I couldn't wait to finish my coffee this morning to see what was happening in the newest anti-censorship avalanche in Canada in the wake of the predictable and hypocritical Human Rights Commission ruling in the "Swindler's List" Doug Collins case.
Simplified, the gist of that Tribunal ruling is that Collins' individual columns do not contain anti-semitism, but ***collectively*** they do. Also, Collin's "anti-semitism" isn't obvious to the eye - but ***it's still there somewhere.***
So, what is the Canadian reaction?
__________ First, a BC PRESS COUNCIL PRESS RELEASE, February 3, titled "BC PRESS COUNCIL RAPS TRIBUNAL'S RULING."
The B.C. Press Council Wednesday issued a statement deploring the decision of the Human Rights Tribunal in the Doug Collins case, saying it appears to be the first time in Canadian history that a government-appointed tribunal such as this has convicted a newspaper and its columnist of violating content standards set by a legislature.
While taking no position on the views expressed by Collins in his columns, the Council noted that the Tribunal's ruling does not address the underlying constitutional issues. The Council, the statement said, maintains the position it has held since 1993, namely that the speech restrictions in the revised Code are an unjustified violation of the principle of the freedom of the press.
The Council said it is also concerned by the Tribunal's order that the newspaper must publish a summary of its findings, adding that the Tribunal has clearly exceeded its powers. The order to the paper to print the summary is not authorized by the B.C. Human Rights Code and no court in any common law province has ever seen fit to demand that a newspaper publish its findings.
"The government has no business setting up special tribunals to tell newspaper what to print, given their special role as 'public watchdogs' in a free and democratic society," the statement said.
The Tribunal's ruling is also confusing in that it seems to use a different test of suitability than the one used in a 1997 case involving Collins. As a result, this will create a dilemma for editors as to what precisely is prohibited by the Code.
Finally, the council said it is puzzled by the fact that the column which was the subject of the first Collins case and which was found not to be in violation of the Code, was also one of the columns used by the Tribunal in the latest complaint. <end>
__________ Also, in a statement released late yesterday, Paul Fromm, Director of the Canadian Association for Freedom of Expression, termed the decision by Tom Patch, to find Vancouver journalist Doug Collins guilty of promoting "hatred" against Jews in four columns and fining him $2,000 an "outrage. Patch was a one-man tribunal set up under British Columbia's Human Rights Commission who heard a complaint laid by Victoria businessman and B'nai Brith activist Harry Abrams.
"The decision, like so much in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of human rights commissions, was completely contradictory and incoherent," said Fromm. Patch found that none of the four columns individually crossed the threshold into promoting "hate", but collectively they did.
"What we have here is a group being granted virtual immunity from criticism," said Fromm. "Canada, or at least B.C., is no longer a free or democratic society. It is censorship by minority groups and the tyranny of the minority."
This was clearly evident in remarks by Harry Abrams, Fromm charged. Abrams crowed: "This is a great day. This ruling shows that you shouldn't be vilifying people because of their identifying characteristics time after time."
"Notice," said Fromm, "Abrams wasn't saying that Collins' comments were false, but that identifiable privileged groups should not be criticized for their identifying characteristics."
"This human rights decision, where truth was no defence, is a further mark of the dispossession of the Canadian Majority," Fromm said. "Doug Collins fought tyranny in World War II. He paid his dues. He gave his youth for King and country. What an atrocity that dwarfs who aren't fit to shine this old soldier's muddy boots should impose the book burning and intellectual thuggery . . . more than half a century later." <end>
__________ Next, excerpts from a Special to The Globe and Mail (letters@globeandmail.ca) | dated February 4, 1999, by Paul Willcocks"
The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled against Mr. Collins and a community newspaper, even though it found none of the columns individually violated the Human Rights Code. Read together, they do, tribunal member Tom Patch ruled in a judgment released yesterday.
"Individually, and taken out of context, each of the four columns at issue might not convey messages that meet the high threshold that is necessary to be considered hatred or contempt," said the ruling. "However, collectively they do."
The inducement to hatred is subtle, it found.
They repeatedly reinforce some of the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism," Mr. Patch wrote. "They convey notions that Jews conspire to manipulate society's most important institutions for their own gain; and that, through control of the media, they have perpetrated a massive fraud to exaggerate their suffering during the Holocaust. The Jews are portrayed as selfish, greedy and manipulative."
"Mr. Collins expresses hatred or contempt indirectly and subtly," the tribunal found. "He does not overtly incite hateful or contemptuous expressions. However, he reinforces negative stereotypes of the Jews that have been promulgated for centuries." <end>
__________ Dene Moore, of the Calgary Herald on February 3, 1999 (letters@theherald.southam.ca) wrote:
While the tribunal in the first complaint found the column was anti-Semitic, it was no(t) on its own vitriolic enough to cause hatred against Jewish people.
