To expand a bit on yesterday's ZGram showing that the Right can fight back in Canadian courts - and win! - I bring the following.
The Montreal Gazette, July 6, 1998, reports in a tongue-in-cheek write-up:
"Racists, it seems, have rights too. And reputations.
"Two prominent Holocaust deniers, well known for their white supremacist views, have recently won libel awards for the damage done to their reputations.
"In cases in British Columbia and New Brunswick, judges ruled it was perfectly fair to describe Malcolm Ross and Ellen Pressler as the worst kind of racists and anti-semites.
"But portraying Ross - a New Brunswick teacher who has been barred from the classroom because of his anti-Jewish views - as a Nazi, even in a cartoon, apparently went too far." (...)
Doubtlessly in a mood some dissidents might call Defensive Sour Grapes, in chimes the well-known Bernie Farber, spokesman for the Canadian Jewish Congress:
"I do believe this is a concerted effort on the part of members of the extreme right to stifle those who are dealing with hatemongers. (...)
"I think what it has proven is that they are certainly afraid of the work that has been carried out against hatemongers in this country, and this is their way of trying to deal with it. We have to be prepared for it.
"But this will not stop us from speaking out and protecting our community and other communities. If they think it will, they should think again."
This article makes the strong point that Judge Paul Creaghan of the Court of Queen's Bench decided in the case of Malcolm Ross that suggesting that Ross is a "Nazi" crossed the line of fair comment.
"(Ross) may have unknowingly or even knowingly picked up some ideas from current Nazi sympathizers, but to take as a fact that Malcolm Ross is a Nazi goes too far. To suggest that Mr. Ross would advocate a policy of extermination as a solution to what he perceives as a spiritual battle against Judaism has not been established as a fact.
"An award of one cent would send the message that, against one who holds unpopular views, defamation is covertly acceptable and will not be condemned by the courts.
"It would be equivalent to saying that Eileen Pressler is not entitled to the protection of the law. She, like every citizen, is neither above nor below the law. She is entitled to protection, with all the rights and concomitant duties that protection entails."
This battle for Free Speech, even by "Nazi sympathizers" against one-sided defamation, continues in a fascinating new development of great importance to Ernst Zundel.
With Doug Christie as his lawyer, a former member of the conservative Reform Party of Canada, Roger Rocan, has filed a defamation suit against the poisonous "Web of Hate" author Warren Kinsella, the darling of the Canadian liberal left and one-time slated CSIS witness against Ernst Zundel. (Kinsella, incidentally, wisely pulled in his horns and chickened out, to mix two metaphors - once he realized that Doug Christie, rather than a less experienced lawyer, would cross-examine him during those SIRC hearings!)
Luckily for Kinsella, now he will have the option of appearing in Soviet-style fashion as a safely hidden "secret witness" in future CSIS hearings, warmed up and served up to very "Zundel persecution"-weary Canadian taxpayers after a dormant three years.
I gleefully point out that no harm has come to Canada from Mr. Zundel in the intervening three years via the so-called "threat to the national security of Canada" that Ernst Zundel is claimed have personified. And I take the opportunity to point out also that it was, in fact, the other way around.
Canada has proved itself a threat to Mr. Zundel over the years. Canada's police force has yet to solve the crimes of the politically motivated arson and pipe bombs of 1984 and 1995.
Therefore, in this upcoming defamation lawsuit, Kinsella's veracity will be keenly watched in pro-free speech circles. It will be of great interest to pro-Zundel citizens to see just how brave Kinsella will act in this case - again fought by Zundel attorney, Doug Christie.
Will Kinsella stand up for what he claimed is the truth in "Web of Hate" - or will he ***again*** weasel out and slink away, finding easier pickings with safer targets for spreading his own brand of hate?
Tellingly also, the above referenced article then goes on to say:
"Farber, of the national Jewish advocacy organization, said the cases may have a 'chilling effect' but do serve as a reminder that 'we live in a free and democratic society, and we have to be careful about the words that we use. Words have power.'"
Revisionist circles will remind Bernie Farber in due time that "Words have power"! You betcha words have power!
Here you have a perfect sample of Talmudic hypocrisy where the spokesman of the Canadian Jewish Congress, pretending to hold up the mantle of freedom of speech, conveniently forgets that anytime somebody wants to exercise freedom of speech against groups such as the CJC, he and his fellow travelers find some unique and novel ways to go after activists like Doug Collins, David Irving and Ernst Zundel to drag them into court or before medieval Inquisition courts re-christened Human Rights Tribunals.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"You can smear people only so far."
(A quote from Doug Christie in the above article, commenting on what he calls "paragons of political correctness")