SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD

SPIEGEL ONLINE - May 30, 2006, 12:01

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discusses the Holocaust, the future of the state of Israel, mistakes made by the United States in Iraq and Tehran's nuclear conflict with the West.

"SPIEGEL: Mr. President, you are a soccer fan and you like to play soccer. Will you be sitting in the stadium in Nuremberg on June 11, when the Iranian national team plays against Mexico in Germany?

Ahmadinejad: It depends. Naturally, I'll be watching the game in any case. I don't know yet whether I'll be at home in front of the television set or somewhere else. My decision depends upon a number of things.

SPIEGEL: For example?

Ahmadinejad: How much time I have, how the state of various relationships are going, whether I feel like it and a number of other things.

SPIEGEL: There was great indignation in Germany when it became known that you might be coming to the soccer world championship. Did that surprise you?

Ahmadinejad: No, that's not important. I didn't even understand how that came about. It also had no meaning for me. I don't know what all the excitement is about.

SPIEGEL: It concerned your remarks about the Holocaust. It was inevitable that the Iranian president's denial of the systematic murder of the Jews by the Germans would trigger outrage.

Ahmadinejad: I don't exactly understand the connection. (Read more)

SURELY IT'S NOT TRUE

Asked by Der Spiegel, in its cover story entitled "The man the world is afraid of", whether he stood by his earlier view the Holocaust was a myth, Ahmadinejad said: "I only accept something as the truth if I am truly convinced of it ... In Europe there are two opinions on it. One group of researchers who are by and large politically motivated say the Holocaust happened. There is another group of researchers who have the opposite view and are by and large in prison for that."


By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN, May 28 (Reuters) -

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Germans they should no longer allow themselves to be held prisoner by a sense of guilt over the Holocaust and reiterated doubts that the Holocaust even happened.

In an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, Ahmadinejad said he doubted Germans were allowed to write "the truth" about the Holocaust and said he was still considering travelling to Germany for the World Cup soccer tournament.

"I believe the German people are prisoners of the Holocaust. More than 60 million were killed in World War Two ... The question is: Why is it that only Jews are at the centre of attention?," he said in the interview published on Sunday. (Read more)

NOTHING LIKE A GOOD JEWISH COMIC

At a nightclub in Tel Aviv, young writers, musicians and dancers took the stage on April 24, the eve of Israel's official Holocaust Memorial Day, to present their personal take on the cataclysm.

Shai Golden stood with a microphone before the club packed with hundreds of young Israelis for what is called the Alternative Holocaust Ceremony, and suggested that the Holocaust might just be another way God has tried to "break up" with the Jewish people.

New York Times

By DINA KRAFT
Published: May 23, 2006

Tom Segev, a journalist who explored Israel's complex relationship with the Holocaust in a book, "The Seventh Million," said preserving the memory of the Holocaust was one of the few subjects that binds Israeli society.

"The Holocaust today is a very central part of Israeli identity, something shared by all Israelis whether they are religious, secular, left-wing or right-wing and even by some Arabs," Mr. Segev said. He notes that almost every day a Holocaust-related article appears and that most Jewish Israelis have internalized the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish people as a cornerstone of their collective identity. (Read more)

MUSLIM STUDENTS BRING NORMAN FINKELSTEIN TO UCLA

Finkelstein has questioned the estimated number of Jews that died in the Holocaust – asserting that the number was less than the widely accepted estimates of 6 million. In his two most recent books – "The Holocaust Industry" and "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History" – Finkelstein, himself the son of Holocaust survivors, argues that Jews and Israel supporters have exploited the Holocaust to promote their cause and justify the existence of the state Israel.

23 May 2006

By Udeitha Srimushnam
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR

A scheduled visit to campus by Norman Finkelstein today has sparked strong responses from some student organizations based on his controversial views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Finkelstein, a professor of history at DePaul University in Chicago, has published several books on Zionism, the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which present different positions than those of many mainstream scholars. He plans to speak at UCLA as a part of a week of events called "Israel and Palestine: Obstacles to Peace," which is being sponsored collectively by Students for Justice in Palestine, Muslim Student Association, United Arab Society, MEChA de UCLA and Raza Graduate Student Association. (Read more)

IN FRANCE REPRESSION OF REVISIONISM INCREASES

Robert FAURISSON
18 May 2006

In France as well, heightening repression of revisionism

Already on March 3, 2006 Georges Theil, 65, a retired telecommunications engineer, had seen his conviction for “Holocaust denial” upheld by the court of appeal of Limoges. He was guilty of sending, in a period running from April to June 2004, a booklet of his own revisionist writings to just a small number of persons in that region, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment without remission and a fine of €30,000, ordered to pay €9,300 in damages, and hit with still other sanctions as well.

