EDITOR’S NOTE: Once again, please feel free to use whatever information is contained in this Report in order to spread the news concerning this important trial further afield.
To date only the local Quesnel Cariboo Observer, and CBC Prince George have given coverage to the story so it’s now firmly established that Canada’s major news networks (all of which are either controlled or heavily influenced by the foreign Zionist lobby) have no intention of informing the general public on this matter.
As I previously stated in the first report it’s up to the alternative news media to do its best to cover this important historic event in Canadian jurisprudence and bring it to the attention of internet readers around the world.
The original time period allotted for the trial indicated that it would conclude by Friday, November 6th but such is not the case. It will now carry on into week three and likely conclude on Tuesday, November 10th one day prior to Canada’s federal holiday known as Remembrance Day.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Arthur Topham
Pub/Ed
The Radical Press
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To Alternative Media Sources
Report on week two of
Supreme Court Trial R v Roy Arthur Topham
by
Arthur Topham
The second week of Canada’s Sec. 319(2) ‘Hate Propaganda’ trial R v Roy Arthur Topham got underway Monday morning, November 2nd, 2015.
Witness #1 former Det. Cst. Terry Wilson of the BC Hate Crime Team
During the fourth day of the first week of testimony (October 29, 2015) Defence attorney Barclay Johnson had cross examined former Det. Cst. Terry Wilson the lead investigator involved in the current Sec. 319(2) charge, arrest and incarceration of Mr. Topham back in May of 2012. Throughout his questioning of Wilson it was clearly shown that the former detective was not an ‘expert’ on what constituted ‘hate’ and that Wilson was solely relying upon only one definition of ‘hatred’ which appeared in the Keegstra case from back in the 1980’s. It was also evident from the former Hate Crime Unit investigator’s statements that after the second complainant had filed his complaint to the BC Hate Crime Team back in May of 2011 Wilson traveled over to Victoria, B.C. to interview the complainant who, during the course of the taped conversation, told Wilson that he’d also been involved in laying an earlier complaint against Topham back in 2007 as a representative of the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada. That earlier Sec. 13(1) complaint on the part of B’nai Brith Canada, fortunately for Topham, was stayed in 2010 pending the outcome of a Constitutional challenge to the Canadian Human Rights Act (where the legislation existed); one that ultimately resulted in the repeal of Sec. 13(1) in June of 2012.
In the course of their interview the complainant told Wilson that his organization, the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada, didn’t think they had any evidence strong enough to gain a conviction under Sec. 319(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada until Topham published his ‘book’ Israel Must Perish! on his website May 28th, 2011. The complainant, upon reading what was in actuality a satire that Topham had written of the actual book Germany Must Perish! concluded that he now had sufficient evidence to prove to a court of law that Topham was proposing the total annihilation of the Jewish population and would therefore qualify as a candidate for a Sec. 319(2) ‘Hate Propaganda’ complaint with the BC Hate Crime Team.
Under cross examination Defence attorney Johnson suggested to Wilson that it wasn’t until the complainant had told him about the ‘book’ that he made his decision to charge Topham.
Topham’s attorney also brought forth evidence clearly showing Wilson to have abused his police powers during the course of his investigation when he wrote a personal letter to Topham’s Internet Service Provider (ISP) Netfirms.ca back on November 21, 2012 informing them that Topham had been charged on November 5, 2012 with a Sec. 319(2) CCC offence of ‘Wilfully Promoting Hatred’. Defence pointed out to the court that Wilson had taken it upon himself to go to Netfirms.ca, read through their policy and then suggested to the company that Topham’s Sec. 319(2) criminal charge ‘may in fact contravene’ said policy under section 4(b)(i). The result of Wilson’s letter to Netfirms.ca was that the ISP wrote to Topham the same day issuing what was basically an ultimatum stating, ‘We have been advised by a visitor to your web site radicalpress.com that such web site contains content that is alleged to be untrue, offensive, slanderous, harassing or controversial in nature.
Accordingly, please remove such content within 48 hours of this notice. Failure to delete such content within such period will result in termination of your website.’ It was signed by ‘Zach P Corporate Support’.
Given such short notice and not having the technical expertise to shift his website to a new (and more secure) server in the USA Topham had to rely upon an associate of his who also wasn’t fully proficient in downloading and uploading websites. The end result was that all the content on Topham’s website prior to November 21, 2012 ended up infected with computer code script that required hundreds of hours of labour to correct and to this day still hasn’t been fully repaired.
