Truth — The New Hate Speech

truth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Whatcott case, Canada’s Court of Supreme Frankfurt School indoctrinated cultural Marxist idiots has ruled that truth is no defence, nor is political or religious speech, against “hate speech” charges under provincial “human rights” (actually minority privileges) laws. Time to strap on some testicles and overthrow this tyrannical order.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hollering for Dollars for the Wiesenthal Centre

Hollering for Dollars for the Wiesenthal Centre

  • One of he most committed enemies of free speech in Canada is the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies (FSWC). Going back to the mid 1990s, they made war on any Canadian ISPs brave enough to host controversial “rightwing” websites. They have been  interveners for Internet  censorship in a number of key cases, including Sabina Citron and the Toronto’s Mayor’s Committee on Community and Race Relations vs The Zundelsite and Richard Warman v. Marc Lemire. For almost 20 years they have been warning of 5,000, 7,500, now 15,000 “hate” sites available on the Internet. (Gosh, the outlets for dissent unacceptable to the Wiesenthalers just gets worse and worse. Send money!!!) CAFE has been studying two years worth of fundraising letters fired out by a guy with the handle Avi Benlolo. He’s the president and CEO of the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. His pleas for pennies, well, actually dollars, follow a pattern: The Nazis are coming, the Nazis are coming, people who don’t like Jews are speaking up. Send money and we’ll try to shut them up.
  • His fundraising letters ere undated. Here are some recent samples. One from 2012 asserts: “Fight back against anti-Semitic hate worldwide. A respected university poll suggests that more than  150-million Europeans hold intensely anti-Jewish views. … A study presented at the Bundestag reported 20% of Germans still harbor anti-Semitic attiudes. A banner reading ‘Adolf Hitler was right’ and a swastika were displayed at a Madrid building. Italian winemakers are selling bottles of wine with labels portraying Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders.” [To be fair, the same Italian wine bottler also has labels extolling the Italian Carabiniere and  another the Alpine fighters. French bottlers  feature labels with Marilyn Monroe and another with a frog and the name “Fat Bastard”.  So what?] So, “FSWC is exposing the dark undercurrent of anti-Semitism and demanding Europe’s leaders confront the anti-Semites in their midst. Indeed our partners at the Simon Wiesenthal Center … have just achieved what the New York Times called ‘a major victory’ when they presented a hard hitting report exposing the German pulp magazine Der Landser — in print for over 50 years — violated German laws prohibiting the glorification of Nazism [but not the glorification of communism, it might be noted]. The publisher was forced to pull the plug on the magazine.” Avi Benlolo is not long on introspection, but it might occur to a person less fixated on shaking shekels out of his supporters that, if 20% of Germans have a less than rosy view of Jews, it might be as a result of seeing them as meddlers trying to censor and shut up people with whom they don’t agree.
  • The Wiesenthalers are very concerned about anti-Israeli Apartheid committees organized on many Canadian campuses. An undated 2012 fundraising letter reports: “FSWC has been active in helping campus communities combat anti-Semitism, identify and confront hate speech and promote dialogue among diverse viewpointsl We are also pleased to commend those universities who recognize that anti-Semitism has become a growing problem for both student and faculty on campus, and for taking steps to address the issue head on,”  Don’t let the talk of “dialogue among diverse opinions” fool you. Shutting up the critics of Israel is the agenda.
  • Avi Benlolo, CEO of the Friends of the Simon  Wiesenthal Centre, and Ontario’s Liberal lesbian Premier Kathleen Wynne.
  • Earlier this year, the National Post (April 12, 2013) reported: “University of Manitoba Students Union voted Thursday to strip the group Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) of official club status. … For several years, pressure from Jewish groups including B’nai Brith has been put on the University to ban  … ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ (IAW), but the University has refused demands to cancel or censor this annual event. On Friday, in a statement titled ‘first victory in Canada,’ B’nai Brith applauded the motion as a win for the democratic process.” Victories are seen, not as dialogue or “diversity of opinions” but in silencing opponents. The chatter about “hate speech” is mischievous because it is never defined. Legally speaking, however, no one on a Canadian campus has been charged, let alone convicted, of violating Canada’s “hate laws”, repressive as they might be.