Yesterday, May 17, in Lyon the same Georges Theil was convicted on appeal for having made a brief revisionist statement on October 14, 2004 in front of a local television journalist’s camera, and sentenced to a new six-month prison term without remission, fined another €10,000, and ordered to pay €40,500 in damages as well as to cover the costs of having the judgement published in two newspapers (probably as much as €8,000).

The offender has lodged a petition concerning the first case with the superior court of appeal in Paris, and is going to do the same for the second. If he fails there, he will, in principle, have to go to prison. In the first case, he has already paid out €39,300, and even a bit more. In the second case, he is going to have to pay out €50,500, not counting the legal publication fees. Some organisations have reacted with lightning speed: this very morning, by faxes sent to Georges Theil’s solicitor, they were demanding their pound of flesh.

In addition to these financial penalties it is appropriate to note, for the six proceedings involved (trials, first appeals, final appeals), the lawyer’s fees and other costs amounting to substantial sums.

As for the French media, they either pass these convictions over in silence or say they are glad of them.

On January 15 of this year, Georges Theil had sent out a plea for support to the 45 French intellectuals who were ostentatiously demanding, in the name of freedom of historical research and freedom of _expression, repeal of the laws hindering those freedoms. Only two intellectuals answered him: one, Edgar Morin, who is Jewish, told him he could not help in any way because he had himself been found guilty of “racial defamation” (he had, to the mind of the Paris court of appeal, too strongly criticised Israeli policy!); the other, professor René Rémond, a Catholic and a shabbos goy, wrote back curtly expressing his refusal to come to Theil’s aid.

Addendum of 20 May 2006: In a note bearing today’s date, G. Theil, recalling another, earlier conviction, estimates the sum total of his financial penalties and costs at €130,000.
G. Theil’s postal address: BP 50-38, F-38037 GRENOBLE CEDEX 2 (France)

My own trial is to take place on Tuesday July 11 in the XVIIth chamber of the Paris criminal court (2, 4 Boulevard du Palais; nearest underground station: “Cité”) at 1.30 p.m. I am accused of having granted, last year, an interview of revisionist nature to the Iranian radio and television station Sahar, in the context of a telephone conversation with a Teheran journalist who had called me. Since the satellite channel Sahar’s broadcasts can be picked up in France, our Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA), headed by Dominique Baudis, filed charges against me with the public prosecutor’s office in Paris.

IN FRANCE: ARMENIANS, JEWS, COLONIALISTS AND THE INTERESTS OF THE STATE

Uproar As French Parliament Shelves Vote On Armenian Genocide

By Emma Charlton

Agence France Presse
18 May 2006

Angry scenes broke out in the French National Assembly on Thursday after lawmakers were forced to call off a vote on a bill that would make it a punishable offence to deny the Armenian genocide. Debate on the opposition bill -- which has sparked a diplomatic row between France and Turkey -- started late, and the time allocated for its discussion ran out before a vote could take place. Discussion of the controversial text will now be pushed back to October at the earliest, under the parliamentary calendar. (Read more)

HOLOCAUST: AN ANGLO-AMERICAN NECESSITY?

Who Needs Holocaust?

By Israel Shamir
21 March 2006

Our good friend Gilad Atzmon proposed a new idea, that the Anglo-Americans are particularly vile, and that they need the Holocaust narrative to justify and persist with their nastiness. In Gilad’s own words, “I believe that it isn't the Jews who impose this Holocaust narrative. It is actually the Anglo-Americans who need Auschwitz, just because it allows them to kill in the name of freedom...”

He stated it in his Re-Arranging the 20th Century: Allegro, non Troppo, and in his interview to Lasse Wilhelmson, Gilad says: “I am totally convinced that H isn't a Zio narrative. I put a major blame on the Anglo-Americans”. Lasse asked him: “So the post war imperialists created the H narrative to be able to use Zionism ideologically and the Jews as a scapegoat?” Gilad replied: “… Auschwitz allows the Anglo-American to kill in the name of democracy”. (Read more)

IRAN DETAINS CANADIAN SCHOLAR

Iranian president Ahmadinejad showed his true colors this month by arresting a scholar who challenged his view of the Holocaust. All revisionists and free speech supporters should condemn this action by Iran. This type of persecution prevents open debate, research, and publication on this important time in history. Ahmadinejad has demonstrated that he is no different than those law-makers who criminalize any dissent against the orthodox Holocaust story. Freedom on this issue cuts both ways. Ahmadinejad has proven that he is no friend to revisionism or free speech. His actions should be denounced widely.

