Fwd: Jon Rappaport's thoughts on the Holocaust Heresy Trial

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

>
>
>
>
>Mistrial Declared in Case of Ernst Zundel
>JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
>
>
>In what appears to be something out of a surreal dream, the German 
>trial of Ernst Zundel has been temporarily ended because all his 
>lawyers could not get one of their many motions accepted by the 
>court judge.
>
>  I guess there is a German rule that says: defense lawyers have to 
>produce a semblance of competence by making at least one motion 
>stand up. I don't really know. Anyway, Zundel has a new lawyer, and 
>the trial may re-open in February.
>
>The charge? Denial of the Holocaust. Or something like that. In 
>Canada, during his three trials, Zundel was charged with threatening 
>national security. Threatening how? By denying the accepted story, 
>in certain respects, of the Holocaust.
>
>After perusing a number of articles about Zundel on the rense.com 
>site, I presume that Zundel is a very unpopular man because he is 
>stating that the Nazi extermination of Jews during WW2 has been 
>grossly exaggerated, in terms of actual numbers of Jews killed.
>
>So far, I find no evidence that Zundel has committed a crime against 
>any person or piece of property, in the usual sense of crime. Nor do 
>I find any direct inciting to violence on the part of Zundel.
>
>In other words, he is being held in prison (as he was in Canada) 
>because he expresses certain thoughts.
>
>Of course, in several European countries, Holocaust denial is itself a crime.
>
>There are a couple of issues here. One is, can your words be taken 
>by other people as reason for THEM to commit a violent crime? As far 
>as I'm concerned, there are nutcases and morons running around from 
>the Arctic Circle to Tierra Del Fuego who will, on the slightest 
>provocation, steal property and commit assault.
>
>One only has to look at the laws in the US to see that indirect 
>participation in a "crime" is a growing trend. For example, a person 
>can be found innocent of robbery but found guilty of conspiracy to 
>commit robbery.
>
>"We talked about it, we planned it, but then we got cold feet."
>
>"Who cares? Guilty of conspiracy. This court is adjourned."
>
>Note that Zundel is not being charged with conspiracy. I'm merely 
>pointing out that INDIRECT labels can be extended in all sorts of 
>directions.
>
>In fact, as political correctness spreads like ink on a blotter all 
>over the planet, people are warned that the slightest off-center 
>remark might damage another person within hearing distance for life.
>
>Then comes the issue of Zundel's accuracy in his written and spoken 
>comments about the Holocaust. Is he right? Is he wrong? Is he really 
>trying to deceive? Is he saying what he says because, in his heart, 
>he is a racist or an anti-Semite?
>
>The circular argument goes this way: since Zundel obviously knows 
>what he is saying is false, he must have another strategy; he must 
>be trying to float a lie for an ulterior motive.
>
>Well, if it is now the law to make an examination of someone's heart 
>and soul in judging criminal innocence or guilt, we can hang it up 
>and move to another planet.
>
>By any rational standard, who the hell cares what Zundel is saying, 
>in so far as his innocence or guilt is concerned? He's saying it. He 
>has the right to say it. He can say it from now until the cows come 
>home.
>
>In my experience, it is the incredibly shallow and inexperienced and 
>desperate people who try to divine other citizens' ulterior motives 
>at the drop of a hat and pin all sorts of labels on them, over and 
>over.
>
>I'm reminded of the many painstaking domeheads, back in the day, who 
>would take the work of a famous artist and apply their own version 
>of psychoanalytic theory to his work and, in the process, try to 
>reduce that artist to ashes.
>
>Now, it may be that Zundel has actually done things I don't know 
>about. So far, I haven't found anything that really surprises me. 
>I'm willing to be shown---but as far as I can tell, the man is being 
>prosecuted for stating what he believes to be facts.
>
>It also appears that his defense team in Germany is not permitted to 
>offer evidence that Zundel's version of the Holocaust is accurate.
>
>"You're being prosecuted for saying X. And we will not allow proof 
>that X is true. The crime is saying X. Shut up."
>
>Here I'm reminded of US trials in which federal prosecutors try to 
>ramrod a defendant who has sold medicines not approved by the FDA. 
>In court, when the defendant's lawyers move to introduce evidence 
>that the medicine in question actually cures disease, the judge 
>refuses to allow such presentation.
>
>"We're not here to determine whether the defendant is a hero in 
>healing people. We only want to know whether he sold a substance to 
>treat a disease, and whether the FDA has approved this substance. If 
>the FDA has not certified it as safe and effective, the defendant is 
>guilty as hell."
>
>It also reminds me of US Supreme Court Justice Scalia's famous 
>remark: the revelation of new exculpatory evidence is not sufficient 
>to warrant a re-trial for a person who is currently serving time in 
>prison for having committed a crime. New trials are only granted 
>when it's shown that the previous trial was, procedurally speaking, 
>deeply flawed. In other words, who cares whether the convicted 
>person is really guilty?
>
>Do Zundel's statements about the Holocaust offend many people? Of 
>course. Is that a crime? No. Does the principle of free speech 
>exceed the fact that people are offended? Yes.
>
>What about 9/11? What about the justification for waging war in 
>Vietnam and Iraq? What about claiming that AIDS is not a contagious 
>germ-driven disease? What about people who claim that FDR knew the 
>Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor and let it happen? What 
>about people who say Bill Clinton sold out America by letting 
>military-tech secrets flow from here to China, in exchange for a few 
>dollars placed in his re-election campaign fund? What about people 
>who say we never went to the moon? What about people who say that 
>George Bush has the intellect of a chimp?
>
>In these and hundreds of other situations, it is quite possible to 
>make statements that will offend others deeply. Shall we put a 
>censor to work scrubbing all these statements out of existence? 
>Shall we hold show trials and put people in jail?
>
>On the road to freedom, we say that potential victims of others' 
>speech are going to have to suck it up and get past all that. It may 
>not be nice, but that's the way things work. On the road to tyranny, 
>we say that anything you might say that will cause a person 
>emotional distress is illegal and you will be punished severely for 
>it, by the legal system, backed up by official guns and official 
>prison bars.
>
>I know which way I'm going. If Zundel has done nothing other than 
>revise, downward, accepted estimates of the Holocaust, if he has 
>done nothing other than claim he knows who is protecting the 
>official scenario, then let him out of jail. Let him go and let him 
>live his life. Stop trying to put him on trial.
>
>What about people who claim there was tremendous black African 
>participation in selling fellow Africans to the American 
>slavemasters, who then brought those slaves to this country? That 
>picture contradicts the official scenario. Why aren't those 
>Holocaust deniers being arrested and tried and placed in prisons?
>
>And by the way, wasn't there a US court case about a year ago in 
>which---to the consternation of many---it was ruled that a media 
>news outlet (FOX) could lie with impunity? Could escape even a 
>judgment in a civil suit?
>
>So even if Zundel is intentionally lying through his teeth, so what? 
>Does he have fewer rights than FOX or CNN?
>
>See, at the end of the day, accuracy and truth don't matter at all, 
>when it comes to speech. Now if you tell a number of lies aimed at a 
>particular and specific person or group, with the idea of injuring 
>their reputations, then that is actionable in a suit. But Zundel is 
>not being sued. If he were, he could introduce evidence to support 
>his statements as being true. He is being tried on criminal charges 
>by the German State, and if he is found guilty, he can be sentenced 
>to a jail term. It's a whole different animal.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/attachments/20051210/c767938e/attachment.htm