Ernst Zundel Deported

This is excellent news, at least for Canadians who've had to put up with his Nazi activities for decades, activities which go well beyond just distributing dishonest and hate-filled literature.

TORONTO (AP) - Canada on Tuesday deported Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel to his native Germany, where he is expected to be arrested on charges of inciting hatred via the Internet, authorities said. Zundel, 65, author of ``The Hitler We Loved and Why,'' was put on a plane to Germany, and was due in Frankfurt by Tuesday night, immigration officials said. Officials there have said he would be arrested for decades of anti-Semitic activities, including repeated denials of the Holocaust, which is a crime in Germany.

I have problems with Germany's law on holocaust denial, as I think that the principle of free speech is one that ought to be upheld except when it is slanderous to particular, identifiable individuals, or consists of an incitement to physical violence, but as martyrs for free speech go, Zundel is one of the least appealing ever to walk the face of the Earth, and I'm not going to lose a minute's sleep if he's prosecuted by the German authorities. My problem with Zundel is that he was a key organizer in the neo-Nazi movement worldwide, providing not just moral support but hard cash to numerous organizations both in Canada and abroad, many of which have been implicated in violence against Jews and racial minorities. The Canadian government was right to call him a threat to that nation's security.

PS: I see that Gene at Harry's Place notes that Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch has given the soft-focus treatment to Zundel in the past. It's funny how much extremists of the left and the right have in common these days.

Comments

[dsquared]

I think it's only fair to point out that Gene's characterisation of the Counterpunch article is not, in my opinion, accurate.

[Mrs Tilton]

Whilst I agree in principle with your dislike of Germany's limitation on free speech for nazis, strict adherence to principle isn't always necessarily for the best. So long as the victims, perpetrators and bystanders of the nazi era remain a living memory, I can see the point in swatting nazi propaganda down hard. If German law still does this a century on, I might have to do a rethink.

[angua]

I wish (as ever) that people would stop focusing on the Jews. Zundel is quite the white-power, anti-"non-European"-immigration kook, Jews aside. Some of his minions crippled an East Indian immigrant in Toronto a few years back. Several other physical attacks on anti-racism activists were rumoured to be his, when I was in the know about these things.