A Real Political Prisoner

Since their indictments/incarcerations, Holocaust deniers Ernst Zündel, David Irving, Germar Rudolf, Siegfried Verbeke, and others have been labeled "political prisoners." In particular, because of their supposedly "illegal" treatment by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services, Zündel and Rudolf have gotten significant traction outside of denier circles among pundits who believe the rights of these two men had been violated in the course of their deportations to Germany to stand trial for denying the Holocaust.

(There was, by the way, nothing abnormal or illegal about the manner in which Zündel and Rudolf were deported from the U.S. Both men violated U.S. immigration law, and particularly in the case of Zündel, a strong case was made that he was a serious security threat against any nation in which he resided.)

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who will turn 61 next month and who should have been freed from house arrest yesterday, had her sentence extended by the military junta that governs her native Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Her crime? Advocating for democracy in her native country.

Make no mistakes: Aung San Suu Kyi is a real political prisoner, her rights severely violated because of her conviction to equality. Compare her with Zündel, an avowed National Socialist, or Rudolf, who "made his bones" helping to defend Otto Ernst Remer, the neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier who helped save Hitler's life from the July 20, 1944, plot against the Nazi leader by members of the military high command.

It sickens me to no end that "revisionists" claim the likes of Zündel (the "warrior for peace" who employed skinhead bodyguards) as a political prisoner while genuinely non-violent political dissidents languish in jails across the world. Aung San Suu Kyi is merely the most famous of these dissidents; they number far greater in the prisions of every continent.

So the next time some Holocaust denier tries to tell you that you must act to help Ernst Zündel because he's a political prisoner, ask them what they've done to ameliorate the situation of Aung San Suu Kyi.

And then marvel as they ask, "Aung San Suu Who?"