dissing the US is hate speech in Kanada
Dynamite Bob
dbob at semtex.com
Wed Oct 10 12:51:09 PDT 2001
lenn Bohn and Kim Bolan
Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
A University of B.C. women's studies
professor who criticized U.S. foreign
policy has been accused of a hate crime --
publicly inciting hatred against
Americans.
An unidentified B.C. resident alleged Oct.
4 that assistant professor Sunera Thobani
violated the Criminal Code of Canada
during an Oct. 1 speech to a women's
conference in Ottawa, RCMP Corporal Michael
Labossiere of the B.C. hate crime unit said Tuesday.
Thobani, a former president of the National Action
Committee on the Status of Women, said in an
interview
Tuesday she had not heard anything about the
complaint
and she is curious to know who made it.
"This is just pure harassment," she said. "They are
trying
to silence dissent in this country."
Thobani said her speech was intended to explain how
U.S. foreign policy has affected life in many
countries of
the world.
"If you point to the factual record of U.S. foreign
policy,
you are now accused of spreading hate," she said. "It
really is unbelievable."
The RCMP's Labossiere wouldn't disclose any more
specifics about the complaint or the complainant. He
said
he forwarded the complaint to the hate crimes unit of
the
Ottawa-Carleton police force, which has jurisdiction
in
the area where the offence is alleged to have
occurred.
Ottawa police Detective Frank Corkery, a member of
Ottawa's hate crime unit, wouldn't confirm whether
police there are investigating Thobani.
Corkery said police generally don't discuss ongoing
investigations or reveal the subject of an
investigation
until charges are laid and it becomes public
knowledge.
However, the detective added: "Any complaint made to
the hate crimes section is taken seriously and is
investigated on the substance of the complaint.
Labossiere, who last week reported bomb threats had
been made against Islamic mosques in Vancouver and
Surrey, said he went public with the complaint
against
Thobani to show that majority groups can potentially
be
targets too.
"Here we have a complaint against someone who is
obviously from a visible minority, whom the
complainant
feels is promoting hate," he said.
"Normally, people think it's a white supremist or
Caucasians, promoting hate against visible minorities
. . .
We want to get the message out that it's wrong, all
around."
Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada allows for
a
jail sentence of less than two years for anyone
convicted
of the "public incitement of hatred" against an
identifiable group of people, when the comments lead
to
a breach of the peace.
An "identifiable group" is defined as any section of
the
public distinguished by colour, race, religion or
ethnic
origin.
However, the same section also provides some broadly
worded legal defences. For instance, no one can be
convicted "if the statements were relevant to any
subject
of public interest, the discussion of which was for
the
public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he
believed
them to be true."
Murray Mollard, a lawyer and executive director of
the
B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said that, legally,
a
charge against Thobani would be an uphill battle for
the
prosecution.
Mollard also said the state shouldn't prosecute
someone
who criticizes public policies in a democratic forum.
"This is absolutely the wrong thing to do," he said.
"We
need to have an open debate about our response to
Sept.
11."
Thobani received a standing ovation at the Women's
Resistance Conference in Ottawa after she argued that
the
U.S. government -- not international terrorists -- is
the
most dangerous global force, "unleashing prolific
levels
of violence all over the world.
"From Chile to El Salvador, to Nicaragua to Iraq, the
path of U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood," she
said
in comments that received front-page coverage in
Canada's daily newspapers, including The Vancouver
Sun.
Many Canadians said Thobani's speech was an ill-timed
and anti-American attack, while others accused the
mainstream news media of a McCarthy-style witch-hunt.
Thobani said Tuesday she has been stunned by the
reaction to her comments.
While she said she has received a lot of support, she
has
also been shocked by hateful e-mails and telephone
calls
not just from within Canada, but from the United
States.
"It is just unbelievable what it is like," Thobani
said. "I
am just getting sent all this porn and hate mail."
She said the past week has made the controversies
during
her term as president of the National Action
Committee
on the Status of Women "seem like a piece of cake."
But, she said she doesn't want to restrict her life
because
of the hate mail and threats, even though it has
disrupted
her life and her job.
"I have security outside my class," Thobani said.
Convictions for public incitement of hatred are rare
in
Canada, but not unprecedented.
In 1982, Alberta public high school teacher Jim
Keegstra
was fired for teaching students that the Holocaust --
where millions of Jews died in Nazi concentration
camps
-- was a fabrication of a "Jewish conspiracy" that
wanted
to destroy Christianity. The courts later convicted
Keegstra of promoting hatred and ordered him to do
200
hours of community service work.
In 1999, a Christian evangelist in Ontario was
convicted
of inciting hatred against Muslims in flyers he
distributed
and in a phone-line message. Mark Harding received a
three-month conditional sentence and was required to
perform more than 300 hours of voluntary service for
the
Islamic community.
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