*** This is a remarkably courageous editorial ***

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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Toronto, Canada, Saturday, March 5, 2005

Imagine you're Ernst Zundel

Peter Lindsay & Chi-Kun Shi,
counsel to Ernst Zundel

IMAGINE that you're 65 years old and you're in jail. In solitary 
confinement. You are strip-searched whenever you see your lawyer. 
Once before. Once after. For two years.

Imagine that you're there because two politicians signed a piece of 
paper ("security certificate") saying that you are a security risk. 
You are not charged with a crime. You don't have a criminal record. 
You have lived in Canada for 42 years.

Imagine that those two politicians don't have to be right, so long as 
a judge thinks that they are "reasonable". So long as they are 
"reasonable", they can deport you to a country where you go to jail 
for saying something that you have the right to say in Canada. The 
Supreme Court of Canada had promised you that right.

Imagine that the prosecutor and the judge get to meet secretly 
without you and your lawyer and you never find out what they did in 
secret, what they read, who they saw. Again and again.

Imagine that your lawyer thought he was at a critical point in your 
trial. He thought the lunch break was longer then usual. Turns out 
the judge and the prosecutor were having a secret session again while 
you had lunch. They refuse to tell you or your lawyer what happened.

Imagine that you are accused of causing violence so bad that you are 
a danger to Canadian national security. When you ask when and where, 
they say: can't tell you. You ask why not, they say: national 
security.

Imagine that the judge making so many mistakes that it took more than 
100 pages of transcripts to show them all. Imagine the judge making 
the same mistakes again and again. And always to your detriment. 
Imagine this judge having the power to deport you and you have no 
right of appeal.

Imagine that a prominent civil libertarian tells you this process is 
wrong and he will stand with you to say so, only to back out at the 
last minute.

Imagine that he comes back as soon as you were deported, condemning 
this process as your plane left Canada.

Imagine that a judge says she thinks this process is unfair to you 
and will say so in court, only to change her mind at the last minute.

Imagine that a newspaper counts the number of security certificates 
and yours is never included. Imagine the moment you have been 
deported, everyone talks about how awful and illegal security 
certificates are.

Imagine that the media is suddenly interested in you, as soon as they 
are sure that you will be deported. Your deportation and upcoming 
jail time is reported in meticulous detail.

Imagine that this is Canada in 2005 and you've been named in a 
security certificate.

Imagine that everyone says that security certificates are a disgrace 
to Canada but somehow it was fine to use one on you.

Imagine that you may be Ernst Zundel, or you may be someone with an 
opinion disliked by many.

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David Irving comments:

FOR some of us, imagining this nightmare is easier than for others. I 
went through much the same skewed judicial procedure in November 1992 
in Canada, when the traditional enemies planted in Canadian 
government files fake documents about me (concocted by and obtained 
from the Board of Deputies of British Jews in England) and then 
persuaded the Canadian immigration service to deport me.

Our appeal was heard by a Mr Justice Rothstein, who mysteriously took 
over the case from a judge with a less unpromising name; in a 
one-line judgment Rothstein refused to hear the appeal, without 
stating any grounds.

The enemies have miscalculated: like Zündel, I fought back, and I 
fancy that Zündel's voice will roar louder than ever once he is a 
free man again.

The mystery is this: that the traditional enemies believe that all 
this will somehow advance their cause -- and that ordinary Canadians 
are not listing it all, in the darker recesses of their memories, for 
when the time comes.


http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/05/03/Zundel_in_Germany_3.html