Right-wing activist Ernst Zundel sentenced to 5 years for Holocaust denial

[Aptrgangr]

Right-wing activist Ernst Zundel sentenced to 5 years for Holocaust denial

MANNHEIM, Germany (AP) - Far-right activist Ernst Zundel was convicted of 14 counts of incitement Thursday for Holocaust denial and sentenced to the maximum five years in prison.
The 67-year-old, who was deported from Canada in 2005, was accused of years of anti-Semitic activities, including denying the Holocaust a crime in Germany in documents and on the Internet. Zundel and his supporters have argued that he is a peaceful campaigner denied his right to free speech.
Zundel has been a prominent white supremacist and Holocaust denier since the 1970s.
He ran Zundel ran Samisdat Publishers, a leading distributor of Nazi propaganda based in Canada. Zundel also provided content to The Zundelsite website, which has followers around the world, hundreds of whom have protested his detention.
Zundel was born in Germany in 1939. He came to Canada in 1958 and lived in Toronto and Montreal until 2001. Canadian officials rejected his attempts to obtain citizenship in 1966 and 1994.
He then moved to Tennessee, where he married fellow extremist Ingrid Rimland, but was deported to Canada in 2003 for alleged immigration violations.
Upon arrival in Toronto, Zundel was arrested and held in detention until a judge ruled in March 2005 that his activities posed a threat to national and international security, and he was deported to Germany.
That decision was welcomed by Jewish and anti-Nazi groups in Canada and elsewhere.
Zundel has been standing trial in Germany since November of last year in what were, at times, raucous proceedings.
The initial attempt to try him collapsed last March over a dispute with one of his attorneys, Sylvia Stolz.
At one stage she had to be carried from the courtroom, screaming "Resistance! The German people are rising up," after defying an order banning her from the trial on grounds she tried to sabotage the proceedings by denouncing the court as a "tool of foreign domination." In the current trial, defence attorney Ludwig Bock quoted from Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and from Nazi race laws in his closing statements last week as argued for Zundel's acquittal.
Bock accused the Mannheim state court of not wanting to face a "scientific analysis" of the Holocaust and charged that prosecutors one of whom has termed Zundel a "rat catcher" had defamed his client.
Another of Zundel's five attorneys, Herbert Schaller, told the court that all of its evidence that the Holocaust took place was based only on witness reports, instead of hard facts.
In his own closing arguments, prosecutor Andreas Grossmann called Zundel a "political con man" from whom the German people must be protected, widely quoting from his writings, which argue that millions of Jews did not die at the hands of the Nazis.
"You might as well argue that the sun rises in the west," Grossmann said when asking that Zundel be given the maximum sentence. "But you cannot change that the Holocaust has been proven."

CANOE -- CNEWS - World: Right-wing activist Ernst Zundel sentenced to 5 years for Holocaust denial

[Sergius]

Originally Posted by Aptrgangr

"But you cannot change that the Holocaust has been proven."

No, because that would be illegal!

[Marcus Marulus]

Elie Wiesel, the man who invented "Holocaust":

Elie Wiesel -- Messenger to Humanity (review)

Originally holocaust meant an offering to God, a sacrifice: usually an animal was burnt completely, hence the name (Greek holos, "entire", kauston, "burnt"). Elie Wiesel was the first one to use it to denote mass-persecutions of Jews in the second world war.

[Menydh]

I don't feel any respect for him after learning that his wife attended a conference of history revisionists on his name, together with world\'s leading swindler Arthur Kemp. Birds of a feather flock together.

When I met Zündel years ago, he left me unimpressed. The one comment that I remember from him was a scornful one on Canadians.

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by prometheus

Elie Wiesel, the man who invented "Holocaust":

Elie Wiesel -- Messenger to Humanity (review)

Originally holocaust meant an offering to God, a sacrifice: usually an animal was burnt completely, hence the name (Greek holos, "entire", kauston, "burnt"). Elie Wiesel was the first one to use it to denote mass-persecutions of Jews in the second world war.

from which any intelligent person can derive that the hebrews intended to transform ww2 facts into a religious dogma, hence a powerful political tool.

He question of the facts is irrelevant, what is horrible is that we are all heavily blackmailed into being servants of the hebrews for this.

The manipulation of guilt is a trademark hebrew social tool, one that also heavily influenced christianity.

So we also see many hebrew intellectual zealots actively manipulating public opinion in order to hide or minimize other genocidal events of the last century, most notably the ukrainian and the armenian genocides.

I

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

I don't feel any respect for him after learning that his wife attended a conference of history revisionists on his name, together with world\'s leading swindler Arthur Kemp. Birds of a feather flock together.