Iran detains Canadian scholar
Author arrested after challenging president's Holocaust denials
BY ALEXANDRA ZABJEK

Publication: Ottawa Citizen; Date: May 4, 2006;
Section: Front Page; Page: 1



A prominent Iranian-Canadian scholar is being detained in Iran after writing an article earlier this year in which he challenged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's contention that the Holocaust was a myth.

Ramin Jahanbegloo was arrested at Tehran airport several days ago after he and his family returned from an extended visit to India, BBC News reported last night.

Foreign Affairs declined comment yesterday, and would not confirm news reports of Mr. Jahanbegloo's arrest.

However, news of the arrest is making its away through Canada's expatriate Iranian community.

Shahram Golestaneh, president of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran, is urging the Canadian government to take immediate action to secure Mr. Jahanbegloo's release.

"Quiet diplomacy won't work," he said yesterday, adding that Iranian authorities will respond only to direct pressure or threats.

"We don't want to have the same situation as it was with Zahra Kazemi. If we have to do something earlier rather than later, we should do it," he said. "If even one citizen is at stake, we should put all of our forces behind him to get his release."

Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died in Iranian custody on July 11, 2003, almost three weeks after she was arrested for taking pictures outside a prison during a student protest in Tehran.

At first, Iran's official news agency reported that Ms. Kazemi had died in hospital, after suffering a stroke while she was being interrogated. But Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Iran's vice-president, conceded a few days later that Ms. Kazemi died as a result of being beaten.

In Tehran yesterday, a prominent dissident cleric said Mr. Jahanbegloo's arrest was "the height of lawlessness."

Mohsen Kadivar, who has spent time behind bars himself as a human rights activist, described Mr. Jahanbegloo as one of Iran's leading philosophical journalists.

"In a country fighting for respect of law and freedom of the press for more than 100 years, still we have a well-known figure who's arrested without a proper court order or an open trial, and they don't even announce that he's been arrested," said Mr. Kadivar.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said he had heard about the detention of a Canadian national from the Canadian ambassador, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. Mr. Asefi said the matter was under investigation.

Mr. Jahanbegloo's article on the Holocaust appeared in the Spanish newspaper El Pais. In another recent article published on the Internet, he called on Iran and the West to exercise caution in the escalating war of words over Tehran's nuclear activities.

While Mr. Jahanbegloo's academic work was critical of the current Iranian regime, he appeared more interested in "reform than revolution," said Amir Hassanpour, a Middle Eastern studies professor at the University of Toronto.

Mr. Jahanbegloo advocated reforming Iranian politics through the development of civil society and legal reforms, said Mr. Hassanpour.

Mr. Jahanbegloo has written and edited several books on philosophy and political science. He worked as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto from 1999 to 2001, after first arriving there in 1997 as a visiting scholar.

Born in Tehran, Mr. Jahanbegloo received his PhD from the Sorbonne before completing a post-doctorate degree at Harvard University, and then moving to Toronto.

He had published two books in English, including Conversations with Isaiah Berlin, which detailed his interviews with the the famed political philosopher. In 2001, he edited a collection of essays titled Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity.

Mr. Jahanbegloo, who holds Canadian citizenship, has also published extensively in French and Persian. He was most recently working at the Cultural Research Bureau, a non-governmental research organization in Tehran.

His arrest could make relations between Canada and Iran even
frostier. There has been little official contact between the two
countries since the death of Ms. Kazemi.

The Iranian government charged an Iranian security agent in Ms. Kazemi's death, but he was acquitted of "quasiintentional murder." In July 2004, Iran's judiciary said the head injuries that killed Ms. Kazemi were the result of an "accident."

But Canadians were shocked in March 2005 by the stunning revelations of Shahram Azam, a former staff physician in Iran's defence ministry. He said he examined Ms. Kazemi in hospital, four days after her arrest, and found obvious signs of torture, including evidence of a very brutal rape, a skull fracture, two broken fingers,
missing fingernails, a crushed big toe and a broken nose.

Mr. Azam left Iran in August 2004, saying he was seeking medical treatment in Finland. He later went to Sweden and got in touch with Ms. Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi. With the help of Canadian lawyers, Mr. Hachemi helped Mr. Azam and his family get to Canada. He was granted landed immigrant status as a refugee sponsored by the government of Canada.

