print media.  By then, he had a following of mostly European 
immigrants from many different countries.  His name became a 
household word, not only in Canada but increasingly abroad.  Never 
once did he or his supporters resort to any form of violence, either 
in speech or in action.  The record speaks for itself.

In the early 1980s, the Canadian government arbitarily and 
dictatorially denied Ernst his postal privileges.  It ruined his 
lucrative graphic arts studio but broadened his political appeal and 
brought him scores of free speech supporters from all over the world. 

After a prolonged and very costly legal struggle, he won his postal 
privileges back.  A Government-sponsored Postal Tribunal ruled 
tersely that the Canadian government should keep its nose out of "... 
a conflict between two peoples, the Germans and the Jews." 

Next, his German passport was revoked and stayed revoked for many 
years.  Documents obtained by his attorneys through the  Freedom of 
Information Act revealed to his astonishment how much his ever more 
vociferous opponents feared his Truth-in-History campaign, and how 
seriously he was being taken by the powers in and behind several 
governments.  He says today:  "Scales fell from my eyes!"

In November of 1983, a well-known, wealthy Holocaust survivor 
brought criminal charges against Ernst for "spreading false news" 
under the Canadian Code's ancient Section 177, a law that dated from 
12th Century England.  More than 800 years ago, this law had 
protected England's aristocracy from wandering minstrels chanting 
ditties against the powers-that-be.  Only twice had it been used in 
Canada.  

Videos exist of the subsequent seven-week trial that show how Ernst, 
his legal team and friends were being threatened, pushed, beaten and 
spat on as they fought their way into the court house, while a 
frenzied mob, waving sticks and brandishing canes, hissed and 
screamed obscenities at the top of their lungs.  One reporter from 
the Toronto Sun wrote that Ernst was "...winning the battle of images 
by mere contrast of behaviour."

Next, a bomb exploded in Ernst's garage.  Jewish circles contacted 
the media and claimed responsibility.  Police chose not to follow up. 

Ernst Zundel lost that first trial, but upon appeal the judge was 
found to be biased.  A new trial was ordered.  This trial commenced 
in 1988.  It lasted almost four months.  Ernst paid for his defense, 
as he had done before, and has done ever since.  The tax payers of 
Canada paid for the prosecution - by the millions!

Right at the start of this new trial, the judge took judicial notice 
- which means, in layman's terms, that the historical event known as 
the Holocaust, as claimed, was a historical "given" - and could not 
be put to the test.  This made a conviction a foregone conclusion.

"Before this judge, in this court, the battle is hopeless," Doug 
Christie, defense attorney, told Ernst.  "I can't win it for you."

"This one," replied Ernst, "is not for myself.  This one will be my 
gift to history."

This trial made history.  It gathered court witnesses and experts 
from all over the world - for no other reason than to document their 
testimony in court transcripts.  One crucial outcome was the Leuchter 
Report, a global bestseller, obtained after a forensic investigative 
team flew to Auschwitz in then still Communist Poland.  The Leuchter 
Report was a milestone.  

Since judicicial notice precluded  victory, Ernst lost this trial as 
well, but after many appeals and a great deal of legal struggle and 
yet more millions spent on both sides, the Supreme Court of Canada 
exonerated him.  After 9 years of costly litigation, the highest 
court in Canada said this:

"Section 2(b) of the Charter protects the rights of a minority to 
express its view, however unpopular it may be. ...The content of the 
communication is irrelevant.  The purpose of the guarantee is to 
permit free expression to the end of promoting truth, political or 
social participation, and self-fulfillment.  That purpose extends to 
the protection of minority beliefs which the majority regards as 
wrong or false."

The highest court of Canada had spoken.  In a sane world this would 
have been the end.  Ernst certainly believed it.  Now he could turn 
to his first love and do what he had always longed to do - open an 
art gallery somewhere up in the mountains. 

Within four days, he was re-charged - this time under Canada's 
infamous Hate Laws.  The government, however, refused to carry 
through.  There were several more attempts, always with a new twist, 
to charge him with a hate crime.  The charges never stuck, for he is 
not a hateful man - and he has the record to prove it.

Thus having been cleared of all charges, Ernst decided to re-apply 
for Canadian citizenship.  The Globe and Mail reported that his 
application was "flawless".  Again he was turned down.  Again, no 
explanation. 

In the fall of 1994, the Zundel-Haus, as it was known, became the 
target of 24-hour telephone terror, violent demonstrations, and 
postering of flyers across Toronto by the thousands with explicit 
instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails.  These flyers cited 
the Zündel-Haus address and showed Ernst's face in the crosshairs of 
a rifle.  Police looked the other way and never charged anyone for 
incitement to murder.  Privately, Ernst was told by a policeman that 
the word had gone out that $800 would get him "bumped off". 