  • In another fundraiser, Benlolo proclaims: ” Israel Apartheid Week persists in promoting a racist ideology targeting a minority group with little oversight from the campus authorities, or concern for the ongoing intimidation of Jewish students.” The accusation of “racism” is incomprehensible, as the IAW is accusing the Zionists accusers of racism, Readers will see a familiar “human rights” industry  notion that criticism of a privileged group (in this case Zionists) is a form of “intimidation. Anyway, the Wiesenthalers will rush to the rescue, if you’ll just send money: “You can count on FSWC to be on the front lines working on your behalf to combat anti-Semitism and hate 365 a year, wherever and whenever the rights of the Jewish people and the State of Israel are concerned.”
  • In yet another fundraiser, Benlolo  proclaims: “When you see your child .. off to university, … what you do not expect is that new students will be subjected to harassment, intimidation and a storm of anti-Israel hate. …. You know that FSWC will never stand idly by as anti-Israel fanatics poison young hearts and minds against the Jewish State.” There is an irony here that likely escapes Benlolo. Israel is identified as “a Jewish state,” but were one to argue that Canada should remain a Christian and European land, true to its founding/settler people, one would find oneself denounced as a ‘racist’ if not an ‘anti-Semite.’
  • In a later 2012, begging letter, Benlolo writes: “Combat anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hate and pro-terror activity on the Internet. As you know, FSWC is one of Canada’s leading experts on Internet hate and terrorism, Our groundbreaking Digital Terrorism and Hate project has found 15,000 problematic social networks forums, blogs and Twitter accounts, and our app has become a key support for Canadian law enforcement officials as they track and analyze extremist activity on the World Wide Web.”  Another fundraiser adds: “Our Digital Terrorism and Hate annual reports, specialized app for police and intelligence forces, and high level leadership training on four continents is combatting the growing use of the social media and Internet technology in the service of bigotry, anti-Semitism and terrorism.” Thus, the Wiesenthalers are helping direct police forces, including Canadian police forces, in their spying on the expression of political opinions on-line by their fellow Canadians. Now, that certainly deserves a big old cheque as support.  
  • Note the dog’s breakfast of villains — “anti-Israel,” “hate,” “extremist,” “problematic.” The Wiesenthalers, who, of course, have a strong political agenda seem to have convinced establishment agencies  that they are somehow neutral experts. Freedom suffers. In a 2013 fundraising appeal, Benlolo complained about the co-chairman of the Finish Governments Foreign Affairs Committee who noted of the U.S.: They have a large Jewish population who have a significant control of the money and the media. … This is a sad truth about U.S. politics.’ Many of his peers rushed to defend him from our protests.” Of course, Benlolo and company would see the Finn as “anti-Semitic”. However, was he wrong? Do Jews in the U.S. not have a huge and disproportionate control of the media — heading most of the major news networks and Hollywood studios? Over half the donations to the Republicans and over 70% of the donations to the Democrats come from Jews, who constitute just over 2 peer cent of the U.S. population. Most of the “hate” and “anti-Semitism” denounced by Benlolo are merely truths uncomfortable to the Zionist lobby,
  • Still another achievement for the FSWC was “we … reported Toronto’s East End Madrassah for teaching extreme forms of anti-Semitism to thousands of students, launching a full police investigation into the school” (which Benlolo doesn’t tell his donors did not result in any charges.) FSWC called investigators’ attention to a school syllabus that referred  [to] ‘Jewish plots and treacheries’ and lumped Jews together with Nazis.” Canadian law wisely accords wide latitude to religious beliefs as opposed to actions. Mr. Benlolo might be forced to do some nimble legalistic dancing to explain away some of the hateful, anti-Goyim (non-Jewish people) passages of the Talmud, taught widely to Jewish youth,

Paul Fromm on Grace Under Pressure

Counter-Currents Radio
Paul Fromm on Grace Under Pressure

Posted By Counter-Currents Radio On December 6, 2013 @ 2:36 pm In Counter-Currents Radio | 1 Comment

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Photo: Counter-Currents Radio 
Paul Fromm on Grace Under Pressure

Posted By Counter-Currents Radio On December 6, 2013 @ 2:36 pm In Counter-Currents Radio | 1 Comment

paul_fromm_red_ensign225 [1]26:57 / 111 words

To download the mp3, right-click here [2] and choose “save target or link as.” 

