Posted Saturday, March 6, 2004

Index to the Traditional Enemies of Free Speech

Alphabetical index (text)

EDITORIAL

[Write to the editor] [Today's Article: Ernst Zündel, civil-rights champion?]

Zündel doesn't warrant a security certificate

ERNST Zündel has been in a Canadian jail for more than a year. Seized at his Tennessee home by U.S. immigration agents and delivered here, he is facing deportation to Germany on claims that he is a danger to Canadian citizens. In the meantime, he languishes in a tiny cell at Toronto's Metro West Detention Centre in solitary confinement.

David Irving comments: IT is characteristic that, even when a powerful newspaper like The Globe & Mail in Toronto perceives an injustice being done, if it is being done in the name of the Traditional Enemies of Free Speech the cowardly newspaper feels obliged to vilify the victim too -- just to be on the safe side, since you never know. . .     What else explains the snivelling and gratuitous use by the editor and his journalist of such phrases as "spreading his noxious opinions," "odious as he is," and "obnoxious nuts"?    Ordinary people, particularly those who have had the privilege to meet and speak with Mr Ernst Zündel when he was a free man, would prefer to state that it is this journalistic cowardice which is noxious, odious, and obnoxious.

Tough luck, many will say. Mr. Zündel is depressingly well known to Canadians as a Holocaust-denier and extreme right-winger who spent decades here spreading his noxious opinions about Jews. We would all love to see the back of him. But is he dangerous? So dangerous, in fact, that we need to pen him up in an isolation cell for 12 months and counting?

The federal government is holding Mr. Zündel on a national security certificate, a special procedure that allows it to bypass many of the standard rules of due process to protect public safety. Those cases almost always involve suspected terrorists. If two cabinet ministers decide that an individual poses a risk, they can have him locked up indefinitely pending deportation. The suspect is not allowed to see the precise evidence against him, and his odds of overturning the order in court are slim. The government must show only that it acted "reasonably," a preposterously low legal hurdle.

These are extreme measures in a democratic society, and Ottawa should use them only if it believes a suspect is likely to do physical harm to people or property. Odious as he is, Mr. Zündel poses no such risk. He has never been charged with a violent crime and does not urge others to commit violence. He is a crank, not a terrorist.

It is hard to know exactly how Ottawa defends its decision to jail Mr. Zündel, because, under the security-certificate process, it can keep most of its evidence secret -- a provision that severely limits Mr. Zündel's right to mount a defence. But a summary compiled by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service argues that even if he doesn't actually advocate violence, he is dangerous because of the influence he exerts on his followers.

"By his comportment as a leader and an ideologue, the service believes Zündel intends serious violence to be a consequence of his influence."

That, says Mr. Zündel, is guilt by association. He is right. It is precisely the sort of argument that was used to lock up leftists in the days of the Red Scare. You are a Communist and Communists advocate violent revolution; therefore you are conspiring to commit violence against the state. Guilty as charged.

If Mr. Zündel can be jailed and deported for his "comportment" as an "ideologue," then every Greenpeacer and anti-abortion activist must fear imprisonment. Their rhetoric is pretty wild, too. Perhaps the anti-poverty campaigner with a nose-ring handing out pamphlets at the mall also "intends serious violence to be a consequence of his influence." Now that CSIS has the power to read minds, who knows where it may stop?

The real danger to Canadians comes not from obnoxious nuts like Ernst Zündel, but from a government that casually discards their most precious Rights.

Ernst Zündel, civil-rights champion?

Canada offered to set Zündel free to travel to the country of his choice if he would plead guilty to being a national security threat

Zündel seeks asylum after U.S. deportation: Now 'he's our problem'

Zündel seeking refugee status

Ernst Zündel held in Batavia, N.Y., detention center

Wife fears key could soon be thrown away

Zündel headed back to Canada

Arrest of Ernst Zündel by US: Is held in Jail

Reknowned Neo-Nazi activist held in Blount County jail

Feb 2001: Ernst Zuendel has emigrated from Canada to the United States