In an article he wrote last year for the New York Times, Liberal MP Michael Ignatieff related how he was invited to lecture on human rights and democracy by the Cultural Research Bureau, an independent centre in Tehran that publishes books.

"My Iranian host, Ramin Jahanbegloo, works in a tiny shared office at the bureau, invited foreign guests and building up a small circle of freeminded students whom he lectures on European thought," wrote Mr. Ignatieff.

"Jahanbegloo says he thinks of himself as a bridge between Iran and (western) universities.

"He invites a steady stream of philosophers like Richard Rorty from Stanford and Agnes Heller from the New School in New York to give talks to students.

"He sees some signs that their ideas are gaining a toehold in Tehran." WITH FILES FROM CITIZEN NEWS SERVICES

ERNST ZUNDEL TO ROBERT FAURISSON

A Zundel Letter out of Mannheim Prison to Dr. Robert Faurisson

09 March 2006 (edited by Ingrid Rimland)

Dear Robert, friend and mentor!Today was another day in court, and I was thinking about you, me, our lives’ work, all the efforts - and what it all means in the great scheme of things.It is an almost surreal life for me these days. It is as if I were a spectator, watching my own life unfold like a Hollywood movie.

I start out waking up before 6 a.m., then being let out of my cell into a still-sleeping prison. [I take a] cold shower because the hot water needs to first push out the cold water before the boiler room in the basement pumps enough hot water up to our floor. Then I shave, have some tea with lemon and honey, eat an apple, get dressed - real shirt, nice tie, black jacket, all bought by one of my sisters from the second-hand shop at «Caritas», a Christian social agency. I take my plastic bags full of documents and, accompanied by a guard, go to a waiting-room where I am processed, searched, put in hand-cuffs, and taken to the courthouse. Thanks to Ingrid calling or writing the judge in my case, and the prison doctor, I no longer have my arms twisted to the back, but am now hand-cuffed in front.Then I wait in the basement of the courthouse for several hours in a small windowless cell.

The guards, drivers, and courthouse officials are all Germans - all 20-30-40 years younger than I am - and, Robert, that’s the difference to Canada and the U.S.A. - [here] it’s one of ethnic solidarity. There is an undefineable feeling of connectedness, of brotherhood - it’s a kind of an attachment to a shared destiny. In the old days it was called Volksgemeinschaft, [a feeling of being one with one’s people]. Only if one has spent as long as I have amongst foreigners does this feeling really impact on one - a brother amongst brothers! This feeling is there - in spite of the fact that most of these young people were in diapers when you and I battled our way into old City Hall in 1984 with the unspeakable lady lawyer, who later so dismally went back on her own word in 2004 - and cancelled her testimony.

So today, as I did my tour of duty, I once again got to feel this satisfying, fuzzy warmth of being understood and appreciated by those around me, in and out of uniform! You would be surprised how many people agree with you, but dare not say so or show it to you, for fear or losing their jobs! Robert, eine Schicksalsgemeinschaft [a community forged by a shared fate]. I seem to be the [voice] of their collective feeling, even though I am in handcuffs, behind prison bars. I am to these people their very own Ghandi or Nelson Mandela, because they no longer remember that other Germans 80+ years ago went through the same experiences, as they tried to shake off the cross and free themselves from the indignities and injustices to their nation then!

So when I enter the courtroom, there is a wave of applause (*). Today, even after I came in from one of the breaks, I was met with such a wave of sympathy that it really affected me! That’s again Volksgemeinschaft, the intangible component, the respect and admiration extended to one of their own who dared say: “Bis hierher und nicht weiter ! » [Martin Luther’s words five centuries ago : “To here and no farther !”]

The only ones not clapping and cheering are the plain-clothes police, seeded throughout the spectators, the spies, and the embarrassed members of the press - and CSIS representatives I recognize from the Thorold and Toronto hearings. They are here!Several times the judges entered the large courtroom just at the time when the applause was ebbing off - much to their dismay, obviously. And then, Robert, surreal proceedings begin to unfold.

Never in my 67 years of life have I ever participated in such acrimonious proceedings! The mood that prevails is odd, to say the least, for the feeling is that those in power seem to be the beleaguered party, being on the defensive and decidedly uneasy and nervous! As to the content and the legal and historical arguments made, apparently I am not allowed to discuss details - thank God I don’t have to re-gurgitate all those - so I will restrict myself to more general observations.