To subscribe to our podcasts, click here [3].

In this short talk, Paul Fromm talks about the campaign spearheaded by the Canadian Jewish Congress to have him fired from his job as a public school teacher because of his pro-free speech and anti-immigration activism. He deals specifically with the question of whether it is productive for whites who are under attack to give interviews to the media. The remarks at the conclusion of the talk are somewhat choppy because I edited out questions and comments that were not picked up by the microphone.

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To download the mp3, right-click here [2] and choose “save target or link as.”

 

To download the mp3, right-click here [2] and choose “save target or link as.”

To subscribe to our podcasts, click here[3].

In this short talk, Paul Fromm talks about the campaign spearheaded by the Canadian Jewish Congress to have him fired from his job as a public school teacher because of his pro-free speech and anti-immigration activism. He deals specifically with the question of whether it is productive for whites who are under attack to give interviews to the media. The remarks at the conclusion of the talk are somewhat choppy because I edited out questions and comments that were not picked up by the microphone.

 


 

feedburner.com/Counter-Currents

 

To download the mp3, right-click here [2] and choose “save target or link as.”

Political Prisoner Brad Love Charged for Writing to His Own Lawyer

Political Prisoner Brad Love Charged for Writing to His Own Lawyer
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The decade long saga of state persecution of inveterate letter writer Brad Love reached a new low this week, when he was charged with writing a letter to his own lawyer
 
 Brad Love called me from prison this morning and reported that, on November 28, police arrived at the prison in Lindsay where he’s being held pending an appeal of the 18-month sentence he was handed for breach of probation.
 
He was charged with violating an Alberta bail undertaking or condition forbidding him to write, text or e-mail to any person. [Yes, that was a condition for freedom pending trial in Alberta, not North Korea!] In July, Brad went back to Court and had the bail conditions amended so that he could write to anyone, except the parties to whom  he was charged with sending “scurrilous” political material.

Brad Love, letter writer & oil
patch worker in Fort McMurray
 
“The cops are just bullies,” Mr. Love told me. “They arrest the free speech guy in jail for writing to his own lawyer about free speech. It’s crazy! I told them to check the paper work. I’m allowed to write to my own lawyer” Peter Lindsay, and, indeed, anyone other than certain politicians and media people in Fort McMurray.”
 
Further, Mr. Love reported, a fellow inmate who had sent out some letters for Bad was warned: “You could be getting out of here soon. You’d better have nothing to do with Brad!”
 
Mr. Love is scheduled to appear in Court in Lindsay on December 12 to answer the “breach” charge.
 
If you would like to give permission to Brad Love to write to you, call Kevin Nesbit, Deputy Superintendent (Operations) for the prison and give your name and address and our permission for Brad to send you letters. The phone number is 705-328-6000.
 
You can write to political prisoner Brad Love, one of our “men behind the wire” at:
 
  1. Brad Love [557137416]
  2. C.E.C.C.,
  3. 541 Highway 36,
  4. Box 4500,
  5. Lindsay, ON.,
  6. K9V 4S6

 

 

 

A date has still not been sent for an appeal against Mr. Love’s 2012 conviction and 18-month sentence for breach of probation.

 

Judges Reserve in Lemire Appeal Challenging Constitutionality of Sec. 13

Judges Reserve in Lemire Appeal Challenging Constitutionality of Sec. 13

TORONTO, November 14, 2013. The now repealed Sec. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be found to be unconstitutional, as well, Marc Lemire, victim of a 10-year long battle with Richard Warman, argued this morning. Supported by interveners, the Canadian Association for Free Expression and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Barbara Kulaszka, Mr. Lemire’s erstwhile lawyer insisted: The Canadian Human Rights Act “was a statute designed to help little people against big government or corporations, but the Act’s Sec. 13 has hit little people having a beer and posting on the Internet.” Three Federal Court of Appeals judges reserved and retired to mull over their opinion

“The fact Parliament has repealed Sec. 13 should be taken into account,” Miss Kulaszka argued. Before penalties, now ruled unconstitutional were added in 1998, and, until Parliament, in 2001, legislated that Sec. 13 applied to the Internet, this section was largely unused. Interestingly, she added, “it has been used primarily by one man (Richard Warman), a White male, not the minorities” it was said to protect.”