When I met Zündel years ago, he left me unimpressed. The one comment that I remember from him was a scornful one on Canadians.

Canada definitely deserves any criticism Zündel can give. Amazingly, Canadians are proud of not having freedom of speech protections like the Americans. They were the ones who played Judas in Zündel’s drama by holding him for years and handing him over to the Germans like collaborators. There is a strong serf mentality in Canadians; they feel good about themselves when they submit to authority.

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

Canada definitely deserves any criticism Zündel can give. Amazingly, Canadians are proud of not having freedom of speech protections like the Americans. They were the ones who played Judas in Zündel’s drama by holding him for years and handing him over to the Germans like collaborators. There is a strong serf mentality in Canadians; they feel good about themselves when they submit to authority.

Hmm, strongly reminds me of the belgian situation

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

Canada definitely deserves any criticism Zündel can give. Amazingly, Canadians are proud of not having freedom of speech protections like the Americans. They were the ones who played Judas in Zündel’s drama by holding him for years and handing him over to the Germans like collaborators. There is a strong serf mentality in Canadians; they feel good about themselves when they submit to authority.

That comment I referred to was made in the early nineties, and it wasn't about the Canadian government but about the Canadian people.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

That comment I referred to was made in the early nineties, and it wasn't about the Canadian government but about the Canadian people.

Yes, I was refering to the Canadian people as well.

[Susi]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

When I met Zündel years ago, he left me unimpressed. The one comment that I remember from him was a scornful one on Canadians.

Then why did he bother living in Canada in the first place?

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

Canada definitely deserves any criticism Zündel can give. Amazingly, Canadians are proud of not having freedom of speech protections like the Americans.

*hem hem* If I didn't have freedom of speech, I wouldn't be here right now. It's a guaranteed right, "freedom to expression" in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So there.

If you're going to say America is better, I'm going to smack you a good one. They definitely are not.

They were the ones who played Judas in Zündel’s drama by holding him for years and handing him over to the Germans like collaborators.

Wasn't it the Americans who sent him back to Canada due to some immigration problems?

There is a strong serf mentality in Canadians; they feel good about themselves when they submit to authority.

I'm just going to ignore that logical fallacy.

Originally Posted by A Fist Full of Snow

Yes, I was refering to the Canadian people as well.

I'm Canadian as well as British.

And I'm not a serf.

[svin]

I find Holocaust denial law quite ridiculous.

At times, Holocaust deniers seek to rely on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression, when faced with criminal sanctions against their statements or publications. The European Court of Human Rights however consistently declares their complaints inadmissible. According to Article 17 of the Convention, nothing in the Convention may be construed so as to justify acts that are aimed at destroying any of the very rights and freedoms contained therein. Invoking free speech to propagate denial of crimes against humanity is , according to the Court's case-law, contrary to the spirit in which the Convention was adopted in the first place. Reliance on free speech in such cases would thus constitute an abuse of a fundamental right.

Very funny. First we say statement (Holocaust is real) is true. Then we make law that prohibits to doubt in Holocaust.

I'm not much into this Holocaust thing, but some cases are truly ridiciulous. Like of Verbeke, for example.

In 2004, Verbeke was convicted in Belgium of Holocaust denial and given a year in prison and fined 2500,00 EUR.

On 3 August 2005, he was again arrested at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam under an international arrest warrant issued in Germany where he was wanted for Holocaust denial and writing internet articles on the subject.

So, when he'll be free again another country like France or Austria will arrest him and put into prison?

[Susi]

Couldn't they just transfer all the jail time onto one record?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Susi

Then why did he bother living in Canada in the first place?

I've wondered myself..

*hem hem* If I didn't have freedom of speech, I wouldn't be here right now. It's a guaranteed right, "freedom to expression" in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So there.

If you're going to say America is better, I'm going to smack you a good one. They definitely are not.

Wasn't it the Americans who sent him back to Canada due to some immigration problems?

The funny thing is that American nutzis have used the case of Ernst Zündel as an argument against Canadians.

And yet no one has said a word against Americans when German revisionist Germar Rudolf has been deported to Germany by the US authorities, in spite of being married to a US citizen.

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

I don't feel any respect for him after learning that his wife attended a conference of history revisionists on his name, together with world\'s leading swindler Arthur Kemp. Birds of a feather flock together.

When I met Zündel years ago, he left me unimpressed. The one comment that I remember from him was a scornful one on Canadians.

He doesn't deserve to rot in prison for five years anyway...although he may be a moron as you say...