On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Bail Hearings continue. There
will be a few surprises, we hope! We have added two Toronto attorneys to our
team, and there are other plans we hope to actualize. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, to refresh your memory, to give you information
ammo to send to your lists, and to urge you to support our battle in any way
you can, here is the first installment:
This is the text delivered at a press conference in
Ottawa, September 18, 2003 by Paul Fromm in the Parliamentary Press
Gallery. An interview with Mr. Fromm on CPAC Television will be aired
Monday night at 9:00 p.m. e.s.t. Also, Mr. Mark Weber of the Institute for
historical review will be a guest on the Rense Radio Show at www.rense.com
Canadian Association for Free Expression Box 332,
Rexdale, Ontario, M9W 5L3 Ph: 905-897-7221; FAX: 905-277-3914
Paul Fromm, B.Ed, M.A. Director
September 18, 2003 For Immediate Release
Indefinite Detention, Secret Hearings,
"Mediaeval" Prison Conditions -- The Fate of Those Held Under
CSIS National Security Certificates
Back in November, 2001, I was in this same room warning of
the civil liberties consequences of the Federal Government's proposed
anti-terrorist legislation, Bill C-36. I wish I could stand here and say,
"We were wrong."
Yes, we must protect Canada from terrorists. However, we
must not erase fundamental civil rights and freedoms in the name of
fighting terrorism. Canada's fight against terrorism has brought us secret
hearings, deportations with few rights for the accused, and unlimited
detention of men convicted of no crime in conditions of deprivation designed
to "break 'em" so that they'll give up their fight.
In a number of hearings, I've acted as the legal
representative of German-born publisher Ernst Zundel. He is a victim of
Canada's anti-terrorist legislation and a Canadian Security and
Intelligence Serivice (CSIS) that is out of control and is fanatically
hostile to him.
Ernst Zundel, 64, immigrated to Canada in 1958. He was a
landed immigrant here, a successful graphic artist and an employer for 42
years. He emigrated to the U.S.A in 2000 and married an American citizen,
Dr. Ingrid Rimland. While in Canada, Mr. Zundel published a number of
pamphlets that questioned the establishment historical view of World War
II.
While controversial, he's never been charged or convicted
of any violent crime in Canada or anywhere else. In February, Mr. Zundel
was picked up for a minor problem with U.S. immigration law and ordered
deported. He is unable to return to the U.S., where his wife resides, for
20 years.
Mr. Zundel was deported February 19 to Canada, his place
of last residence. Germany has a warrant out for his arrest under their
bizarre law that criminalizes questioning the establishment account of
World War II. Return to Germany could mean five years in prison for Mr.
Zundel.
Accordingly, he has filed a "refugee" claim.
Normally, he would be set free pending the hearing of his claim.
However, Ernst Zundel has been held in prison since
February 19. On May 1, he was served with a CSIS "national
security" certificate co-signed by Solicitor-General Wayne Easter and
Immigration Minister Denis Coderre. Under the amended Immigration and
Refugee Protection Act, this is the equivalent of a deportation order. The
only recourse is a hearing before a federal judge. Unlike other cases
which require proof of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt" or
"reasonable and probable grounds" for a search warrant, the
Crown need only prove that the accusations are "reasonable".
How is a dissident publisher a threat to Canada's national
security? National security is carefully defined in the CSIS Act as being
espionage, sabotage, sedition, foreign run activities or the use of
serious acts of violence against persons or property to promote one's
ideology. The Act makes clear that protest and non-violent dissent,
however controversial, are not threats to national security.
The CSIS statement alleges that Ernst Zundel, while not
personally violent, is a terrorist and supports serious acts of violence
in Canada or abroad. The proof offered is laughable hodge-podge of
guilt-by-association. Zundel is a pacifist who has counselled many young
hotheads to obey the law and avoid violence. One such person, George Burdi,
testified May 16 that Mr. Zundel had thrown him out of his house when he
caught him writing violent lyrics on his computer.
Ernst Zundel believes the certificate stems from a long
hostility by CSIS against him. On the week of May 16, Mr. Zundel filed a
complaint with the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), the body
that oversees CSIS, asking that they investigate the shocking information
in John Mitrovica's book Covert Entry, which shows that CSIS knew that the
1995 pipebomb was coming to Zundel and did nothing to prevent it or to
warn or protect him. In the book, former CSIS operative John Farrell, who
was involved in the interception of mail headed to Mr. Zundel, was warned
by his CSIS handler twice in May, 1995 not to open any package from Vancouver
addressed to Mr. Zundel. Later that month, a powerful pipebomb arrived
with a Vancouver return address. Police said, after they detonated the
device, that it would have killed anyone within 100 yards had it exploded.
Another problem with the anti-terrorist legislation is
that it permits unlimited detention of people served with a CSIS
certificate. On Tuesday, September 23, Mr. Zundel is back in court in
Toronto for the sixth day of a detention hearing before Federal Judge Mr.
Justice Pierre Blais. Mr. Zundel has been kept in solitary confinement in
the Metro West Detention Centre. Despite having six legal cases to
prepare, he is denied pen, highlighter, paperclips, post-it notes,
hardcover books that he needs for the case, or a chair. Until two weeks
ago, he had been without a pillow since May 16, despite recommendations by
a doctor in July that a man of his age should have one. While recovering
from cancer, Mr. Zundel has been denied access to the herbs and
alternative treatments with which he's self-medicated himself for 30
years.
On July 30, informed of Mr. Zundel's inhumane prison
conditions, Mr. Justice Blais commented: "Even in medieval times,
prisoners were allowed to use pen and paper," Judge Blais asserted.
"I also have respect for Mr. Zundel. He is not a criminal. I think he
is entitled to a little bit of flexibility." Since then, all Mr.
Zundel has received, after extensive lobbying with provincial and prison
authorities, is a pillow.
Mr. Zundel, a non-violent man, has now spent seven months
in the sort of brutal deprivation that would normally only be inflicted on
the most hardened prisoners as punishment for violence in prison. Yet,
this sort of harsh detention has been inflicted on him and others like
Egyptian Mahmoud Jaballah held now for two years under a CSIS warrant.
Before each of Mr. Zundel's court and detention hearings,
the adjudicator or judge has heard secret testimony. The defence has no
idea what the evidence was, who the witnesses were, or even what the
accusations are. This procedure, permitted by the anti-terrorist
legislation, cancels the basic right under Anglo-Saxon common law of the
defendant to know the charges against him, to face his accusers and to
challenge their evidence in order to make a full and complete defence.
This procedure would also seem to violate the ruling of the Supreme Court
of Canada in the Chiarelli case.
