- Dear Free Speech Supporter:
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- Two fascinating items:
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- First, I heard a fascinating story from a Globe and Mail
photographer about the famous photo of a handcuffed Zundel in a government
van soon after he'd been deported to Canada. Sceondly, it's great to see
German supporters of free speech rallying for Ernst Zundel. As we learn
more about the specifics of his case, we can develop a strategy here in
North America to continue the battle.
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- We will not let Canada's politicized legal system forget
their shameful treatment of this gentle publisher.
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- The Canadian legal system -- legal, doesn't mean justice
-- exposed itself this week at utterly corrupt and political.
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- Two years in solitary confinement, without a charge,
is simply a wholesale violation of human rights. Mr. Zundel was punished
for propagating the wrong views. The power of the Jewish supremacist lobby
showed itself with naked clarity.
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- Pierre "The Assassin" Blais murdered Ernst
Zundel's rights to a fair hearing and reasonable bail and made a mockery
of Canada's national security. The CSIS Act -- and he ought to know, he
was the boss of CSIS -- sets out clearly what a threat to national security
is. It involves espionage, sabotage, sedition or acts of serious violence
(arson, assassination, bombing) to further one's views. The Act makes it
clear that non-violent dissent is NOT a threat to national security. Blais
made unfashionable opinions and associating with unpopular people the new
definition of a threat to national security. Blais stretched the definition
of national security to what you'd expect in a totalitarian state. Any
opposition to the government and their powerful backers is a threat to
national security. That didn't used to be the way in Anglo-Saxon democracies
ruled by Common Law.
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- I thank Mark Weber Director of the Institute for Historical
Review for this timely report.
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- GERMANS RALLY IN MANNHEIM FOR ZUNDEL'S FREEDOM
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- 'To protest the detention of Ernst Zundel in Germany,
some 40-50 activists of the "Rhein-Neckar National Resistance Action
Center" rallied on Wednesday, March 2, in the pedestrian shopping
zone in central Mannheim. They distributed leaflets demanding freedom for
Zundel and all other political prisoners, and the abolition of the laws
that ban "Holocaust denial" and restrict free speech. The "National
Resistance Action Center" pledges further actions for Zundel's
freedom. "
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- The Globe and Mail is doing a major article for its weekend
insight section about where the deportation of Ernst Zundel leaves Canada's
free speech movement. The reporter is Christopher Sulgan and he's interviewed
a number of us activists. I had to correct him about such misnomers as
"White Supremacist Movement" and "neo-Nazis." I explained
to him that these are smears and that "the White Supremacist Movement"
is a figment of CSIS's imagination. Responding to their political masters,
they're obsessed with "White Supremacist" conspiracies but wouldn't
know Osama bin Laden is he rode down Rideau Street on his camel. I added
that no one I know calls himself a "White Supremacist". It's
similar to Mao's China. No one would call himself "a running dog of
U.S. imperialism", "a splittist" or a "comprador."
There were terms of abuse used in intra-party fighting. Most of us self-identify
as populists, free speech supporters or immigration reformers. This will
likely be a major article. Whether is will be another smear remains to
be seen.
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- To illustrate the article, the Globe sent out ace photographer
Louie Palu, an engaging professional with a permanent five o-clock shadow.
He had nearly been killed on recent assignments to Afghanistan and the
Northwest Frontier province of Pakistan. Mr. Palu snapped the famous
photo of Ernst Zundel in a government van soon after he'd been deported
to Canada in February, 2003.
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- It's clear from Palu's story that the Canadian Government
had intended to railroad Mr. Zundel and were very uneasy about press photographers.
Mr. Palu had been sent by the Globe to Fort Erie, Ontario as soon as it
had been learned that Mr. Zundel was to be deported there the second time.
The first time, the Canadian authorities had turned Mr. Zundel back. The
only photographers were Mr. Palu from the Globe and a television crew from
CTV, a company owned by the Globe's owner Bell Media. Apparently, the assignment
was too difficult or uninteresting for other media. The photographers camped
outside the tiny immigration building in Fort Erie. The authorities were
ratty and rough. They threw the photographers and reporters out of the
building, an off government property. [So much for freedom of the press
and the public's right to know!] It was a cold February day and the media
waited almost nine hours in the cold outside the building. They knew Mr.
Zundel was there, as an eagle eyed reporter could see him on a television
monitor sitting in some sort of room.
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- The Globe reporter and photographer watched the back
entrance and the CTV crew watched the front. After dark, the CTV saw Mr.
Zundel being spirited into an unmarked white van. The Globe reporter driving
and Mr. Paul in the passenger seat, camera cocked, gave chase. The distance
down the Queen Elizabeth Highway from Fort Erie to the Niagara Region Detention
Centre in Thorold takes about half an hour to cover at the speed limit.
The white van tore off down rutted country roads, circling back and forth
trying to lose the reporters. Why? What did they have to hide? At times,
the government agents hit speeds of 140 km. Hey, doesn't speed kill? The
Ontario Provincial Police in Niagara Region, although drugs are rampant
in the area, are fanatical about setting up speed trap gauntlets and raking
in the revenue. Sadly, they weren't out on one of their revenue raising
raids that evening. After a nearly two hour chase, the van pulled up to
the gates of the Niagara Region Detention Centre. It had to stop for the
gates to be opened. Mr. Palu leaped from his car and could see Ernst Zundel
waving behind somewhat tinted windows. Manually putting his flash on full,
he got to snap that famous picture of political prisoner Ernst Zundel,
handcuffed and smiling in the van.
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- Paul Fromm
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- Director
- CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION
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