In almost every case, “Richard Warman and the Canadian Human Rights Commission had joint submissions and always wanted penalties” assessed against the victims. In Mr. Lemire’s case, they originally sought a $7,500 penalty.”

Sec. 13, she argued, “is an anomaly within the Canadian Human Rights Act.” Most complaints under other sections of the Act result in settlements. “Until the Lemire case, there was a 100 per cent conviction under Sec. 13.” The Act, she added, “was designed to help little people against government or Crown corporations. However, Sec. 13 hits little people having a beer and posting their ideas on the Internet.”

Mr. Warman, she reminded the three judges hearing the appeal, never contacted Mr. Lemire about the Freedomsite message board that he complained about. By the time Mr. Lemire was served with the complaint, the message board had already been taken down. “The message board was taken down in early 2004. The complaint came in March 2004,” but proceeded nonetheless.

Mr. Lemire took down all six specific articles in the Warman complaint. “I wrote to the Commission and said all the impugned articles had been removed, but I received no reply,” Miss Kulaszka recalled. “Instead they started hunting for more material.”

The Internet, she explained, “is very different from a telephone answering machine.” Telephone messages were the original target of Sec. 13. “Accusations of ‘hate’ carry incredible stigma. It is not the equivalent in the public eye of the accusation your business failed to provide a ramp for the handicapped,” she added.

“The Internet is loved by the people but feared by the courts. Maybe, it’s generational. The Internet is empowering and people can talk back. Perhaps, Karen Mock testifying for the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith in this matter put it best when she said education was the best way to fight ‘hate.'”

Sec. 13 should be ruled unconstitutional so that “ordinary people can self publish on the Internet, argue back and forth, and not have to have a lawyer present,” she concluded.

Barclay Johnson, a Victoria lawyer, representing the Canadian Association for Free Expression, reminded the appeals judges that, in their ruling on Keegstra and Taylor (which upheld the old version of Sec. 13), “the Supreme Court of Canada did not have the benefit of expert scientific evidence” that was led in the Lemire case “which discredited the scientific justification for ‘hate laws’; namely, the supposed dire effects on minorities of so-called “hate propaganda.”

CAFE’s lawyer Barclay Johnson of Victoria

The Court relied on Frederick Kaufman’s “basically Freudian analysis. His report had formed part of the Cohen Report on Hate Propaganda.” In this case, the defence led the expert evidence of Dr. Michael Persinger who exposed “the inaccurate methodology of Kaufmann. Persinger said:’I don’t use terms like ‘hate’. I use the tem ‘aversive stimuli. ‘Hate’ is a subjective term or label. The term ‘hate’ is arbitrary and highly subjective. Persinger’s evidence was not available to the Supreme Court in reaching their recent decision in Whatcott. The psychological field has changed,” Mr. Johnson added. The Court had relied on what we now know to be junk science.

Mr. Lemire’s Freedomsite “was not a public communication. Someone had to go looking for it. Mr. Warman wasn’t just walking down the street and saw the Freedomsite. In Crooks and Newton, the Supreme Court found that people using a hyperlink are involved in a private conversation. Hyperlinks are like a reference to material. They indicate that something exists,” he explained, “but you have to make the choice to go and call it up. Mr. Warman went looking for evidence of ‘hate’. That method of getting information is private. In this case, Mr. Warman was going to websites in order to be offended,” he added. “Mr. Warman did not go to a Canadian website but to one {the Freedomsite] hosted in the U.S.”

Concluding, Mr. Johnson said, “for Mr. Lemire to be responsible for everything uploaded to a website outside the country is unfair.”

Predicting the outcome of the appeal is perilous but the three presiding justices seemed to perk up when the two very pale lawyers — are there no Negro attrorneys? — speaking on behalf of the African Canadian Legal Clinic extolled the importance of penalties (which Judge Mosley had ruled unconstitutional).