Defence also pointed out to the court that when Wilson wrote to Netfirms.ca on November 21, 2012 there had already been one attempt on the part of Crown to have Topham’s bail conditions changed so that he wouldn’t be able to carry on publishing until after the trial (should he be found not guilty). That attempt had failed and Crown was attempting a second time to change his conditions and a hearing on Crown’s application had already been set for January 2, 2013 but Wilson disregarded the court and proceeded on his own to try and remove RadicalPress.com before that date. Because of these independent actions on the part of former Det. Wilson, Defence suggested to the court that Wilson had acted in an extra-judicial manner and in doing so had attempted to circumvent whatever decision the court may have come to regarding Topham’s bail conditions (Crown’s application was unsuccessful). In other words Wilson had acted as judge and jury and concluded, prior to Crown’s application being heard, that Topham was guilty of the crime before having been tried. In other words, according to Defence counsel Johnson, Wilson’s testimony could not be taken seriously and ought to be disregarded by the jury.
NetfirmsWilsonLet
Crown Expert Witness Len Rudner
The first week’s proceedings concluded Friday, October 30th, 2015 with Crown’s Expert Witness, Mr. Len Rudner, former Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, completing his testimony. Week two commenced with Defence attorney Barclay Johnson’s cross examination of Mr. Rudner testimony.
Len Rudner copy
As noted in the first report the focus of Crown’s evidence was contained in four large binders of which Binder #1 and #2 composed the complete texts of the following online books posted on RadicalPress.com:
1. Germany Must Perish! by Theodore N. Kaufmann
2. Israel Must Perish! (erroneously labeled by Wilson and Crown as a ‘book’ rather than a satirical article)
3. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
4. The Biological Jew by Eustice Mullins
5. The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today by Elizabeth Dilling
Binder #2 was the complete text (580 pages) of Douglas Reed’s historic analysis of political Zionism The Controversy of Zion. Binders #3 and #4 were basically screen shots of all of Topham’s monthly postings on his website which Wilson had ‘captured’ during the course of the Hate Crime Team’s investigation once the initial complaint was laid against Topham and his website on April 28th, 2011. As well, a number of Topham’s personal writings contained in the sidebar on the home page under the heading Arthur’s Court were also included.
Over the course of Len Rudner’s testimony Crown’s Prosecuting Attorney Jennifer Johnston led Rudner through all of the above online books and portions of the articles, most of which contained Topham’s ‘Editor’s Note’ prefaces. It was mainly these prefaces to other writer’s work that Crown zeroed in on as they apparently were having great difficulty in finding anything in Topham’s own personal articles on the site that they felt would meet the stringent standards that the law required in order to prove, ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that Topham was ‘wilfully’ promoting hatred toward ‘people of Jewish ethnicity or religion’.
Fortunately, for the defence, Crown’s Expert Witness Len Rudner provided the court with some extremely revealing evidence while under cross examination which, ultimately, led to some damning conclusions.
Given that Rudner had told the court that during the period of his tenure as a Director for the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), which spanned the years in which Mr. Topham had been harassed and dragged through the whole of the Canadian Human Rights Commission Sec. 13(1) complaint process from 2007 until 2012, Defence counsel Johnson began questioning Rudner on statements he’d made under oath regarding his personal involvement in the laying of these Sec. 13(1) ‘hate crime’ charges against Canadian citizens. What Rudner told the court, was most revealing and in some instances totally unexpected. As it turned out, in his capacity as a director of this foreign Israeli lobbyist organization, Rudner stated that as far back as 2007 he had been personally involved in an attempt on the part of the CJC to file a Sec. 319(2) ‘hate’ complaint against Arthur Topham and his website RadicalPress.com with the British Columbia Hate Crimes Team (BCHCT). This was the very same RCMP unit that on May 16th, 2012 arrested Topham and charged him under the same Sec. 319(2) criminal code section. Rudner’s statements were corroborated by the evident from Crown’s disclosure which contained the following document shown below.
BCHCTFILE 2007-23814
While the document itself hadn’t indicated who, in particular, was responsible for filing the complaint, Rudner having sworn that he was personally involved in drafting a number of such complaints, admitted to having signed off on that one as well.
