Sylvia
Stolz, a criminal defense lawyer, was a member of Ernst Zündel’s defense team
during his free speech trial in Germany in 2006/2007. Due to her
confrontational defense style, she was eventually banned from defending Zündel.
Zündel was convicted to serve a five-year prison sentence for revisionist
statements he had made online and in print, even though those statements were
and are perfectly legal in the US and in Canada, from where he had distributed
his statements.
Following the trial, Stolz was
herself put on trial for written statements she had made while defending Zündel
in court. In January 2008 she was convicted and sentenced to a 3½-year prison
term for defending her client. On November 2012 Stolz was a guest speaker at
the Anti-Censorship Coalition’s 8th conference held at Chur, Switzerland, to
which she had been invited by Ivo Sasek, the founder of this Swiss association
to speak about her experience.
Her presentation was not about
history but about freedom of speech and her inability to defend her client
without herself violating Germany's anti-holocaust-denial laws. Almost a year
after her speech, in January 2013, the Swiss lawyer Daniel Kettiger filed a
criminal complaint against Sylvia Stolz and Ivo Sasek for violating the Swiss
anti-racism law, Section 261bis of the Swiss Penal Code. Sylvia was subsequently
sentenced to an additional 20 months in jail.
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