Free speech martyr Ernst Zundel has been released from the German gulag after serving a five-year sentence for denying the Jewish holocaust.   Prior to his extradition to Germany in 2005, the Canadian government had deemed Zundel ”a threat to national security” and imprisoned him for two years without actually pressing any formal charges.  In total, then, Zundel served seven years in prison for the spoken and written word.   During his imprisonment, he was denied parole  and it was made sure that he would serve out his entire sentence, despite his age and his exemplary behaviour.   By comparison, we have rapists and other violent convicts, genuine threats to society, who are often granted parole after serving a mere two or three years of their sentence. 

Additionally, Zundel is now $100,000 in debt to the German government for the cost of his own trial and incarceration, something that is eerily reminiscent of the Soviet Union of yore, where the family of a condemned prisoner was sent the bill for the bullet used in the execution.  It should also be mentioned that Sylvia Stolz, Ernst Zundel’s defense attorney,  is presently serving a three-and-a-half-year prison term in Germany for having defended Zundel.  Furthermore, she has also been banned from practicing law for five years.  It doesn’t get much more Orwellian than this.  And in appropriate fashion, it’s all flushed down the memory hole.    

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20100301_ap_convictedholocaustdenierzundelreleased.html