Letter to Toronto Police Chief Boothby:

I wrote the following letter to Toronto's new, "politically correct" Chief of Police, outlining and stating for the record all the Human Rights violations perpetrated against me in just two cases. They are merely used as convenient points and intellectual anchors to illustrate the Human Rights rot that has set in. These violations are symptomatic and have been repeated over and over again for 20 years at an increased pace. The arson and the parcel bomb in my specific case are only the natural and logical result of a lack of impartial, proper and timely law enforcement generally.

I have widely circulated this letter to the Chief of Police. I have sent it to the UN and worldwide Human Rights organizations and interested hard print news media, broadcasters, columnists and commentators etc. Read for yourself what the situation is:

November 29, 1996

Dear Chief Boothby:

I am once again turning to you directly because I see no movement in the investigation of the arson of my home on M ay 7, 1995, nor in the case of the pipe bomb that was sent to me on May 20, 1995.

Within less than ten days of the arson, I contacted Detective Constable Mike Jackson, (badge Number 1157) of 51 Division, and gave him information provided to me by a Toronto taxidriver, Mr. _______, who responded to the $5,000.00 reward offer I made for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist. Mr. ______ had a contact who actually heard the arsonist admit that he had torched my house, in return for a payment of $200.00. From this man we were able to provide the police with the suspect's name, nationality, age, address and physical description. I spoke with Mr. ________ this past week, and he said the police have not contacted him ever in regards to my case.

There is also the Toronto emergency glass installer who saw the arsonist twice, face to face - once carrying the gasoline can towards my building, and minutes later when he ran towards him, after fleeing the scene of the crime. According to newspaper reports, this man said he could not recall the arsonist's face. Has this man ever been put under hypnosis, to assist him in his recollection, so he could provide authorities with a description? According to law enforcement officials I have spoken to in Europe and the United States, this practice is not uncommon amongst law enforcement agencies.

I have been assured by you that you are investigating what is a politically motivated act of terrorism against me. This horrific crime almost cost the lives of five people, some of whom had to jump naked out of windows while the building was engulfed by flames!

Fire Marshalls estimated the physical damage done to my building and its contents was $400,000.00 - including the destruction of my 5,000 volume research library, a lifetime collection of files, most of my business records, and my irreplacable paintings. My neighbor's building suffered a loss of $200,000.00 in damages.

The Marxist-terrorist group, Anti Racist Action, had put up posters with explicit messages that they were going to drive me out of my neighborhood and kill me, and put up one instructional poster complete with details of how to burn my house down using a Molotov cocktail as the arson-weapon. (I refer to the ARA as a Marxist-terrorist organization based on reams of information and documentation found on the Internet, and supplied to your Intelligence services department by my wife, showing their links to worldwide terrorist groups and activities.)

Six months after the arson, while I was still trying to rebuild my house, my business and my life, a gang of ARA youth plastered my neighborhood again with the same Molotov cocktail poster. This was on November 9, 1995, in commemoration of Kristallnacht (the sacking and burning of Jewish synagogues in Germany in 1938).

I complained by telephone to 51 Division, and got a cold-shoulder, disinterested response. I then went in person to try and swear out an information. I was turned down. Police refused even to fill out a report. That evening, at 7:00 pm, a group of youth, including two ARA leaders, were seen postering my neighborhood with anti-Zündel posters. I called 51 Division again and explained the situation. Once more, I got the cold-shoulder. Then I drove to 51 Division to swear out an information, or at least get an occurrence report written out. Nothing! I was treated with basic indifference and even cold and hostile stares and glances. When I left the police station, I saw two cruisers leaving the parking lot, but the ARA poster brigade by that time had moved on.

As you are aware, the Marxist terrorist group Anti Racist Action held an all-day "Shut the Nazi Down" demonstration outside my residence on October 25, 1996. During the course of the event, which lasted approximately seven hours, the ARA repeatedly chanted, "Lock the Nazis in, burn the house down" in violation of section 264 of the Criminal Code. Despite the fact that the infraction occurred in front of numerous Toronto police and plainclothes officers, no arrests were made.

Just after the demonstration I sent a letter to Bob Stradthee, Unit Commander of Intelligence Services (copy attached). I have received no reply, so now I am directing my concerns to you. I have learned from information gleaned from United Nations sources that the demonstration itself, along with the threats that were uttered, are also contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Canada is a member of the United Nations, and is bound to uphold the treaties and agreements of which she is a signatory. What follows is a list of my rights that were violated on this day, and the appropriate articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that apply. (Enclosed is a copy of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and United Nations document A/34/46 entitled "Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials", 1979).

First, I have a right to work at the employment of my choosing, at reasonable compensation, and make material gain from things that I author. I have the right to earn a living at a level that ensures a comfortable existence for myself and my family. As the business I operate is legal, and my publications are protected by Section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it was an infringement of my rights to even allow the demonstration aimed at shutting down my lawful business to occur at all! (See Article 23, sections 1 and 3, and Article 27, section 2).

Section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: protects the right of a minority to express its view, however unpopular it may be. All communication which convey or attempt to convey meaning are protected by s.2(b), unless the physical form by which the communication is made (for example a violent act) excludes protection. The content of the communication is irrelevant. The purpose of the guarantee is to permit free expression to the end of promoting truth, political or social participation, and self-fulfillment. That purpose extends to the protection of minority beliefs which the majority regards as wrong or false.

Article 23, section 1: Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Article 23, section 3: Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

Article 27, section 2: Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Second, I have a right to life, liberty and security of person. Having to endure the taunts of death by arson repeatedly over a period of seven hours is a violation of Article 3 and Article 12.