During the course of his testimony before the court Rudner also admitted to having had contact with Topham’s former Internet Service Provider (ISP) MagNet.com (now defunct) back as far as 2005 wherein he had complained to said company that Topham was publishing ‘anti-Semitic’ materials on his website RadicalPress.com. He admitted under oath that at the time he complained to the ISP he realized that it wouldn’t necessarily guarantee that Topham’s site would be removed from the Internet but that it would at least be an ‘inconvenience’ for Topham! What Rudner and the court, including Defence attorney Barclay Johnson, didn’t realize was that the complaint by the CJC to Topham’s then ISP resulted in Topham losing all of the contents of his website, including a long and lively forum, that dated back to and included the period from 1999 to 2005 and constituted a valuable historic record of a section of history that has since dominated much of the narrative concerning the nascent period of the 21st Century and its reaction to the defining event now known as 911. At the time of the loss Topham had a strong suspicion that the person or persons responsible for filing the complaint to his ISP were most likely connected to either the Canadian Jewish Congress or B’nai Brith Canada (both of whom are admitted lobbyists for the foreign state of Israel), but his then server refused to divulge who had registered the complaint and had only given Topham 48 hours to find a new server. Now the truth regarding that premeditated event finally came to light ten years after the fact.
Given Rudner’s direct testimony that he had personally been involved in two previous attempts to have Topham’s website taken down, Defence attorney Barclay Johnson then questioned Rudner regarding the credentials used in determining his suitability to appear as an ‘Expert Witness’ on behalf of the Crown. Johnson pointed out to the court that in order to qualify for such an esteemed position within the Canadian court system one had to be seen as impartial and unbiased and neutral in order for their ‘Expert’ testimony to be considered credible. He then punctuated this scathing indictment of Rudner’s disingenuousness and confession of complicity by stating that Rudner had, in fact, ‘a horse in the race’ all along and that his admission of these facts could only serve to discredit the worth of all of his testimony in the case before the court.
When Rudner attempted to justify his clandestine attempts to take down Topham’s website Johnson’s response was to suggest that it was nothing but ‘pure sophistry’.
Defence Expert Witness Gilad Atzmon
GILAD&BARCLAY
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born writer, musician, and political commentator who has written extensively about global politics, and specifically the geopolitical role of the State of Israel. Atzmon is critical of the Israeli government and its approach to other countries in the Middle East. He moved to England in 1994 and became a British citizen in 2002.
Mr. Atzmon had agreed to take the stand on behalf of Arthur Topham and testify as to why he felt that the charge of ‘hatred toward the Jews’ was inappropriate and his decision to do so was based upon his strongly held conviction that the vast majority of criticism being directed toward the Jews was in fact political in nature rather than personal or aimed specifically at Jews based upon either their religion or their ethnicity.
While the Crown had made a big display before the court of the fact that their Expert Witness Len Rudner was being paid $195.00 an hour to appear to testify when Mr. Atzmon appeared on the morning of November 3, 2015 Defence Barclay Johnson pointed out to the jury that Atzmon had volunteered his expertise without pay and that only his airfare and hotel accommodations and food were being covered by Topham’s defence fund.
After much to do about having his status as an Expert Witness accepted by Justice Bruce Butler when Gilad Atzmon stepped up to the podium and began to speak it immediately became apparent to the court that here was an Expert Witness to be reckoned with. Being an internationally recognized lecturer and in possession of the academic credentials to back up his philosophical approach to the issues being discussed in the courtroom, Mr. Atzmon’s quickly took control of the narrative and over the remainder of his testimony spoke with an unabashed air of certainty and conviction. Unlike Rudner whose quiet, monotone presentation lacked any overt sense of passion in what he was saying, Gilad’s outspoken oratory coupled with his obvious depth of knowledge concerning what he talked about left little doubt in the minds of anyone in the courtroom that here was a man of scholarly quality who unquestionably knew his subject.
Defence counsel Barclay Johnson then led Atzmon through the various online publications that were the subject of Crown’s evidence and Atzmon framed each book and quotation cited within his own analysis of the overall question concerning the Jewish Question and what Atzmon referred to as ‘Jewish Identity’ politics. He went on to explain by means of visual aids (a graphic of a triangle with the three points headed by ‘Religion’, ‘Ethnicity’ and ‘Identity or Jewish-ness’), all of which formed the basis of his thesis as contained in his internationally renowned book, The Wandering Who? which has been a best seller since it first came out in 2011.
