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INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW
P.O. Box 2739, Newport Beach, California 92659
Tel. 949 - 631 1490 zzzz Fax: 949 - 631 0981
E-mail: ihr@ihr.org
IHR web site: www.ihr.org
Consulate General of Canada
550 South Hope Street, 9th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90071
We are American citizens living in southern California who have come to the Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles today to express, in person, our outrage over the unjust treatment of Ernst Zundel, and to call for his immediate release.
For three months now, Ernst Zundel has been held in Canada as a political prisoner and prisoner of conscience. He is behind bars solely because of his views, and especially his dissident views about the “Holocaust.”
Since Feb. 19, Canadian authorities have been holding the 64-year-old German-born publisher and civil rights activist in solitary confinement on the pretext that he is a threat to national security. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) supports this charge by citing tenuous and years-old ties by Zundel to “white supremacist” groups. While acknowledging that he is not violent himself, CSIS also argues that material published by Zundel might cause “like-minded individuals to engage in violence.”
There is absolutely no basis for the “security threat” charge. Zundel’s life is an open book. He is a peaceful man with no record of violence. During the 40 years he lived in Canada, he was never convicted of a crime. He is himself a victim of hate and violence. He has survived at least three attempts on his life, including a devastating arson attack against his residence.
Zundel was arrested at his home in Tennessee on Feb. 5 on the pretext that he missed an interview date with immigration authorities. Even though he is married to an American citizen, two weeks later he was deported to Canada.
Jewish groups are demanding that Zundel be deported to Germany, where he faces years of imprisonment for the “thought crime” of “denying the Holocaust.” (“Holocaust denial” is against the law in Germany, France, Switzerland and some other European countries.)
Zundel’s arrest and detention have generated wide media attention in Canada.
We are encouraged that more Canadians are speaking out against his unjust treatment. In recent weeks at least two Canadian newspapers have editorially protested his imprisonment.
Among those who are expressing outrage is Bill Dunphy, a veteran investigative journalist and editor for the daily Hamilton Spectator. He spent six years probing Canada’s “white supremacist” movement, and got to know Zundel personally. Although he has no sympathy for Zundel’s views, in a hard-hitting column (Hamilton Spectator, May 14) Dunphy told readers:
“... Zundel -- who did this country a favour by wiping off the books our disgraceful False News laws -- has never once been convicted of a criminal offence in this country, never once found to have violated the hate crime laws that rest snugly around the throat of free expression in this country.
“I know this man, his local and international contacts and I know this movement. And after reading the 58-page ‘unclassified’ summary of the government's case, I can assure you there is no justice here. Their ‘evidence’ is riddled with errors and misinformation, hearsay and inflammatory innuendo. Dead men walk again, and the shattered bits of shoddy secret networks long since collapsed under the weight of their own ineptitude are made whole and menacing once again. It is a shameful piece of dishonest, unreliable tripe.”
Ernst Zundel has spoken at two conferences organized by our Institute. I have known him for some 15 years. I regard him as a friend.
Along with a growing number of Canadians, we protest his imprisonment and call for his immediate release.
Sincerely,
Mark Weber
Director
Institute for Historical Review
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