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Third, I have a right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (See Articles 18 and 19) and participation in the cultural fabric of society that allows me to express my views in a manner that allows free development of my personality (See Articles 22 and 27). Despite the media's relentless portrayal of me as a "Neo-Nazi" and a "hatemonger" I have always maintained that I am a German, defending my ethnic group and homeland against what I feel is a blood-libel and distortion of history. The things I say, write and broadcast are my attempts to give the German view of World War II history in general and the events called the "Holocaust" in particular. I have never been charged under the hate laws in Canada. The courts of the land, and not the media, determine whether what I produce is "hateful". Just because my views are "unorthodox" or "unpopular" doesn't mean I am deserving to be the target of demonstrations, death threats, arsons, pipe bombs etc. I am still a human being with legal, civil and human rights, guaranteed to me by the United Nations.

Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion and belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, and regardless of frontiers.

Article 22: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social, and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and his free development of his personality.

Article 27: Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Fourth, the expression of my views cannot be hindered or interfered with (See Article 19), or denied me because of my political opinions (See Article 2).

Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, and regardless of frontiers.

Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of political, jurisdictional, or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Fifth, the State is bound to provide me with a social order that ensures the expression of my right (See Article 28) and can not engage in any activity aimed at the destruction of my rights and freedoms (See Article 30). Allowing the ARA to demonstrate with the intent of ruining my business, and failing to arrest them when they clearly violated the Criminal code in uttering threats, I feel, is a violation of these articles.

Article 28: Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Sixth, I am equal before the law and entitled to equal protection without discrimination. (See Article 7). To allow a mob of hooded demonstrators, who I feel had a hand in last year's arson of my property, to repeatedly taunt me with threats of another fire over a span of seven hours is not only disgusting and unconscionable, it is a violation of my rights. (See the U.N. Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officers, which prohibits cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment, even during circumstances that constitute times of political instability or public emergency. Perhaps the police were reluctant to make arrests on that day because the demonstration occurred in conjunction with city-wide demonstrations, but this does not exonerate the police from carrying out their responsibilities).

Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any encitement to such discrimination.

Seventh, I am entitled to be free from attacks against my privacy, family, home, correspondence, honor and reputation, and am entitled to the protection of the law against such attacks (See Article 12).

Article 12: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Finally, a friend of my wife's, who is of Black and Brazilian descent, and an employee of ours who is from Madras, India, were subjected to taunts and racial slurs by the demonstrators that were demeaning to their cultural heritage, in full view of the police. They were called "coconut," "Oreo", "whitewash", "sellout", "pig" etc. . . How ironic that these epithets came from the lips of self-proclaimed "anti-racists"!
Why were they not charged under Canada's Hate Laws?

It has been over 18 months since the arson of my home and business occurred, yet there has been no apparent progress in the investigation of what your department rightly calls an act of terrorism perpetrated against me. I find this especially infuriating since I have provided you with a videotape of two agents from Canada's spy agency CSIS, asserting that they know the ARA fire-bombed my house! Numerous inquiries on my part about the disposition of this case are routinely met with a deafening silence or evasive explanations,

In view of the above, I have now taken the extraordinary step of informing twenty-four Human Rights organizations worldwide and the United Nations leadership and Human Rights specialists of what is happening to me here in Canada . . . how political terrorists are allowed to torch and bomb me with impunity because I am a political dissident, of German background, who peacefully expresses an unpopular view of WW II history!

I am sending a copy of this letter along with other recommendations, photos and videotapes to Mr. Jose Ayala Lasso, the High Commissioner of Human Rights for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. From now on, when I travel, I will carry in my passport his emergency FAX and phone numbers for reporting human rights abuses and harassment as they occur to me or members of my family.

In the future, any and all infringements of my human rights by either omission or commission on the part of any and all Canadian agencies, police, tribunals, customs and immigration authorities etc. who have made my life a living hell for the last sixteen years will be reported directly to him, at the United Nations Human Rights Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

I regret having to take these unusual and sweeping measures that place Canada under the watchful scrutiny of official bodies with international jurisdiction, but I feel I have little choice. After all, the Canadian government recently escalated its long-standing persecution of me, by falsely claiming that I was a security threat, and tried to railroad me by means of a tribunal which was poised to call secret witnesses - all with the intent of deporting me - at the behest of a vociferous minority with a powerful and politically well-connected lobby who has doggedly harassed and pursued me for the last 16 years because they want to silence my viewpoint. (See the enclosed booklet, "Ernst Zündel: One Man's Quest for Truth, Freedom and Justice").

The Federal Court has since ruled in my favor, stating that this tribunal (SIRC) was biased against me, and ordered the proceedings against me to stop. Significantly, the Federal government has filed an appeal and is even considering such extraordinary measures such as rewriting Canadian law to enable them to have a second opportunity of trying to create a legal basis for ultimately deporting me.

I have been a peaceful permanent resident of Canada for 38 years, and have exercised my political dissent solely in a non-violent manner, ever extending the opportunity for my critics to dialogue and air their perceived grievances against my writings and broadcasts in open debates. An offer which still stands! Their response has been continuous harassment and persecution, which Canadian officialdom has allowed to continue unabated, by their now institutionally ingrained habit of repeatedly denying me my human rights.

These extraordinary measures are necessary because I feel all other attempts on my part, and other avenues I have pursued using all channels of the government system have miserably failed.

I await your response to my letter.

Ernst Zündel