The Battle of Vancouver

062The Battle of Vancouver

Speech by Paul Fromm at 2000 Rally for Journalist Doug Collins (under attack by human rights commission). The meeting was organized by his lawyer Doug Christie. It was attacked by several hundred ARA crazies. The policing was minimal and terrible.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=S7nIAVkLqXI

Political Prisoner, Brad Love, Not Allowed to Receive or Send Mail

 Political Prisoner, Brad Love, Not Allowed to Receive or Send Mail
The establishment persecution of political prisoner Brad Love continues. He’s an enthusiastic correspondent and letter writer. I’ve been getting a letter or call from him about every 10 days since Ontario’s malignant legal establishment threw him back in prison in July. For the past month, he’s gone silent. Worried, I talked to his brother Matt today and learned the shocking news. “They have cut off all his mail, in and out,” Matt reported.
While many of his fellow prisoners while away their time watching television or semi-comatose on the medications freely ladled out by the authorities, Brad prefers to read and write. Can’t have that. Better be a compliant zombie than a dissident thinker in politically correct Canada.
 
Brad Love, a decade after his conviction under Canada’s notorious “hate law” (Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code) for writing non-threatening letters to public officials criticizing Canada’s immigration mess, is still mired in the toils of repression. In July 2012, for sending some information packages to some Toronto Jewish groups, he was sentenced to a further 18 months in prison, plus a further three year gag order from writing letters to the media or politicians. He applied for bail; pending an appeal. In July, 2013, this bail was arbitrarily revoked. So, for the past four months, he’s languished in jail, again for nothing more than the non-violent expression of his populist, no nonsense working guy  views,.
 .
 
 Brad was employed in a lucrative job in Alberta’s tar sands in Fort McMurray. The arbitrary imprisonment punishes him for his views, denies him an income and, ironically, denies the state a hefty junk of his pay in taxes.
Brad Love after addressing CAFE Meeting in Toronto, April, 2013/Photo: Political Prisoner, Brad Love, Not Allowed to Receive or Send Mail

The establishment persecution of political prisoner Brad Love continues. He's an enthusiastic correspondent and letter writer. I've been getting a letter or call from him about every 10 days since Ontario's malignant legal establishment threw him back in prison in July. For the past month, he's gone silent. Worried, I talked to his brother Matt today and learned the shocking news. "They have cut off all his mail, in and out," Matt reported.

While many of his fellow prisoners while away their time watching television or semi-comatose on the medications freely ladled out by the authorities, Brad prefers to read and write. Can't have that. Better be a compliant zombie than a dissident thinker in politically correct Canada.

Brad Love, a decade after his conviction under Canada's notorious "hate law" (Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code) for writing non-threatening letters to public officials criticizing Canada's immigration mess, is still mired in the toils of repression. In July 2012, for sending some information packages to some Toronto Jewish groups, he was sentenced to a further 18 months in prison, plus a further three year gag order from writing letters to the media or politicians. He applied for bail; pending an appeal. In July, 2013, this bail was arbitrarily revoked. So, for the past four months, he's languished in jail, again for nothing more than the non-violent expression of his populist, no nonsense working guy  views,.

 .

 Brad was employed in a lucrative job in Alberta's tar sands in Fort McMurray. The arbitrary imprisonment punishes him for his views, denies him an income and, ironically, denies the state a hefty junk of his pay in taxes

Further Update on Political Prisoner Brad Love’s Being Denied Mail

Further Update on Political Prisoner Brad Love’s Being Denied Mail

Political prisoner Brad Love called me collect this morning from prison. He confirmed that he is not allowed to send ANY mail out. His mail was held, without explanation, for over a month (October 15-November 18). He is now receiving mail. So, please send this “man behind the wire” — jailed solely for sending non-threatening letters to thin skinned ethnic lobby groups or politicians — a note or card.

He was called into the prison management’s office on November 19 and breezily informed: “Love, there’s a court order saying you’re not allowed to receive any mail.” Where do they find these prison personnel? In a country with a bogus “Charter of Rights and Freedoms” — really minority special privileges and rights that governments can cancel at a moment’s notice “for a good reason,” of course — and a tradition of individual RIGHTS guaranteed under our Anglo-Saxon legal traditions, you’d think the authorities might wonder: “There must be some mistake.”

