Yesterday I sent an SOS that I had just returned from an exhaustive trip and found that there was trouble at the ZGram transmission belt. I waited all day to have it fixed, but no doing. I had something rather important to convey and had carefully prepared it, but it is still in the hopper for reasons too complicated to explain.
Therefore, I have no choice but to resort to another news filler that someone else wrote from Toronto. I will follow up with a more complete version just as soon as I can.
Before you read the op ed below, let me just say that I did reply to the Globe and Mail writer who penned the editorial below, but as might have been expected, my reply was not published. So you are getting only part of what transpired - with more to come in a few days.
This one came from Paul Fromm, one of the intervenors in the Human Rights Tribunal Hearings about the Zundelsite, which mercifully concluded last week.
Read on:
Dear Free Speech Supporter:
What follows is THE GLOBE AND MAIL editorial of March 3, belatedly waking up to the threat to freedom of speech posed by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Good show, GLOBE. This "newspaper" has awakened to the threat five years into the case! Oh, well, better late than never.
In brackets are helpful comments and corrections by Internet Service Provider Bernard Klatt.
Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION ___
<start>The Globe and Mail | March 3, 2001 [Toronto, ON Canada]
Editorial | Offensive on the Internet
Once again, the strange beliefs of Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel pit freedom of speech against society's desire to protect itself from material it considers offensive. And once again, we would argue, suppressing Mr. Zundel's loathsome message poses a greater risk than tolerating its existence.
Mr. Zundel has had many run-ins with his foes over the years. This time around, however, the implications are far-reaching because the battleground is the Internet. Later this year, a tribunal of the Canadian Human Rights Commission will rule on a precedent-setting complaint launched in 1997, in which Mr. Zundel is accused of being the chief architect of a U.S.-based Web site depicting Jews as corrupt liars who systematically distort history. Testimony wrapped up this week.
Blocking Canadians' access to the Zundelsite, as it bills itself, is not an option. In a landmark ruling two years ago, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission decided it could not and should not regulate cyberspace. Criminal sanctions already outlaw dissemination of the Net's worst material, whether it be child pornography or calls for violence. Advocate genocide or racial hatred and, as with shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, you break the law.
But whatever their real agenda, Mr. Zundel and his friends are careful not to cross that line. Instead they decry what they term "the Hollywood version of the Holocaust," reiterating the weary argument that Hitler was misunderstood and the Holocaust really wasn't that bad.
In response, lawyers for the human rights commission, backed by several prominent Jewish organizations, are seeking a cease-and-desist court order. Although the offending Web site is believed to be based in California, Mr. Zundel has been a long-time Canadian resident, his adversaries note, and his message is piped through Canadian phone lines.
[ The only time Canadian phone lines are used is when a whining complainer in Canada deliberately chooses to use that method to request specific material on www.zundelsite.org Note the clever method of assigning guilt- "Zundel is guilty because a Sabina Citron in Canada chooses not to use wireless, satellite, fiber-optic or cablemodem to request info on the Zundelsite that he finds offensive." If no Citron in Canada used a phone line to request Zundelsite material, would there be a 'violation' or cause for a "Human Rights" complaint? ]
If the court order is obtained and the site stays up, its operators could be charged with contempt of court and possibly imprisoned if found in Canada.
However, Mr. Zundel for the moment no longer lives here. He is believed to have resided in Tennessee since last year, after being denied Canadian citizenship. A contempt-of-court charge could be enforced only if he returned.
A further complication is that the site carries a disclaimer about Mr. Zundel, stating that one of his former wives, Ingrid Rimland, is in charge. The tribunal has been told this is a ruse. Proving so is another matter. [Ingrid Rimland is NOT a 'former wife' of Zundel]
But there is a still larger issue at stake: the dubious wisdom of banning any form of written or spoken material merely because it is unpleasant or, as in this case, rooted in untruth.
[ The author conveniently forgets to mention that the CHRC Tribunal issued a written ruling stating that "truth is no defense and is irrelevant" in this case. The writer fails to cite even one example of a Zundel 'untruth'. ]
This is the first time a Canadian human-rights body has waded into the topic of hate on the Internet. But there is nothing illegal per se about either hatred or lies, and the Net is awash in such material.
Mr. Zundel's ravings should be seen for what they are -- a package of hateful lies. Provided they stay confined to that arena, his odious Web site should be left alone. Ruling otherwise would feed the paranoia on which such thinking thrives. And it would put Canada's courts on the edge of a slippery slope. Mr. Zundel is an easy target, but who would be next?
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--Bernard Klatt http://www.geocities.com/ftcnet/doc_index.htm