The inner quality of the arguments is far superior, far more issue and philosophy oriented, and the German language is far more precise - it’s like the difference between a kitchen knife (English) and a surgeon’s scalpel (German)! Although there are no court transcripts, skilled lawyers in German legal proceedings use the clever device of written submissions, explanations, responses, depositions in response to specific topics - so a tapestry is woven, not as good as in Anglo-Saxon legal proceedings, but still I am relieved to see how these German lawyers have procedurally cobbled together a patchwork that will give future historians some reference points - and reporters «quotable quotes».

The oddity, in a way offset by new information technology, is that the submissions, texts, corrections, requests, etc., all these little pieces of the puzzle, end up discussed by the media. Even though tightly censored, remarkable facts are seeping out, always in quotation marks. Mostly they are commented on in a sarcastic way - surprising nonetheless, considering all these restrictive rules in place. Again the content and quality are of a more substantial nature, almost as if the writers knew that their readers have a higher intellectual capacity than the Canadian reading audiences, or are more grounded in the context in which all this plays out.

It’s an interesting phenomenon for me to observe - and it is a surprise!Another thing is interesting : Name recognition - something that took me a few years to build in Canada when the newscast would start out saying : “A man called Ernst Zündel, a German Canadian publisher, today is going on trial for [Holocaust denial]” In other words, they first had to tell their audiences who I was, to give them context for their story. To my great surprise, for about a week last year the German media would say : “Der Deutsch-Kanadier Š Holocaust Leugner Š”and after that, and ever since, it simply says : “Ernst Zündel steht heute vor Gericht” The German media assumes they can get directly to the point without preamble. As to a media-image attached to a man, that’s a huge advantage. I give this tricky historical topic a human face and now it is clear sailing!

What has helped are photographers and television cameras being allowed into the courtroom for a few minutes before the proceedings begin - which is what the Germans call ein Blitzlicht-Gewitter [strobe lightning storm] when hundreds of flash bulbs go off as I enter, shake hands with the lawyers, and salute my friends. Again, it humanizes these stories. For instance the Mannheimer Morgen, the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung and, to my surprise, the important Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have had most of their stories illustrated with interesting photos.

Robert, when I went to Advertising Art School where I got my training, the understanding was that if one included a picture, photo, drawing with a story or text, one achieved 80% more reader-recognition! That was the reason for my “theatrics”[in the past] - the concentration camp suit, the cross, the helmets!

Even the FAZ had very interesting photos, angle and crop! A very large colour photo of over a page appeared in Bild Zeitung of me saluting to my friends, again with a headline that assumed the 4 million Bild readers knew me, my name, my face - MY STORY - sufficiently so that is sufficed to write in a 3cm headline : “Darf er so grüßen ?”[ Is he allowed to salute like that ?] Robert, that’s name recognition !So the magic still works! Foolish Sabina! (**)

Let me recap, then, my teacher: Remarkably high quality arguments, far deeper than in Canada, far more substantial, are being made inside, but especially outside, the courtroom and in the media, and not just in Germany, not only in Turkey, but in the Moslem Crescent countries from Tangier to Malaysia. Aljazeera apparently had a large E.Z. article about the trial + content. Ingrid told me that it was actually understandable - not often the case in Arab stories!Thus, although the outcome is not in doubt, Robert, the story itself will increasingly take on a life of its own. It will be like in Canada - there will be setbacks, appeals, then appeals from appeals, first locally, then nationally, then internationally - and when I have run out of courtrooms, then we will submit the case to history and let [history] judge! By then I will be close to meet my Maker for the ultimate judgment!

Between now and then, a lot of water will be flowing down the Neckar and Rhine rivers. A lot of ink will be spilled, and a lot of pixels expended, eroding the monolith - one grain of sand in the rock after another, turning granite into soil-fertilizer humus. Robert, it helps to be a peasant to understand the forces of nature.Victory will be ours - in time. To get there has been a little arduous, but as you are witnessing, it was not an impossible dream.

Ernst Z.
=====

(*) Applause has since been forbidden by judges under threat of a fine/expulsion from the room!(**) Sabina Citron is the Toronto-based Jewess who originally sued Ernst Zundel in 1984 for “spreading false news”- thus unleashing a global tsunami of reader interest in Holocaust Revisionism!