Well, yes and no. There was, indeed, such as North Korean-like bail condition imposed on Mr. Love in Fort McMurray Alberta last May when he was charged with sending “scurrilous” material through the mail — strongly worded letters to the press and politicians about political matters. HOWEVER, in July, using arguments CAFE helped to prepare, Mr. Love went back to Court and had these conditions amended so that he can write to anyone, except the several individuals named in the criminal complaint.

the prison authorities also made vague threats to Mr. Love, saying he was writing “too many letters” and, if he didn’t desist, he could find himself spending more time in prison.

Brad Love [557137416]

 

C.E.C.C.,

 

541 Highway 36,

 

Box 4500,

 

Lindsay, ON.,

 

K9V 4S6

A date has still not been sent for an appeal against Mr. Love’s 2012 conviction and 18-month sentence for breach of probation.

Brad Love, a decade after his conviction under Canada’s notorious “hate law” (Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code) for writing non-threatening letters to public officials criticizing Canada’s immigration mess, is still mired in the toils of repression. In July 2012, for sending some information packages to some Toronto Jewish groups, he was sentenced to a further 18 months in prison, plus a further three year gag order from writing letters to the media or politicians. He applied for bail; pending an appeal. In July, 2013, this bail was arbitrarily revoked. So, for the past four months, he’s languished in jail, again for nothing more than the non-violent expression of his populist, no nonsense working guy views.

.

Brad was employed in a lucrative job in Alberta’s tar sands in Fort McMurray. The arbitrary imprisonment punishes him for his views, denies him an income and, ironically, denies the state a hefty junk of his pay in taxes.

Brad Love after addressing CAFE Meeting in Toronto, April, 2013/

Impoverished Arthur Topham Charged Under Canada’s Notorious “Hate Law”, Turned Down for Legal Aid: Poor, but Not Poor Enough; Complex Case, but Not Complex Enough

Impoverished Arthur Topham Charged Under Canada’s Notorious “Hate Law”, Turned Down for Legal Aid: Poor, but Not Poor Enough; Complex Case, but Not Complex Enough

Poor people can get legal aid in Canada! Dream on. Arthur Topham is very poor but the nitpicking B.C. government won’t grant him legal aid to fight anti-free speech charges under Canada’s notorious “hate law”, Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code. Apparently, after humiliating disclosure of every aspect of his finances, he’s deemd not poor enough. Also, despite the facts that Sec. 319 is a rarified piece of Canadian legislation and there has been more than 1,000pages of disclosure, the BC government doesn’t feel the case is too complex for an untutored layman.

Arthur Topham should leave the country and return as an illegal and claim “refugee” status. He’d automatically qualify for legal aid. This is a measure of the suicidal depravity of the anti-White political establishment of this country that illegals fully qualify for legal aid but a Canadian born and bred being persecuted for the non-violent expression of his political views is denied aid and tossed into the legal lions’ den.
CAFE stands with free thinker Arthur Topham.
Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSSION

 

Radical Press Legal Update #15 by Arthur Topham

November 20, 2013  by

CanadaScalesofJusticeFinalcopy

 

Regina v The Radical Press: LEGAL UPDATE #15

November 20th, 2013

Dear Free Speech Advocates and Radical Press Supporters,

My last Legal Update was sent out well over four months ago on July  11th, 2013 so for those who may not recall all what transpired up to  that point I’ll give a brief overview so as to put subsequent events  into some meaningful context.

All of what is going on concerns the matter of the Sec. 319(2) CCC  charge and arrest for the purported crime of “willfully promoting hatred against ‘people of the Jewish religion or ethnic group’” originally  brought on by B’nai Brith Canada’s Harry Abrams and serial Section 13  complainant Richard Warman.