During the second hearing, Collins' lawyer did not present any evidence or cross-examine any witnesses to the complaint launched by Victoria businessman Harry Abrams.
Abrams, who is a B.C. representative of B'nai B'rith Canada, cited four of Collins' columns published in the suburban Vancouver newspaper and reprinted in several other publications in 1994.
In one, Collins called the Holocaust movie Schindler's List "Swindler's List."
In another, he blasted the prosecutions of Holocaust-deniers Ernst Zundel and Jim Keegstra and said British Holocaust-denier David Irving was deported for "having the wrong opinions."
Collins also referred to the claim that six million Jews were killed in Nazi death camps as "the inflated six million story."
Based on the four columns, the tribunal found that Abrams' complaint was justified.
Managing editor Tim Renshaw expressed outrage that the paper would have to publish "government-dictated content" and said they are considering challenging the ruling.
If the North Shore News does challenge the ruling, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said it will likely join in.
But the Canadian Jewish Congress said the ruling balanced free speech with the public right to be protected from persecution. <end>
__________ And, finally, excerpts from a Reuters article, also dated February 3, by y Allan Dowd:
VANCOUVER (Reuters) - A Canadian newspaper columnist was fined Wednesday for a series of articles that officials said promoted anti-Semitism by alleging an international Jewish conspiracy and questioning whether the Holocaust actually happened.
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ruled that four columns by editorial writer Doug Collins published in 1994 in a Vancouver-area newspaper, the North Shore News, broke the law by promoting religious hatred against Jews.
``They repeatedly reinforce some of the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism,'' tribunal member Tom Patch wrote in the decision -- a summary of which he ordered be published by the newspaper, which is owned by Southam Inc.
Patch said Collins did not ``overtly incite'' hatred, but ''publication of these ideas in a credible newspaper increased the likelihood that others will manifest hateful and contemptuous views in a more directly harmful manner.''
The Jewish religious rights organization, B'Nai B'rith Canada, which joined Abrams in the complaint, said the ruling provides a new tool to fight religious hatred. <end>
__________ Writes one of my ZGram readers:
Just to make another obvious point. ". . . reinforcing negative stereotypes" includes the following stereotype : "Jews conspire to manipulate society's most important institutions for their own gain."
Now in the present case, Mr. Abrams, a Jew, has used an important institution for his own gain. Does it follow that Mr. Abrams' actions "reinforce negative stereotypes" about Jews in BC?
Yes, it does, but you can't say so - because it is a crime.
Mr. Abrams by his actions has probably created ten times as many "anti- semites" as Doug Collins could with ten thousand "anti-semitic" columns. But maybe he likes it that way. Maybe being secretly despised by his neighbors is what makes him feel "Jewish." Who knows? <end>
A post to which another ZGram reader applied some interesting logic:
__________ (This) creates an amusing scenario of an endless loop or Catch 22 series of charges, since a successful outcome of filing a complaint ***qualifies as a crime in itself*** by the above definition.
The moral watchdog commission then controls its own income, cycling until the lawyers have gotten their fill of tax dollars and then deciding against a complaint to shut off the spigot. <end>
Boy, what a development!
Here this parasitic entity called Human Rights Tribunal had a small chance to redeem itself by telling a censorious B'nai Brith member using this organization's political-ideological brow-beating arm called hypocritically a "Human Rights" Commission: "Enough yet! Paws off our Freedom of Speech!"
They had a chance to uphold the freedoms supposedly granted by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms - which is what they are claiming to protect!
And what did they do! They blew it big time - and all over Canada!
All this is hard on Mr. Collins and on the North Shore News because they will have to brace for yet another terribly expensive and time-consuming legal battle - an appeal to the Supreme Court eventually, at a cost in excess of $500,000, all told!
But it is wonderful news for the Zundel-Haus team, because ***virtually the same issues*** under censorship siege in the Zundelsite case will now be fought over, and paid for, without our direct involvement.
The national debate is finally on - and I say that it started in the basement of the Zundel-Haus when Doug Collins as one courageous journalist prepared to testify for the defense on the side of freedom of speech in the First Great Holocaust / Zundel Trial in 1984. There is a video there that is a classic! What a protracted struggle this has been - and just imagine what is yet to come!
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"They are beneath contempt. My outrage (is) directed at the type of slinking coward who has the gall to demand that his government screen all communication sent his way lest someone bruise his delicate sensibilities.
That's not American. That's not European. That's not Christian. That's not Western. But it seems to be par for a great many of the current regimes' beneficiaries."
(Letter to the Zundelsite)