CENSORSHIP ENVY

Civility, not censorship, is issue in "Da Vinci Code" debate
May 14, 2006

by John Leo

Tom Hanks thinks Christians shouldn't become irate about "The Da Vinci Code." He says it's just a story, "loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense." He's right, but so is an official of the Christian Council of Korea, who said, "'The Da Vinci Code' is a movie which belittles and tries to destroy Christianity."

Isn't "destroy" too grand a word for a Tom Hanks entertainment? Maybe, but this thriller is mounting the powerful argument that Christianity is rotten to the core, based on lies and political conspiracy. It is surely one of the most effective attacks on Christian faith in generations. One of the cardinals at the Vatican said, in effect, we've had this kind of assault before, but not addressed to such a large audience of religious illiterates and uncritical minds.
(Read more)

A HOT PAPER MUZZLES ACADEMIA

Reading this article brought home to us that the way the W&M paper quickly became a taboo matter among academics, who know very well which side of their bread has the butter, is exactly how any objective revisionist paper on the Holocaust is made taboo among these same delicate folk. We see a connection. How the Holocaust story is used to help morally justify U.S. and Israeli policies in the ME is one of them.

A hot paper muzzles academia
By Eve Fairbanks,

Eve Fairbanks works at the New Republic as a reporter-researcher.
May 14, 2006

DID YOU THINK there was a controversy in academia over "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," the paper by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer contending that a shadowy "Israel Lobby" — including everyone from the New York Times and Hillary Clinton to Pat Robertson and Paul Wolfowitz — has seized control of American foreign affairs? I did too, but let me tell you: We were wrong.

When professors Walt and Mearsheimer (of Harvard and the University of Chicago, respectively) went public with their paper in the London Review of Books on March 23, it seemed the whole world started screaming. From columnists Richard Cohen and Max Boot to historian Tony Judt and Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, public figures battled in the pages of the major papers. Accusations of anti-Semitism and divided loyalties flew. The magazine I work for published three articles on the paper in a single week. (Read more)

INGRID (RIMLAND) ZUNDEL SAYS "NO THANK YOU" TO GERMAN COURT

May 10, 2006

BY FED EX INTERNATIONAL AND FACSIMILE TRANSMISSION
Dr. Meinerzhagen
Presiding Judge Landgericht Mannheim
68169 Mannheim,

Germany Telefax (06 21) 292-1314
Re: Zundel v. Gonzales, No. 3:03-CV-105,
United States District Court,
Eastern District of Tennessee

Zundel v. Gonzales, Chertoff, No. 05-5287,
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Criminal proceedings against Ernst Zundel for Suspicion of stirring up hatred against national, ethnic, racial or religious groups and other offenses, Regional Court of Mannheim, 6 KLs 503 Js 4/96

Dear Dr. Meinerzhagen:I am writing to you on behalf of my client Ingrid Rimland Zundel ("Dr. Rimland"), in response to your letter of April 4, 2006.This letter should not be construed as a recognition of any sort of jurisdiction by the Landgericht Mannheim or any other German authority over the person of Dr. Rimland.

After due consideration, and notwithstanding the fact that she would very much like to see and help her husband, Dr. Rimland hereby declines your request that she appear as a witness on
her own volition in the Landgericht Mannheim.

Without waiver, she finds it unnecessary under these terms to assert any privilege provided for under German law.She states in the strongest terms possible her objection to the assertion of jurisdiction of the Landgericht Mannheim over her husband, Ernst Zundel, and over the
criminal charges that have been filed against her husband because of his speech, the criminalization of which is completely unknown in the United States and would be regarded as a scandal by the vast majority of the American populace.

Dr. Rimland, a citizen of the United States of America, finds it deplorable as well that the Mannheim Public Prosecutor's Office is conducting an investigation of her on similar allegations. Dr. Rimland considers it an insult and an imposition that her testimony would be sought by a country which wishes to criminalize her for conduct that is not criminal in her own country.

Here in the United States, we are free to comment critically about persons and movements of any ethnic group or heritage or religion, and free to act nonviolently and politically to persuade others of our views, without running the risk that we will be prosecuted for "hate," and this is a form of legal protection that has long helped insure us against great imbalances of power, discontents, deceits and treacheries, and oligarchy and demagoguery, and we commend it to the court and to the German people.

We submit that German laws which, by criminalizing speech, purport to protect Germany's citizenry against the forces and causes which led to World War II are camouflaging a deceptive political agenda.Dr. Rimland likewise declines to provide testimony or respond to questions via a videoconference link.Dr. Rimland similarly declines to be examined by a consular official or other official by commission, whether at a German consulate or any other location in the United States.