Crown had anticipated that the Attorney General’s office was going to go for a “direct indictment” and skip the preliminary hearing stage of  events but that strategy fell through on July 8th, 2013. That then  brought my proposal to file for a Rowbotham application back to the forefront. As explained in earlier Updates the Rowbotham application was part of my former counsel’s plan to get government  funded legal counsel to defend me and to act on my behalf during the  preliminary inquiry to determine the merits of the aforementioned Sec.  319(2) charge. Of course when Doug was alive it was he who anticipated  being that counsel.

I had met with the Trial Coordinator and via telephone spoke with  Keith Evans, legal counsel for the B.C. Attorney General’s office in  order to discuss my Rowbotham application which he was  overseeing. Prior to that I had already submitted my Notice of  Application and Affidavit to the AG’s regarding the Rowbotham back on April 23, 2013 and received a package of material back from Mr.  Evans on May 11th explaining all the additional information that I was  expected to furnish him with prior to a hearing taking place on the  matter.

On August 13th I met again with the Trial Coordinator and a date was set to hold a hearing on the Rowbotham application on Monday, November 18th, 2013.

During the interim time period leading up the hearing I had to  furnish the AG’s office with as much documentation as I possibly could  that would show that I was not in a financial position to be able to  afford to hire a lawyer to represent me at the upcoming preliminary  hearing scheduled for January 22nd, 2014. As a result the month of  September leading into the early weeks of October were spend doing what  was basically a forensic audit of all of my finances and sending all of  this information to the Attorney General’s office in Vancouver, B.C. It  was quite time consuming and left little opportunity for doing much else besides publishing the occasional article on the website. Keith Evans  of the AG’s office was very congenial and willing to assist me with any  questions that that arose during the period that I was amassing all of  my evidence I felt would show that I was in fact indigent and unable to  cover the cost of a hiring a lawyer. The term “indigent” is one that the AG’s office uses and it means “impoverished or destitute or  poverty-stricken or disadvantaged, hard up, etc.” All of these  descriptive words I felt fitted my circumstances.

Approximately one week before the hearing on November 18th, I received all of this information back from the AG’s office along with all of my  email exchanges with AG lawyer Keith Evans. The booklet containing these communications ended up being 455 pages in length!

 

Radical Press Publisher Arthur Topham displaying the Rowbotham application documents from the B.C. Attorney General’s office

There are basically two main features or parts to a Rowbotham application, the first deals with having to prove you are in fact  “indigent” and the second being able to argue that your particular case  is complex and out of the ordinary to the point where it is evident that without legal representation you would not have a chance of a fair  trial and therefore your Charter right to a fair trial would be  infringed upon.

The hearing began at 9:30 a.m. in the Quesnel courthouse with Judge  Morgan presiding. Also in attendance was Christina Drake, a lawyer  working for the Attorney General’s office out of Victoria, B.C. who had  flown up to argue against the application.

Judge Morgan began by asking me to explain to him why I felt I was  unable to afford to hire a lawyer and why I felt my case was so  “extraordinarily complex” (another expression that the AG’s office  employed throughout their argument repeatedly). I then proceeded to tell him about how I have been battling with legal issues brought on by  B’nai Brith Canada’s two separate complaints, (the sec. 13(1) Canadian Human Rights Act complaint from 2007 and the  Sec. 319(2) CCC charge of May 16th, 2012), for the past six years and how having to do all the legal work on my  own has affected my ability to earn a sufficient income that would allow me to hire a lawyer.

Following all of that (which took a couple of hours) I then outlined  for the Judge the reasons why I felt my case was unusual and complex  enough that it warranted having a professional legal expert to represent me during the preliminary hearing stage so as to show how the illegal  search warrant that resulted in the invasion of my home and the theft of all of my computers and electronic files was an actual criminal offence on the part of the RCMP and the B.C. Hate Crime Team led by Det. Cst.  Terry Wilson. It was my argument that because of this initial illegal  act that the case should be thrown out at the preliminary hearing stage. In fact my former lawyer Mr. Christie had planned to set aside five  days for the preliminary hearing in order to accomplish this. After his  demise the court changed that time period from five days to five hours!  Obviously they felt that whatever Mr. Christie was planning to present  to the court didn’t warrant further consideration after he was out of  the picture.

