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KANGAROO
COURT SEEKS
Show
trial opens
NSNS
Thursday, 9 February 2006 Lawyers supporting Ernst Zündel, 66, attacked the judge as biased and poured scorn on the government-funded, mock legal team imposed on the defense. The court ruled earlier that the lawyers Zündel had selected would not receive state fees. Zündel, who has spent most of his life in the United States and Canada, ran a revisionist website and distributed books by mail exposing The Holocaust® myth. He is charged with incitement to "ethnic hatred," "criminal libel" and "disparaging the dead." The first trial of Zündel last November had to be abandoned after the court in the southwestern town of Mannheim ruled that his lawyer in defending him against charges was herself breaching the law by "denying The Holocaust." Truth No Defense German judges have declared that Zündel is not allowed to base a defense on the issue of truth or his claim that The Holocaust® is a postwar invention. As a result, there are three legal teams in court: the prosecution, the state-imposed "defense," and Zündel's own associates. There was a heavy police presence as the kangaroo proceedings began. As Zündel, who has been in German custody since he was summarily expelled from Canada in March 2005, was led in, supporters in the public gallery erupted into applause. When presiding Judge Ulrich Meinerzhagen threatened to expel them from the courtroom, defense attorney Jürgen Rieger shot back: "If you don't think your nerves are up to it, you should take yourself off the case." The court stalled on an objection against the judge for bias, saying that it would be dealt with later. Other motions by Zündel delayed the arraignment for several hours. The court rejected a demand by Zündel's legal team that the state's mock defense team sit elsewhere in court. Free Not to Say Certain Things Although freedom of the press and of expression is enshrined in the German constitution, that does not mean that the citizens of that country—or others—are immune from arrest and prosecution for exercising the very same so-called freedom. On the one hand, Article 5 of Germany's Basic Law—created in 1949 under foreign military occupation—clearly states: "Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate their opinions orally, in writing or visually and to obtain information from generally accessible sources without hindrance. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting through audiovisual media shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship." But the very next paragraph puts Orwellian limits on the same freedom and outlaws all critical examination of blood-libel "Holocaust" allegations. German law therefore constrains press freedom, said Udo Branahl, a professor of media law at the University of Dortmund. "The penal law code says Holocaust denial is a punishable offense," he said. "That ban limits press freedom and overrides the right to free expression in the mass media." Accusations of Hypocrisy Germany is not the only European country to make "Holocaust denial a crime. France, Italy and Austria have similar statutes on the books. This calls into question the commitment of Western regimes to human rights and so-called democracy. European leaders who, in the name of freedom of speech, have defended the printing of cartoons so offensive to the Muslims, now find themselves facing accusations of hypocrisy in their suppression of peaceful dissent and the discussion of certain controversial ideas. Highlighting this contradiction, the largest newspaper in Iran is holding a contest for the best cartoons on "The Holocaust." At the same time, Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has called for a conference to examine definitively Jewish claims of casualtiesduring the Second World War. The Iranian president has also upset Western leaders by calling attention to the persecution and imprisonment by Western governments of thousands of dissidents, such as Ernst Zündel. Zündel emigrated from Germany to Canada in 1958 and later sought asylum in the United States. At the instigation of Jewish pressure groups, he was deported back to Canada in 2003 for alleged immigration violations. The German government has been trying for years to stop Zündel's revisionist activities in print and on the Internet. As a German national, he can be prosecuted in his homeland for alleged crimes—including "Holocaust denial" committed on foreign soil. Zündel faces a up to five years in jail if convicted. He has been in prison since his deportation from the United States to Canada earlier last year.
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