Fwd: *** Press Release: THREE-JUDGE PANEL IN OHIO TO WEIGH ARGUMENTS FOR "GERMAN HERETIC" ***

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

>
>
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>PRESS RELEASE
>
>THREE-JUDGE PANEL IN OHIO TO WEIGH ARGUMENTS FOR "GERMAN HERETIC"
>
>  Cincinnati, Ohio (1/13/2006)--The civil liberties claims of Ernst 
>and Ingrid Rimland Zundel will be heard January 24, 2007 by a 
>three-judge panel in Cincinnati, it was announced today by Zundels' 
>lawyer, Bruce Leichty.
>
>  Ernst Zundel is the controversial German-born publisher whose views 
>on the "Holocaust" have put him at odds with mainstream historians 
>and prompted his detention and prosecution in Germany, where he 
>faces a prison term of up to five years for his speech.
>
>  The appeal to be heard in Cincinnati is not legally related to the 
>German trial but may still send an important signal about whether 
>Zundel should have ever been exposed to prosecution in Germany in 
>the first place, says Leichty.
>
>The Zundels and Leichty contend that Zundel was effectively 
>kidnapped by U.S. federal agents in February 2003 and that his 
>deportation to Canada without a court hearing was illegal under U.S. 
>law, especially since he was awaiting processing for U.S. permanent 
>residence as the husband of a U.S. citizen, Ingrid Rimland.
>
>  Ingrid Rimland has compared the seizure of her husband to the 
>experience of seeing her father seized by Stalinist secret police 
>when she was a young girl growing up in the Mennonite community of 
>Halbstadt in the Ukraine. Rimland later wrote a fictionalized 
>account of her post-war sojourn as a refugee to a Mennonite colony 
>in Paraguay, The Wanderers, and spoke to a number of Mennonite 
>audiences about her experiences in the 1980's.
>
>  "Because of the lack of any genuine authority for Mr. Zundel's 
>arrest and removal, it is clear that he was targeted for his 
>unpopular beliefs and for daring to publicize them," says Leichty.
>
>  "Mr. Zundel can best be understood by Mennonites as a type of 
>heretic that the Western world bitterly fears and is not prepared to 
>allow. In our culture, theological heresy is no longer regarded as a 
>threat, but an increasingly vocal minority in the West wants to make 
>political heresy or `hate speech' a crime."
>
>  A number of European countries criminalize speech that departs from 
>certain officially-approved accounts of the "Holocaust" and World 
>War II. Besides Zundel, two other historians, Germar Rudolf and 
>David Irving, were held behind bars in Germany and Austria for 
>crimes consisting solely of speech. [Note:  Irving has since been 
>released.]
>
>  Leichty notes that all of Zundel's conduct and speech was and is 
>considered legal in the United States, and that he was cleared of 
>suspicion of any criminal activity by the FBI in an investigation 
>concluded shortly before the illegal arrest in 2003, but that 
>powerful forces acting within the U.S. government or to influence 
>the government were obviously "hell-bent" on expelling Zundel from 
>the U.S.
>
>  Comparing Zundel's kidnapping to the "extraordinary renditions" by 
>the CIA of persons of mostly Arabic origin, Leichty said, "The Court 
>of Appeals in Cincinnati will be asked to ensure that a political 
>figure like Zundel cannot simply be taken from this country without 
>the constitutional protections that residents of the United States 
>have always enjoyed--including their day in court." Zundel filed a 
>petition for habeas corpus in Tennessee before he was removed, but 
>the federal judge in Knoxville handling that case denied his 
>petition without a hearing.
>
>  After another Cincinnati panel told the Knoxville court in 2005 
>that the Knoxville court had to at least consider Zundel's petition, 
>a hearing was held in Knoxville in October 2005 at which Leichty and 
>Ingrid Zundel appeared, but the Knoxville court still ruled that it 
>had no "jurisdiction" over Zundel's habeas petition since Zundel had 
>waived his right to any such relief upon entering the United States 
>under a program known as the "visa waiver program."
>
>  Zundels have pointed out repeatedly in their legal papers that 
>Ernst Zundel's last entry into the U.S. was not in fact under the 
>visa waiver program--indeed that the authority of the Attorney 
>General to admit anyone into the U.S. under the visa waiver program 
>had lapsed as of the time of Zundel's last entry--but that even if 
>Zundel had entered as a "visa waiver" entrant, a federal court must 
>have jurisdiction under the United States Constitution to hear 
>habeas claims of someone in his position who is suddenly detained.
>
>After he was deported to Canada in 2003, Zundel spent two years in 
>solitary confinement in Ontario while he was subjected to a trial to 
>determine whether he was a risk to the national security of Canada. 
>Zundel spent almost all of his adult years in Canada, where he 
>established a successful business as a graphic artist and became 
>interested in politics. His activism for German causes brought him 
>into conflict with prominent Jewish groups in Canada and he spent 
>years litigating with the Canadian government over his speech, 
>before moving to the U.S. in 2000 to marry and live with Ingrid 
>Rimland. His earlier trials in Canada were the first trials where 
>claims about the Holocaust were subject to testing and 
>cross-examination, and have in turn been the subject of a number of 
>books and videos.
>
>  His latest "national security" trial in Canada during the years 
>2003-05 allowed the government to introduce secret evidence against 
>him, and was presided over by a former counsel to the Canadian 
>national intelligence service. At the conclusion of that trial, 
>Zundel, a lifelong pacifist who has had numerous associations with 
>controversial dissidents, was labeled a racist and white supremacist 
>leader, and was declared a risk to Canada's national security. Ernst 
>and Ingrid Zundel have denied that they are racists or white 
>supremacists, although they acknowledge they are advocates of the 
>virtues of European culture.
>
>  Ingrid Zundel and Leichty plan to speak to supporters and persons 
>wishing more information about the case at a meeting to be held in 
>Cleveland on Monday, January 22, at 7 p.m. at Ampol Hall,  4737 
>Pearl Road,  Cleveland, OH
>
>At that time, a documentary about Zundel's activism will also be 
>shown. Admission is FREE.


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