Due to space constraints I won’t go into the details of my argument  for why I felt the case is complex other than I told the Judge that,  based upon my personal experience with the whole free speech issue over  the past six years, I felt it was the aim of Jewish lobby groups here in Canada, specifically B’nai Brith Canada, to set a precedent using my  charge so that, were they successful in obtaining a conviction, it would affect every other publisher and writer in Canada who might try and  criticize either the Jew’s-only state of Israel or anything else related to the Zionist political ideology or their religious practices as found in Judaism and the Talmud. It would, in other words, create a stifling  climate of censorship that would negatively affect every Canadian’s  right to freedom of speech and expression as stated in the Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

One additional point needs to be emphasized here regarding all of the sec. 13 controversy that has taken place over the past quarter century  or longer. When I began to speak to Judge Morgan about sec. 13(1) and  about the fact that the federal government had repealed that section of  the Canadian Human Rights Code back in June of 2012 he  confessed that he knew nothing about the whole issue! I was literally  taken aback by this unexpected pronouncement on his part and my facial  expression must have surprised him as he then stated that he actually  sat on a “human rights” committee of some sort and, yet, he was still  unaware of the whole issue. Then, only to exacerbate his revelations  further, the lawyer for the Attorney General’s office also spoke up and  informed the court that she, too, was aware of what was going on in  terms of Section 13 and the Canadian Human Rights Code.

After a lunch break the hearing continued and Christina Drake,  representing the Attorney General’s office, gave her arguments as to why I ought to be refused the Rowbotham order. She cited numerous  case law examples and how in one way or another none of them met the  financial threshold that the Crown demands. Of course it’s always a  great advantage to be able to be the party that sets the threshold in  the first place and when it comes to the state having to pay for a  lawyer to defend an accused (and presumed innocent) citizen the Crown  finds such a proposal most abhorrent and the thought of it appears to  terrify them that such a precedent might actually occur (as it did in  the case of Rowbotham) and they would have to actually defray the costs of a Canadian citizen receiving justice in the courts of the land.

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When the issue of complexity was addressed Drake stated:

•     [The applicant] Has four years of university education and  communicates effectively orally and in writing, as evidenced by the  sophisticated written summary he provided of the arguments he wishes to  make with respect to the search warrant;

•         Has experience in legal and  quasi-legal proceedings, specifically in the context of a human rights  complaint in which it appears that he represented himself;

Of course in to my way of thinking there’s no direct correlation  between a person’s ability to express themselves either orally or  through the written word or having obtained a Teaching certificate for  Elementary school and their ability to perform the work of a qualified  and legally trained lawyer. To try and suggest that this is the case  would be akin to asserting that the Applicant, because of his university training, would also be qualified to perform the work of a surgeon.

Drake argued that I hadn’t done enough to  show that I had contacted other lawyers in order to find out if they  would work at lower rates and represent me. Of course I had checked into this and did contact those who I felt might come to my defense but I  never received a reply back from them. Again, what the AG’s office  intentionally appears to overlook is the reality that defending cases  such as mine is a very serious matter for any lawyer who wants to steer  clear of being labeled a defender of “hate mongers” and “anti-Semites”  and “racists” and end up with a reputation such as that which Douglas  Christie acquired by his willingness to defend those charged with “hate  crimes”. To defend a person against a charge of “willfully promoting  hatred against ‘people of the Jewish religion or ethnic group’” is to  accept that you will will also be attacked by these very same foreign  lobbyists who are now threatening me.

It was around 4:00 p.m. by the time the AG’s argument was completed. I was then given an opportunity to “sum up” my financial picture which I  proceeded to do culminating by emphasizing once again that I and my wife have been forced to live an extremely minimalist existence ever since  2007 and that this ought to be given consideration. Judge Morgan then  left the courtroom for about fifteen minutes and returned to give his  decision. Predictably, based upon the AG’s argument, he concluded that I hadn’t met the financial threshold and so therefore my reasons regarding the complexity of the case wouldn’t be considered. He added further  that this might change after the preliminary hearing when, should the  case go to trial (which it appears is highly likely), that I would then  have the opportunity to file another Rowbotham application and give it another shot so to speak.

When we left the courthouse it was -20 Celcius outside with a cold, bitter wind blowing. Rather fitting in some respects.

*****

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