ZGram - 1/20/2002 - "C.A.F.E. comments on Zundelsite Tribunal ruling"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

January 20, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

=46rom the CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION comes this:

[START]

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL PULLS PLUG ON ZUNDELSITE IN INTERNET CASE

 Dear Free Speech Supporter:

 	We'd been promised a decision by the summer, when the five-year
long Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in the Ernst Zundel Internet case wound
up the first week of March, 2001. The decision was finally handed down
January 18. Perhaps, the extra months of scribbling their judgement added
to the already hefty stipends enjoyed by London, Ontario Liberal Party
bagman Claude Pensa and his sidekick Reva Devins. Reva Devins had been
found to be under the cloud of a "reasonable apprehension of bias" by a
federal judge (later overturned on appeal). In 1988, she had been a member
of the Ontario Human Rights Commission when this body issued a wildly
rejoicing press statement smearing Zundel and revelling in his conviction
(later overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada) for spreading "false
news."

 	Most of those involved in this tribunal on the free speech side had
long predicted the verdict -- guilty. The tribunal rulings all along had
been so biased and hostile to Zundel, most of whose expert witnesses were
not allowed to testify. For instance, Professor Tony Martin, a
distinguished black historian, was deemed unqualified because he was not
the "right" type of historian.  At the bizarre circus hearings, Pensa and
Devins ruled that truth was no defence.

 	Thus, in the end, it became only the aggrieved feelings of the
powerful censorship lobby -- complainant and professional Holocaust
survivor and Zundel-hater Sabina Citron, and her intervenor allies, the
Canadian Jewish Congress, the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith, the
Simon Wiesenthal Centre -- that would count.

 	Zundel's attorney's Douglas H. Christie and Barbara Kulazska, and
the only pro-free speech intervenor, the Canadian Association for Free
Expression had argued:

 	1. That Section 13.1 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, prohibiting
the repeated "telephonic" communication of statements likely to expose to
hatred or contempt the usual list of privileged groups (race, religion,
sex, sexual orientation, etc.) was intended by Parliament in 1978 to cover
telephone asnwering machines used for political messages, not the Internet.

 	2. That the CHRC had no jurisdiction over the Zundelsite as it was
located in the U.S. Further, the CHRC had the wrong man. The Zundelsite,
despite its name, was owned and and operated by a U.S. citizen, Ingrid
Rimland, not Ernst Zundel.

 	3. That the Zundelsite was, in fact, historical argument, not
"hate". Many of the statements therein, for instance, those calling the
Holocaust industry (movies, books, plays, articles, museums) a racket and a
swindle were saying no more than many Jewish authors (Finkelstein and
Israel Shahak, to name two) had said. The Zundelsite, in its own way,
sought to right what its authors saw as an historical wrong and injustice:
The propagandistic vilification of the German nation, more than 50 years
after the end of WW II, for crimes, the extent of which had often been
exaggerated.

 	The Tribunal ruled that it would not be historically legitimate
debate, if the views exposed a privileged group to hatred or contempt. This
might be seen as a warning now for those blaming some branches of Islam for
cruelty to women and backwardness. Truth won't matter, only hurt feelings.

 The Tribunal ruled:

 [152]	"Having considered this evidence, and the submissions of counsel
during the course of the hearing, we cannot accept the suggestion that the
material found on the Zundelsite is merely part of a legitimate debate, and
is therefore immune from the normal application and interpretation of s. 13
(1) of the Act. Indeed, in our view, it begs the question to simply ask if
this expression is part of a larger 'legitimate' debate. Legitimacy, in the
context of s. 13 (1) of the Act, has been determined by Parliament as that
which is not likely to expose individuals to hatred or contempt."

 	The Tribunal rejected arguments that Section 13.1 was an
infringement of the rights of freedom of speech and conscience. They issued
a sweeping order: "[245]	We therefore order that the Respondent,
Ernst Z=FCndel, and any other individuals who act in the name of, or in
concert with Ernst Z=FCndel cease the discriminatory practise of
communicating telephonically or causing to be communicated telephonically
by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the
legislative authority of Parliament, matters of the type contained in
Exhibit HR-2 and found on the Zundelsite, or any other messages of a
substantially similar form or content that are likely to expose a person or
persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or
persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of
discrimination, contrary to s. 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act."
Exhibit HR-2 was a weighty printoff of many documents on the Zundelsite,
including "Did Six Million Really Die", which Canadian courts have cleared,
in the 1992 Supreme Court decision throwing out Ernst Zundel's conviction
under the "false news" law  for publishing this document.

 	I cannot say that the decision was a surprise. However, much of it
is moot. Ernst Zundel now lives in the U.S. Canadian law cannot touch the
site located in the U.S. Our argument that Section 13.1 does not apply to
the Internet no longer holds. In Bill C-36, the supposed "anti-terrorism"
bill, the Liberal Government gave the censorship lobby what they'd sought
for years. They explicitly gave control of the Internet to the wildly
misnamed Canadian Human "Rights" Commission.

 	We predict more prosecutions of free thinkers and immigration
reformers. Minority censorship advocates don't want debate. Under the scam
of sheltering themselves from "hatred" or "contempt" -- they whose views
blare daily from the mass media, they so influence or control -- they seek
to shut up or shut down all criticism or debate on issues sacred to them.
The vile, complacent, complicit Canadian press, which with pitifully few
exceptions (Devin Michael Grace, Kirk Makin) ignored the precedent-setting
attacks on freedom of speech on the Internet at the heart of this case, may
soon find themselves before human rights tribunals and be very startled to
learn that truth is no defence.

 	Ernst Zundel, like so many other talented people in Canada, has
joined the brain drain to our neighbour to the South. Canada has become a
little less free, a little more bland, a little more conformist, a little
more afraid and a whole lot less like that Dominion with so great potential
that our British and European forefathers built. The Twentieth Century
Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, predicted in an era of unprecedented
hope, would belong to Canada. What, one wonders, would he make of the
Absurdistan this country has become -- minority ruled, Majority gagged,
stupid, stuffy, complacent and sliding toward totalitarianism?

Paul Fromm

Director

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

"All this effort, all these millions of tax payers' money spent for nothing
- to censor one man "symbolically"?  When you really think about it, you
can't miss the irony:  Now ALL Canadians, especially the Canadian media,
who didn't come to my aid and who didn't care, will be subject to the same
censorship by the Kommissars they tried to inflict on me.

"Karma!  It isn't every day that a little guy gets to punish a whole country=
!"

(Ernst Z=FCndel)