In the early morning of the 50th anniversary of Germany's defeat and 
surrender, the Zundel-Haus went up in flames.  Had Ernst been home, 
he would have been killed.  Invaluable documents, letters and books 
were destroyed.  Even though the arsonist was caught on video and his 
name and whereabouts were known and turned over to the police, there 
was no follow-up. 

This act of violence was followed 10 days later first by an 
AIDS-laced razor blade and then by a parcel bomb which, had it 
exploded, would have killed everyone in a radius of 300 feet. 

Ernst rebuilt the Zundel-Haus - bigger, better and stronger - with 
the help of his freedom-of-speech friends from all over the world.

Since criminal charges didn't stick, Ernst's opponents turned to 
Human Rights legislation, focusing on cyberspace.  It would go too 
far, and be too tedious, to describe the subsequent 5-year cyberspace 
censorship battle in various Canadian courtrooms, the outcome of 
which was a Human Rights Tribunal Stalinist verdict:  "Truth is no 
defense"!

This ruling shocked Ernst to the core.  If truth was no defense, he 
knew  there was no way he could win his case in the courts of Canada. 
Moreover, he had made his mark.  Historical  revisionism had made 
spectacular inroads.   Revisionist papers, books, seminars, symposia 
were sprinkled across hundreds of websites in cyberspace and 
seriously studied in colleges and universities, even in the embassies 
of countries that mattered.  The information was out in the open - it 
would be up to the people to draw their own conclusions.  Ernst 
decided his part of the struggle was done.

By that time, Ernst Zundel and I were married and had settled in the 
hills of Tennessee, in looks reminiscent of his homeland in the Black 
Forest.  Here he would do what he had always longed to do - create in 
his own gallery and use his talent to add beauty to the world. 

Then came the arrest, out of nowhere!  Why?  Why now?

Ernst's censorship battles had lasted three decades.  He was known 
globally for his politically incorrect views, but with no criminal 
record on the continent where he had lived all his adult life.  He 
was married to a U.S. citizen, seeking adjustment of status pursuant 
to a properly filed application, whose presence in that capacity had 
been authorized by the Attorney General.  Suddenly, with no 
provocation, he was brutally arrested and deported.  Dictatorships 
act that way.  Democracies have procedural safeguards - including 
habeas corpus. 

To make one's case before a judge is a basic American right, 
enshrined in our Constitution.  Additionally, Federal Rule of 
Appellate Procedure 23 states that anybody in the custody of US law 
enforcement must not be removed to another location, much less booted 
out of the country, until a judge has heard the case.  A court is 
expected to rule on the facts as presented truthfully and fairly by 
both sides. 

We asked that we be judged on all the facts and on the merits of our 
arguments.  We asked to have a district judge in Knoxville hear the 
case.  Within minutes, this court turned us down in a one-sentence 
ruling, without any hearing. 

The very next day, we appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court.  Four days 
later, our appeal was denied by a three-member panel of judges.  The 
order was signed by a Clerk. 

And here comes the ghastly part that ought to make America's 
judiciary shudder: 

Through the Freedom of Information Act, we learned that this Clerk, 
along with at least one other employee, resorted to ex parte 
soliciting of information.  In laymen's terms, employees of an 
appellate court went outside the record to speed the deportation of a 
dissident  - one might say that they aided and abetted a political 
kidnapping! 

At this point, we don't even know if the three judges cited in the 
ruling of the deportation order knew about our motion for stay of 
deportation.  They may or may not have known.  However, we are surely 
entitled to find out.  Who was behind this kidnapping - which was, 
for all intents and purposes, an extradition in the guise of 
deportation? 

Conscientious men will recognize the danger of a precedent.  The 
Sixth District Court ruling has given the jack boot to habeas corpus, 
a due process safeguard preventing abuse.  Baseless arrests of 
inconvenient dissidents will be the outcome in the future unless this 
abuse is stopped in its tracks. 

Ernst Zundel has a flawless record of a kind and decent man who 
refuses to live on his knees.  He never preached or practiced 
violence - he is the victim of repeated, politically motivated 
violence.  As his wife, I hereby formally petition the Congressional 
Judiciary Committee, headed by Congressman James Sensenbrenner, to 
investigate the misconduct of the 6th District Court.  It is 
imperative that this abuse of basic human rights be properly 
investigated and the misconduct be traced and punished at its source. 

Ingrid Rimland Zundel, Ed.D.