She finds it particularly offensive that officials of any German consulate should examine her in light of her conclusion that German consular officials colluded with Canadian and U.S. authorities for years to try to snare Mr. Zundel in an extrajudicial rendition, which she bases on familiarity with German- and English-language documents released by the prosecutor's office in the case in which you are presiding.Dr. Rimland does reiterate, however, that she has always been the owner and operator of "the Zundelsite," the website referenced in your letter, and I understand that you have already read in open court a statement she sent to you so indicating.

If the court wishes to submit a list of questions to Dr. Rimland regarding her statement, she would consider providing written responses.Request is also made that you advise me consistent with Germany's international law obligations of any and all measures of "judicial assistance" by the United States that the Landgericht Mannheim or Mannheim prosecutor's office or any counsel appointed for Herr Zundel may invoke, intends to invoke, will invoke, does invoke, or attempts to invoke, in order to try to obtain Dr. Rimland's testimony.

Finally, and on another subject, note is made "for the record" of the inaccuracy and impropriety of your adverse Decision on the issue of my status as legal counsel to Mr. Zundel, authored by you and incorporating the inaccurate international law analysis delegated to Dr. Hans-Georg Koch of the Max Planck Institute, which was the subject of your last correspondence to me.

As you should know, Dr. Koch could reach the conclusion he reached only by arbitrarily disregarding the plain meaning of "legal counsel" and then by impermissibly limiting the definition of what is a restraint on Ernst Zundel's liberty. Dr. Koch was prepared, in the service of an illicit agenda, to recognize only the restraint that Ernst Zundel is currently suffering in a German prison as a restriction on his liberty, notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Koch went on to acknowledge that in the United States, the habeas corpus remedy being prosecuted by the undersigned for Mr. Zundel is a classic protection of a liberty interest and is a remedy that remains available to him.

The deplorable analysis adopted by the Court has not served to increase my already-diminished confidence or the confidence of my client in the German judicial system.Thank you for your attention to these matters, and if I can clarify any of the above points, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely, Bruce Leichtycc:
Ingrid Rimland Zundel
Ernst Zundel

FRENCH HISTORIANS GETTING THEIR ACT TOGETHER

Historians Warn French Parliament: Do not Censor History

By Selcuk Gultasli,
Brussels Published:
Wednesday, May 10, 2006 zaman.com

Famous American and European historians have sided against the bill, which would make denial of the so-called Armenian genocide a punishable offence, to be discussed in the French Parliament on May 18.

Historians say if the bill is passed, freedom of speech will be harmed and history will have been “censored.” (Read more)

FRENCH COMIC HAS FUN WITH HOLOCAUST STORY AND U.S. ALLIANCE WITH ISRAEL

We should point out that, of course, anyone who would ridicule mainline opinion about either the Holocaust story or the U.S. alliance with Israel would be an "anti-semite." Goes without saying, yet those who are ready to say it appear to be all over the place.


By Steven Plaut
FrontPageMagazine.com
May 2, 2006

France, formerly the nation of Balzac and Voltaire, is today best represented by Dieudonné, an anti-Semite and self-styled "comic."

Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala (his full name) is the French son of a British mother and a Cameroonian father. (You can see his poster here.) Beloved by many on the French Left, Dieudonné is so popular in modern France that he is planning to run for President in 2007.
Not the least significant reason for Dieudonné’s appeal is his eagerness to pander to the anti-Israel prejudices of French audiences. In one of his more notorious acts, he dressed up as a uniformed Israeli settler in the Palestinian occupied territories, gave Nazi salutes, and called upon young people to “join the American-Zionist axis.” (Read more)

RICHARD BERNSTEIN "MIGHTLY OFFENDED" BY SUGGESTION OF OPEN DEBATE ON THE HOLOCAUST -- BUT. . .

Richard Bernstein
International Herald Tribune

THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2006

BERLIN Some years ago there were a number of unsuccessful efforts at American universities to enact hate-speech codes that would have punished students and faculty for expressing opinions or hurling epithets that would have insulted others because of their race, sex, sexual orientation or handicap.

Most of these efforts failed, in part because they presented too sharp a contradiction with the right of free speech. And indeed, despite the United States' sad history of slavery and racism, the American value of free speech, even deeply offensive free speech, has generally taken priority over the value of protecting the feelings of minorities.

