"Hands off the Internet" Protest a Big Success in Victoria

On Sunday, October 26, a dozen supporters of the Canadian Association for Free Expression confronted some of Canada's most outspoken censors and would-be thought police outside a Victoria synagogue. The supporters of freedom on the Internet almost outnumber the audience of 20 who got to hear Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer Richard Warman and Canadian Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre director Leo Adler.

Bernard Klatt and Paul Fromm stand up for Freedom

The Canadian Anti-Racism Education and Research Society (CAERS), led by notorious grant catcher Alan Dutton hosted a meeting about fighting "hate" at the Temple Emmanu-el Synagogue in Victoria.

The free speech supporters paraded back and forth silently in front of the meeting for 45 minutes. Led by a lady carrying our flag, the Red Ensign, the free speech supporters, carried signs urging "Hands off the Internet" and "Why not try freedom." They also handed out a leaflet which follows this report.

They were met with a hail of bloodcurdling obscenities. The religious nature of the location didn't seem to phase the sewer-mouths who seemed for the most part to be Jews. One dwarfish individual who looked like a diminutive Henry Morgentaler kept screaming "Nazi cocksuckers." He then turned on CAFE Director Paul Fromm and shrieked: "Nazi cocksucker. Cocksucker pedophile You shouldn't teach children. Burn in hell, Nazi cocksucker pedophiile. Your Christ won't save you." Well, so much for tolerance, diversity and fighting "hate."

Toilet tongue, who seemed to have pedophilia and oral sex on the brain, then turned his wrath on two youth men who'd travelled all the way from Vancouver and Edmonton to support free speech on the Internet. "Skinhead pedophiles, Nazis," he shrieked. By this time organizers were urging him not to be provoked. After he started screaming incoherently, shouting "Eva" at the lady carrying the Red Ensign, the organizers prevailed on this hunched, malevolent screamer with a cane to go inside.

Paul Fromm interviewed

Canadian Association for Free Expression spokesman Paul Fromm explained to the press that freedom of the Internet was the key issue. "These self-appointed thought police and trying to throttle one of the most democratic media and they're doing it with taxpayers' money." The panelists, he said" are mortal enemies of free speech and are trying to criminalize dissent."

Part way through the protest Dale Kilshaw a prominent local citizen from an old Victoria family tried to enter the meeting. Challenged by Alan Dutton, he said he'd heard this was an anti-racist meeting and wished to hear the views expressed. Harry Abrams, a beefy local operative for the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith said: "Fuck off Kilshaw, you asshole. You're one of Doug Christie's ass lickers." Abrams kept salting his harangue against Mr. Kilshaw with "fuck" and its derivatives. All this was said in front of Mr. Kilshaw's lady friend and several other women.

Alan Dutton the "Apostle of Tolerance" won't let non-Jews into meeting

Dutton was a bit more civil. "You can't come in," he told Mr. Kilshaw. "This meeting is for the Jewish community." So much for non-discrimination!

However, the meeting was not religious. It was not a religious ceremony and the press were invited. Considering the funding of CAERS and the reality that anti-racists seldom do anything without a government grant, it seems likely that this blatant discrimination was being perpetrated with taxpayers' money. One can only imagine a populist meeting which informed a would-be attendee that the meeting was for Whites only!

Only two of the four promised speakers showed up. Missing were Helmut-Harry Loewen of Winnipeg and Matt Lauder of Ontario, who has cadged tens of thousands of dollars in government grants to research "racism." He even boasts that he became a skinhead to infiltrate the neo-Nazis. Actually, the rapidly balding Lauder needed little barbering to affect the shaved look.

Richard Warman said he was speaking for himself and not the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Asked by a member of the audience about such websites as the Heritage Front and B.C. White Pride, which Warman hadn't mentioned, the Ottawa-based censor warned: "They just move to a U.S. server, but, mark my words, their time is coming!"

The meeting had private security and a plainclothes local policeman, introduced by one of the organizers to an observer, as "my police friend." A van load of local cops kept an eye on the free speech supporters from across the street.

Considering the poor show Victoria and area police put on at several meetings where the far left picketed Doug Collins' meetings, where officers just stood around as the hordes shouted abuse and jostled elderly people, it leaves one wondering whether some people are more equal than others when it comes to police protection.

Channel 6, on its evening news, October 26, and the Victoria-Times Colonist (October 27, 2003) both gave relatively fair and extensive coverage to the protest.

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Hands off the Internet

In a National Post poll last November, 91 per cent of Canadians said that free speech was the freedom they cherished most. Indeed, free speech is vital to any democracy.

However powerful forces, using taxpayers' money, are working hard to throttle the Internet.

Today a rather nasty group of enemies of free speech is holding a conference here in Victoria. One of their key aims is further persecution of free thinkers on the Internet.

Richard Warman, a lawyer with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, has been attacking the websites of tax critics and opponents of Israel. When called an enemy of free speech on the Northern Alliance website, Warman sued the Alliance in small claims court. In other instances, he has written letters to try to get meetings of dissidents like Tom Kennedy, Dave Lindsay and David Icke cancelled.

The host of the meeting is one of British Columbia's most accomplished grant chasers, Alan Dutton of the Canadian Anti-Racism Education and Research Society. In years past, he pulled in nearly $200,000 from the B.C. NDP government and from the federal Liberals to try to restrict the speech of people he didn't like. He has agitated to have many meetings, including one of ours, the Second Canadian Free Speech Conference in Surrey, in 1996, cancelled.

Matthew Lauder from Ontario has nailed down tens of thousands of dollars in government grants. For this money, he has spied on political dissidents, he has kept tabs on rightwing political activists and tried to thwart their efforts to organize.

Canada needs more open and public debate. All shades of political opinion should be heard and debated. There should be no sacred cows. One of the most open and free media is the Internet. It's accessible to the average man. Yet, this is the very medium censors like Richard Warman is trying to throttle.

Of course, this group of censors has every right to meet. However, we protest the use of taxpayers' money to restrict freedom of speech. There is something sad and demeaning when taxpayers' dollars are used to restrict what free men and women may say and write.

We say: "Hands off the Internet. Give free speech a chance. Shame on the thought police!". _________ The Canadian Association for Free Expression was founded in 1981 and is one of Canada's leading defenders of freedom of speech and expression. We raise money for victims of thought crimes legislation, lobby politicians to remove anti-free speech laws and intervene in cases to support free speech.

We publish The Free Speech Monitor 10 times a year. Subscriptions are $15.00.