Around 60 nazis got together the other day to call for the release of their friend Ernst Zuendel from a German prison in front of the German Embassy in Prague. The rally was led by the National Resistance, the country’s most visible nazi like organization.
Almost three times that many showed up to oppose them. "Nothing but lies. Learn to read," anti-Nazi activists chanted over the heads of police guards at the ultra-right protesters listening to their leaders' speeches.
The counter protest, initiated by the Tolerance and Civic Society Association, was attended by several well-known personalities, including MPs Tatana Fischerova, Svatopluk Karasek, Karel Schwarzenberg (all for Freedom Union, US-DEU) and Jaromir Stetina (for Greens).
“I was alive in 1937, I saw what the Nazis did, and it is my obligation to come here and say it and to support the action by the German government,” said Senator Karel Schwarzenberg, descendent of a long line of Bohemian aristocrats.
Ivona Novomestska, a 22-year-old student at Charles University, said she felt obligated to protest against the neo-Nazi demonstration because “although their numbers are very small, if we all ignore them, they could get a lot bigger.”
Leo Pavlat, director of the Jewish Museum in Prague, said during the event that he felt encouraged that so many prominent personalities and journalists showed up for the counter protest. “It shows that Czechs don’t think of this as a Jewish question anymore,” he said.
Ernst Zundel, a white supremacist and longtime Canadian resident charged in Germany with inciting racial hatred, will go on trial on Nov. 8, a court said Friday. Zundel will go on trial in the western city of Mannheim court spokeswoman Bettina Krenz said.
German authorities accuse Zundel, who was deported from Canada in March, of decades of anti-Semitic activities, including repeated denials of the Holocaust - a crime in Germany - in documents and on the Internet. Prosecutors charged Zundel, 66, with incitement in July, four months after his arrest on arrival in Germany after a long legal battle. He remains in custody.
He had been detained in Toronto since 2003 under anti-terrorism laws and deported after a Canadian judge ruled his activities a threat to national and international security.
According to prosecutors in Canada, Zundel funded organizations and “advised and directed” white supremacists who advocated violence against blacks, Jews and other minorities, and the overthrow of the U.S, German and South African governments.
Among them were Wolfgang Droege, former leader of the neo-Nazi Heritage Front, who was shot to death earlier this year; William Pierce, author of the racist tract The Turner Diaries; Richard Butler, founder of Aryan Nations; the fascist Ewald Althans, who had designs on becoming the fuehrer of Germany before being arrested for sedition, and whom Zundel was sending $2,000 a month; Dennis Mahon, publisher of the racist Oklahoma Excalibur, which urged the overthrow of “Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG)”; and Tom Metzger, director of White Aryan Resistance.
Donald MacIntosh, the lead Crown prosecutor in the deportation case in Canada told Canadian Jewish News, “Zundel counseled these people on how far they could and should go under the First Amendment [of the U.S. constitution],” MacIntosh said.
MacIntosh said Zundel attempted to get the names and addresses of certain Jewish Canadians on the pretext that he wanted to subpoena them, but the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was concerned it was really to give them to the white supremacists.
“Zundel was one of the most important purveyors of hate literature in the world, distributing to 42 countries since the early 1970s,” MacIntosh said.
“All countries must be vigilant in the fight against hate and resolutely bring to justice those committing crimes against humanity or counseling others to do so,” he said.
To prevent the spread of hatred, people from all backgrounds and walks of life must work together, MacIntosh said.
He added that education alone is not necessarily a guarantee against racism, noting that Zundel’s third wife, Ingrid Rimland, has a PhD in educational psychology, yet has posted “some of the most virulent material” on Zundel’s website. Sources: CTV, Canadian Jewish News, Czech News Agency, JTA
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