Pam Geller Banned From U.K.

Pam Geller has been banned from the U.K. for espousing views not "conducive to the public good".  She is, let us just say, chuffed, and her Canuck supporters overfoam with hatred and rage.   Here's part of the letter  Ms. Geller received:

A bit of a local angle to this story.  Pam hit town last month.  Tried to anyway.  Her engagement at the Chabad Flamingo synagogue in Thornhill got cancelled due to pressure from various quarters and she wound up performing at the T.O. Zionist Center before a crowd of the usuals.  A number of people within the GTA Jewish community, including Bernie Farber and the Toronto Board of Rabbis, condemned her appearance, and took heck for it on the blogs and on Sun TV and elsewhere.  That the UK home office has adopted a similar opinion of Ms. Geller's writing and behavior has got to be seen as sweet vindication for these folks.

PS.  I'm getting mixed signals on the fate of C-304, but  indications are that it has passed and the hate speech provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act is, for the time-being, dead.  But of course, it has recently been declared (yet again) constitutional, and resurrecting it under a Trudeau government would therefore be a snap.  Remember, Harper's gang was too frightened of this issue to put forward an official government bill and instead snuck it in as a PMB so as to avoid scrutiny.  The only people in support of C-304 are nazis, nuts, teenage libertarians, and journalists, and as a political coalition, this is one most MPS will want to run away from screaming.  The CPC won't put up a fight if S-13 or something similar resurrected in the light of day.  Meanwhile, haters will have to be pursued via the criminal code.  Ask Arthur Topham what that's like.

Law Repealing Hate Speech Provision Stuck in Senate

This story tallies with what I've been hearing.  A number of senate Tories aren't down with the repeal of S-13,  the hate speech provision in Canada's Human Rights Act.  After 2nd reading, it may disappear for months in committee.  It may never re-emerge.   Just maybe the notion that "limitations on expression should be subject to the built-in protections of real courts through libel and slander laws and hate speech provisions in the Criminal Code" is looking less persuasive after this and this.

Truth Won't Be A Defense In Any Arthur Topham Hate Speech Trial?

The hate-speech case against Arthur Topham, which I have written about on occasion, moves slowly forward.  Topham has been discussing it at length on his website.  His website's cuckoo land, but there is an interesting bit reproduced below.  Its some correspondence from a B.C. Ministry of Justice representative to Topham's lawyer, Doug Christie:

You have also asked me to specify which of Mr. Topham’s comments the Crown believes to be true and which the Crown considers false. You should be prepared for the Crown to put all of Mr. Topham’s postings and comments, as given to you in disclosure before the court. The Crown declines to limit their theory of the case at this juncture.

Now, the way I read the above passage (and I know a few lawyers, though IANAL) is that the Crown is refusing to argue Topham's many, many anti-Semitic contentions.  This way, if the thing goes to trial, lawyer Christie won't be able to bring forward a whole series of crack-pot witnesses willing to deny the Holocaust or claim that Jews control Hollywood or whatever.  The Crown is trying to avoid the freak-show that Zundel's trial became, in other words.  Which is what the tribunal process did by disallowing truth as a defense, and why so many people argued for using the criminal code in such circumstances.  Ah well.

The World Post S13, Part Whatever

Looks like Arthur has finally been charged, and they've dinged him with a firearms offence for good measure.  As I've written repeatedly over the past couple of months:

The only  difference [post Section 13] is that the police will sub-in for officers from the various human rights commissions and tribunals, and folks like Mr. Topham will wind-up going to the pokey rather than getting a letter in the mail.  Somebody explain to me how this is an improvement.

Arthur Topham Update

The latest update on the saga of Arthur Topham can be found here.  For those unfamiliar with his story, a hate speech complaint (criminal code section 319) was recently  filed against him after the repeal of section 13 made it impossible to deal with his wildly antisemitic writings via the HRC/tribunal process.

While Mr. Topham still cannot post to his Radical Press site he is being allowed to use email.  The most important bit from his email to the gang at FreeD is:

Just prior to the Thanksgiving weekend the local Crown Council Jennifer Johnson sent Doug Christie an email saying that she had recommended the laying of the charge against me but that it still had to go further up the legal ladder before final approval from the BC Assistant Deputy Attorney General. Only then would the indictment be approved. 

So there you have it.  We are now officially in the world post S13.  Hatemongers may enjoy it even less.

Another Arthur Topham Update

The fight against hate continues, section 13 or not.

h/t.  Some background here.

Section 13 (Hate Speech Provision) Of Canadian Human Rights Act Is Repealed

That's not surprising.  Interesting, though, in how Storseth chose to frame the repeal (in part at least) as a "tough on crime" measure:

Acts of hate speech are serious crimes that should be investigated by police officers, not civil servants, he said, and the cases should be handled by “real judges and real lawyers,” instead of a quasi-judicial body like the human rights commission.


We'll see how the usual suspects react to the new, post S.13 regime. It is probably far more unpleasant to have the police on your case than some bureaucrat from the CHRC. I suspect that Arthur Topham, for example, doesn't much like the new way of things.  Although perhaps he is glorying in his new-found martyrdom.

Arthur Topham Update

From Doug Christie's newsletter. Updated from here.  319(2) is, of course, one of the Criminal Code hate speech provisions.

The World Post Section 13

I have confirmed from several sources that this story is basically correct.  Arthur Topham, publisher of The Radical Press, was indeed recently arrested for hate crimes, for among other things publishing material like The Biological Jew and The Protocols of  The Elders of Zion on his website.  So post section 13--assuming parliament finally passes Brian Storseth's private member's bill repealing that part of the Canadian Human Rights Act--all the players remain the same.  B'nai Brith, for example, has said quite clearly that they will continue their efforts to fight anti-Semitic  speech on-line via the  criminal code.

The only  difference is that the police will sub-in for officers from the various human rights commissions and tribunals, and folks like Mr. Topham will wind-up going to the pokey rather than getting a letter in the mail.  Somebody explain to me how this is an improvement.

Christie Gets His Say

Doug Christie has been granted "interested party status" in the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith, Abrams, Harry v. Topham, Arthur case now before the CHRT. This one is interesting for two reasons: 1st) it is to my knowledge the last section 13 case on the Tribunal's schedule, and 2nd) Topham, and his Radical Press, are probably good examples of what is called "Left Anti-Semitism" (note picture above from the 1960s/early 70s, I believe), which is to say that it is untrue that the CHRC/CHRT exclusively targets Christians/Conservatives.

The RP itself is a mixture of endless pages of boring drivel, interspersed with some quite barbaric material. Indeed, there is a slight stench of madness about Mr. Topham.