TOPHAM VIEWS UNDER ATTACK: B’nai Brith claims anti-Jewish writings
[Editor’s Note: The Quesnel Cariboo Observer has been publishing my letters, articles and personal columns for over thirty years. I owe a debt of gratitude to this courageous paper for now interviewing me on this vital issue of concern and writing an article that is sure to bring the subject of free speech (and the issue of the Palestinian people) further into the limelight. It will undoubtedly bring a lot more too but that’s par for the course.
I believe this is a wonderful window through which those who feel strongly about this issue can voice their opinions. If any readers are so inclined please write to the Editor at Quesnel Cariboo Observer newsroom@quesnelobserver.com and express your views on this urgent matter. Every additional idea and expression of concern about freedom of speech and the tactics of the B’nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress needs to be brought out into the clear light of open and public debate. The more people from around the country and the world who write in the better.]
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http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/quesnelobserver/news/13717397.html
TOPHAM VIEWS UNDER ATTACK: B’nai Brith claims anti-Jewish writings
By Autumn MacDonald
Quesnel Cariboo Observer
January 13, 2008
Arthur Topham, owner, publisher and editor of The Radical Press, has received a complaint from the Canadian Human Rights Commission stating he’s promoting hatred towards Jews and citizens of Israel.
B.C. representative for the League of Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada Harry Abrams filed the complaint with the CHRC after articles were published by Topham on the Radical Press website, which Abrams felt were discriminatory against individuals of the Jewish faith.
Topham, who has been publishing both a hard copy and online site since 1998, said he received the complaint Nov. 20, 2007.
Since then, Topham has been working on a response to the commission – he sent the 13-page document to the CHRC anti-hate team investigator Sandy Kozak Jan. 3.
He has not removed the articles in question from his website.
“Harry Abrams and his partner in this complaint, the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada are exploiting and abusing the intent of the Canadian Human Rights Act for their own narrow, partisan, ideological purposes,” Topham said Wednesday.
“They are not designed to promote and ensure the freedom of expression that the vast majority of Canadians demand and expect but rather are meant to buttress and support the political aims of a foreign state (Israel) of which these organizations are but political extensions.”
Topham further explained it’s his criticism of Zionism and Zionist policies that have the CHRC worried.
“They don’t want the people of Canada knowing what’s going on in Israel,” he said.
Topham stated there’s been an increase in these types of complaints to the CHRC by both the B’nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress since Sept. 11, 2001.
In the aftermath of 9/11 Canada brought in its new Anti-terrorism Act, c.41 on Dec. 18, 2001 and along with it came changes to Sec. 13 (1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act which specifically deals with “hate messages.”
It is Topham’s contention that both the B’nai Brith and the CJC played a significant role in defining the new interpretation of Sec. 13 (1) – one that he feels now allows both of these partisan groups to lay hate crimes complaints against any Internet user or website owner who criticizes Israel’s Zionist ideology and its racist policies toward the Palestinian people.
And it’s Topham’s belief that charges are designed to silence debate on issues vital to both national and global peace.
“If we cannot express our thoughts and ideas openly and freely,” he said, “then the democratic principles upon which Canada was founded become meaningless and dead and we might as well accept the fact that we are living in a communist dictatorship rather than a true democracy”.
For now, Topham waits to hear back from the CHRC, but he’s pretty sure he already knows their answer.
“My response won’t make any difference,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m writing the truth.”
Topham explained the CHRC will present his response and Abram’s complaint to a tribunal who will review the evidence. A decision will then be made.
In the past, writers have been ordered to remove the articles in questions, or take their site down. Some have resisted – this has resulted in jail time.
“The irony of it is,” Topham said, “the person I love most in the world, my wife of 30 years, is Jewish.”
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