There have been a few reminders lately that this is not the case in Europe, with its even sadder history of genocide - I say sadder because, however bad American racism has been, it never involved a systematic effort actually to wipe out a people. David Irving, the renegade British historian, has actually been sentenced to a term in prison in Austria for the crime of Holocaust denial. (Read more)

IDEOLOGY AND TABOO -- AN OPEN DEBATE ON THE HOLOCAUST STORY IS AMONG THE VICTIMS

Kevin MacDonald's reply to an article via Horowitz's FrontPageMagazine.com addresses the issue of how we can address any issue whatever that challenges what Jewish and philo Jewish ideologues argue should not be challenged. Revisionists run into this taboo from one end of the planet to the other, and particularly with American journalists and academics. The Holocaust story is only one part of a web of taboos that are meant to protect the citizenry from an open debate on the many issues associated with the Middle East and the American role in what's going on there.

Jacob Laksin has written a general critique of my work for FrontPageMagazine.com. To the extent that this article is based on any rational criticism at all, it relies on a compendium of the criticisms to which I have previously replied on this website. The main technique is to present quotations from my work devoid of context and devoid of the evidence that I use to back up what I have written. It therefore relies on people not having read my work and on accepting the conventional wisdom on all things related to the role of Jews in the culture of the West. Particularly egregious are the charges of "unabashed anti-Semitism" and my writing as "stylized bigotry."

As John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt noted in their recent article on the Israel Lobby, charges of anti-Semitism are to be expected for anyone who criticizes claims that the Israel lobby has significant influence over U.S. foreign policy or even that it exists. Their work has been subjected to a deluge of charges of anti-Semitism and shoddy scholarship. It's no accident that perhaps the most vitriolic anti-Mearsheimer and Walt piece to date appeared on FrontPageMagazine.com: Abraham H. Miller's The New Protocols. (Miller begins by stating "Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s recently disseminated anti-Semitic screed has been ripped apart by both prominent scholars and literary figures showing it to be an intellectual fraud being passed off as serious scholarship.") We are increasingly approaching a situation where being labeled an anti-Semite is a mark of honor. (Read more)

MAVERICK: INTERVIEW WITH ISRAEL SHAMIR

By Kim Pertersen

May 1, 2006

Israel Shamir is a prominent and controversial Russian-Israeli thinker, writer, and translator who lives in Jaffa. Shamir brings to his political writing a refreshing candor, sharp insight, and inspiring humanity. His principled stand supporting the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and the rebuilding of their destroyed villages led to his firing from the “progressive” Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Following Israeli attacks on Palestinians in January 2001, Shamir became dedicated to political writings in English.

For the intellectual Karl Marx, the Jewish question was an “unreal subject.” Marx was baptized a Lutheran and married to a gentile. Shamir has renounced Judaism and embraced Christianity.
He is a strong proponent of the “One Man, One Vote, One State” solution for a united Israel-Palestine. I interviewed the unflinching maverick writer Israel Shamir.

Kim Petersen: You wrote recently that the historian David Irving, who the corporate media reports as being sentenced for holocaust denial, was sentenced for denial of “Jewish superiority.” Could you elaborate on this and what holocaust denial means for you?
(Read more)

UPDATE ON THE ERNST ZUENDEL THOUGHT-CRIME TRIAL

Here is an update regarding the progress of extradition laws between the U.S., Germany, and the EU to protect our various citizenries against intellectual freedom, and to punish those who might exercise it on certain prohibited matters, such as a routine examination of the Holocaust story.


We have entered a very interesting and, in some ways, scary stage in our struggle to bring truth to the world via reporting on the Mannheim Holocaust Heresy Trial. On April 26, there was yet another scheduled hearing. From the few scattered reports I received, it was an extraordinary day! Please take this as a partial summary because I don't know what it means and can only speculate. Here is what I was told:

Ernst was represented by Dr. Schaller and Attorney Bock. Jürgen Rieger was not present. The two public defenders, who are on stand-by, so to speak, were present, as were Sylvia Stolz and Horst Mahler - the latter two in the audience. Again, many spectators filled the court room, but the security forces had been reduced in numbers. Ernst was described as "looking good, self-assured and vigorous."

The prosecutor, Mr. Grossmann, was not present; a substitute sat in for him.Dr. Meinerzhagen started by playing a brief ZDF video clip that had been produced by a German television team sometime in 1999, as I remember it. I lived at that time in San Diego; Ernst was still in Canada. The reporters were a husband-wife couple, nice and very open-minded, so I thought. After they filmed me, they went on to interview Ernst at the Toronto Zundel-Haus, and Ernst told me afterwards that the extended interview went very well indeed. (Read more)