Another excellent column from Canadian veteran journalist, Doug Collins, who tells it like it is - much to the shrieking and screeching of the Canadian censorship folks:
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THE COLLINS COLUMN | April 4, 2001
FREEDOM IS AS FREEDOM DOESN'T | Doug Collins
The sinister attacks now taking place on freedom of speech in the Western world are applauded rather than condemned, thanks mainly to the media and lickspittle politicians. At the same time, everyone pays lip service to freedom. It is what Disraeli called "organized hypocrisy".
There are two subjects that figure large on the "verboten" list: race and the holocaust. You are free to be "anti- racist", of course, and you are free back the official version of the holocaust. But if you believe that immigration can destroy your country, or that Jewish deaths numbered anything less than the six million, take cover.
Canada ranks high in the kingdom of such political correctness. Books frowned on by pressure groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'Nai Brith are banned; Ernst Zundel and his lawyer are denied access to the Parliament buildings in Ottawa (by unanimous consent of our MPs!); and dissidents can be hauled before kangaroo courts called human rights tribunals for having "hurt the feelings" of Jews and immigrants.
Hate laws are anti-free-speech laws, Which is why they figure in our Criminal Code. And we now never see them criticized in the mainstream media, owing partly to increasing Jewish control. But they also reflect the spirit of the times.
For a fascinating account of what is going on world-wide, read "Return to the Dark Ages," an article in the March issue of American Renaissance magazine (AR). In Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Austria and Lithuania the Jewish Holocaust has become the one historical event on which people can be compelled to agree, Prison, exile or massive fines face those who disagree.
"Today in Europe," it states, "there are laws as bad as anything George Orwell could have imagined." Facts are irrelevant, and certain things may not be said whether they are true or false....It is a tyranny of the left practised by the very people who professed shock at the tactics of Joe McCarthy.
Hundreds of people have fallen foul of that tyranny but, contrary to what happened when McCarthy was on the loose, their fate does not much interest our liberal watchdogs. On the contrary, such victims are usually denounced as Nazis, neo-Nazis, Fascists, "white supremacists", and so on.
A prime example is that of Germar Rudolf, a young German with a doctorate in chemistry who tested the "gas chambers" at Birkenau and concluded that they could not have been used for mass executions. He was dismissed from the prestigious Max Planck Institute and sentenced to 14 months in prison. He fled to England, where Jewish groups have sought his extradition to Germany, and is now seeking political asylum in the U.S. I recall that news items in the Conrad Black- owned Telegraph newspapers in London denounced him as a Nazi in hiding. With no shred of evidence.
Switzerland has become no better than Germany. It embraced "holocaust denial" censorship in 1995 and is now sending offenders to jail or forcing them into exile. According to AR, there have been 200 trials and 100 sentences in that country since then.
Juergen Graf, a highly qualified teacher who wrote a revisionist book, was sentenced to 15 months. His publisher got a year, even though the book was published before the law came into effect. As is the case in Germany, their lawyers could not defend them properly without themselves being prosecuted for "denial". Graf fled to Iran and is now lecturing in Iranian universities.
In France, Bridget Bardot has become a "hate criminal". Not for anything she said about the Jews, but because, as an animal lover, she opposes the ritual slaughter of sheep by French Muslims. She also complained that France is being invaded by an "overpopulation of foreigners".
Canada gets some attention in the article. We now have "a nearly 20-year tradition of censorship", with Ernst Zuendel being our "most famous thought criminal".
As most of us know, Zuendel has faced a long drawn-out human rights hearing involving Jewish complaints about a web site that bears his name but is run from the U.S. How's that for stretching things! But elasticity doesn't worry the chairman of the tribunal. Nor does the truth. As he has stated, "The truth is not an issue before us.The sole issue is whether such communications are LIKELY to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt."
Censorship is on the march in Europe and is licking at our own [U.S.] borders, states AR, and "the real shame is how so few people are willing to oppose this clampdown on freedom".
Quite.They'd rather have another beer.
AR is available at P.O. Box 527, Oakton, VA 22124. Tel: 703-716-0900, Fax 703-716-0932.
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Thought for the Day: "The US was built on ideals. Canada was merely built on a series of deals."
(Barbara Kulaszka, Canadian attorney and free speech rights advocate)
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