Guess what? Just what we have all been waiting for and what the doctor orders: Another International Symposium on Hate on the InterNet, scheduled for March 21-23, 1999, in Toronto - and sponsored by Guess Who.
Here is a spoonful - the bucket can be found at http://www.bnaibrith.ca/league/hoti-1a.htm.
Written by Dr. Karen Mock, National Director of the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada, and Lisa Armony, National Director of the Institute for International Affairs of B'nai Brith Canada., the release announcing this symposion to stamp out "hate" on the Internet has this to say, in part:
"The kinds of hate found on the Internet include expressions of hostility to "civil rights types" and "mud people" (the neo-Nazi term for non-whites and non-Christians), along with condemnation of race mixing, and page after page of antisemitic tracts, the majority of which deny that the Holocaust took place and promote conspiracy theories and other age-old antisemitic canards. Among the most virulent established websites are Canada's Heritage Front, Ernst Zundel's "Zundelsite," Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR), Aryan Nations, the Ku Klux Klan, Radio Islam, the Committee for the Open Debate of the Holocaust Story, and the National Alliance, arguably the most openly Nazi organization on the continent. (...)
(B)ecause the Internet is oblivious to international borders, material prohibited by Canadian law flows freely and unchallenged both into and out of this country. As a result, the media has reacted enthusiastically, providing a near-continuous flow of stories relating to hate and pornography on the Internet; and human rights and anti-racist organizations have voiced serious concern. Political reaction has been predictably vocal, and calls have been made for legislation to regulate the net, as well as to apply existing laws to Internet offenders. (...)
Human Rights Test Case
In Canada, a Human Rights Tribunal is currently underway against Ernst Zundel and the "Zundelsite", a website replete with Holocaust denial and hateful diatribes against Jews and other minority groups. In this case, the complainants, Sabina Citron and the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Community and Race Relations, allege that the respondent has engaged in a discriminatory practice on the grounds of race, religion and national or ethnic origin in a matter related to the usage of a telecommunication undertaking. The three main issues that have been raised at the hearing are:
a) is the Internet a "telephonic device" within Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act so as to give the Tribunal jurisdiction?
b) does Zundel control the California-based Zundelsite?
and
c) does the content of the Zundelsite promote hatred?
The site is said to be operated by Ingrid Rimland in San Diego in an attempt to circumvent the Canadian hate laws (Sections 318-320 of the Criminal Code). However, it appears clear that she gets her marching orders directly from Zundel. So far, the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Commission has been upheld by the Federal Court because the applicable section of the code refers to the use of telephonic transmissions, and e-mail and the Internet utilize telephone wires. The Tribunal will continue in the fall of 1998 and likely into 1999. Regardless of the results, ***the Zundel case promises to be precedent setting in the struggle to come to terms with the Internet.***" (emphasis added)
So there you have it - all you pro-free-speech tenderfooted ones out there who pretend to my face in unctuous ways that you are fighting for freedom of speech on the Net - yet think you can ignore the Zundelsite. Here is your chance. Do you want a precedent - or don't you? Can you afford a precedent - or might you reconsider? It's getting serious.
As for my own, I know they will be on my side. We will once more let it be known that we will be available for this symposium - and ask to be allowed to have our say. Fat chance, right? Yeah!
It will not do in a democracy to claim that there is fairness for you and for me and freedom of speech for us all - yet demonize and vilify us in worse ways than Adolf Hitler ever did to you.
So there. We'll be around. We'll ask for a chance to be heard.
I ask for imput and suggestions from my comrades how we can make our voices known at this symposium that calls itself - you guessed it! - "Invitational".
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"There is plenty of yahoo majority around. You are not one of them."
(Letter to the Zundelsite)