Of particular note were Atzmon’s comments on the controversial satire which Topham had written in response to his reading of the actual book titled Germany Must Perish! by Theodore N. Kaufmann which Topham then satirically titled Israel Must Perish! This was the already noted article on Topham’s website that the complainant in the case told former Det. Terry Wilson of the BC Hate Crime Team was sufficient evidence that Topham was promoting the total genocide of the whole of the Jewish population. When Gilad Atzmon addressed the issue he was adamant in his appraisal of the satire stating that it was an exceptionally important contribution to the overall discussion of Jewish identity in that it basically represented a mirror image of what Kaufmann’s book had said and that this mirror was now being held up before the Jewish people and in particular the Zionist state of Israel as a reminder for them to reflect upon their own actions and behaviour in todays political setting. He made reference to the plight of the Palestinians in his comments but Crown was quick to object (and Justice Butler was also quick to agree with Crown) that Atzmon wasn’t an expert on the Palestinian issue and therefore his testimony in that regard should be disregarded.
As Atzmon stated in his book, ‘As far as self-perception is concerned, those who call themselves Jews could be divided into three main categories:
1. Those who follow Judaism.
2. Those who regard themselves as human beings that happen to be of Jewish origin.
3. Those who put their Jewish-ness over and above all of their other traits.
Crown’s Cross Examination of Gilad Atzmon
Crown Prosecutor Jennifer Johnson commenced her cross examination of Expert Witness Gilad Atzmon at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 4th and it resumed the next morning of November 5th. It was basically on the second day of cross examination that the Prosecutor began her laborious efforts to try and get Atzmon to agree to the Crown’s position with respect to the term ‘Hatred’ and also to many of the quotations cited throughout the trial that Crown felt showed evidence of Topham’s wilful promotion of hatred toward the Jews in general. Suffice it to say that every attempt at twisting Gilad’s words to conform to Crown’s preconceived mould of what ‘hatred’ meant was met with not only dismissal but further testimony on Atzmon’s part as to what he actually was saying. This process continued on throughout his cross examination and it would not be unfair to say that the following exchange was typical of Crown’s approach and Gilad’s reaction:
Crown: Mr. Atzmon, I’m sure that you would agree that ….
Gilad Atzmon: No.
The jury and members of the public sitting in the gallery witnessed this scenario occurring over and over and the end result was that Crown was unable to refute any of Atzmon’s testimony nor discredit his presentation in any way.
Defence’s Summation to the Jury
Friday, November 6, 2015 was originally the final day scheduled for R v Roy Arthur Topham. But like most things the numerous delays throughout the past two week due to Crown’s own actions (which will be touched on at the end of this report) the only thing that happened on this day was that Defence Attorney Barclay Johnson was able to (after numerous interruptions by Crown and Justice Butler) finally sum up before the jury his arguments as to why they should find the defendant not guilty. That summation, in itself, was prolonged by the presiding Justice so that it wasn’t until 2:30 p.m. that Johnson finally was able to speak to the jurors. He ended at precisely 4:00 p.m.
The main thrust by defence was to speak to the jury about Crown’s two witnesses, former Det. Terry Wilson of the BC Hate Crime Team and Crown Expert Witness Len Rudner. Johnson outlined for the jury the many instances of bias displayed by both these two individuals while testifying. In addition to that he also (after much wrangling with Justice Butler) presented to the jury some of Arthur Topham’s writings taken from an article which had been included in Crown’s disclosure. That article, titled KILLING THE HUNDREDTH MONKEY: The Battle for Control and Censorship of Canada’s Internet by B’nai Brith Canada was originally posted on the website back in 2008 and dealt with issues related to the first complaint laid against Topham by B’nai Brith Canada under the former Sec. 13(1) Canadian Human Rights Act in the article were references made to the character of Topham which the defence wanted the jury to hear.
Defence then read out the following to the jury: [please note that the defendant is restricted by his current bail conditions from naming his accuser online and therefore the individual in question is simply referred to as ‘Mr. Z’]
‘I have lived, uninterruptedly, in the province of British Columbia since December of 1956. After leaving high school I attended university (SFU) in 1965 and there obtained a Professional Teaching Certificate. I worked for a short number of years in this capacity both in the public school system and for First Nations school districts, all of which were located in the province of B.C., and taught grades ranging from Kindergarten to Grade 5. I left the profession in 1978 and worked for the Provincial Parks Branch for 8 years where I was a Supervisor and Park Ranger in the Quesnel District of the Cariboo region of the province. After losing that profession to government restructuring in the late 1980’s I returned to teaching for a couple of years and worked for the Nuxalk Education Authority out of Bella Coola, B.C. in 1991 1992 where I taught on reserve Grades 2 and 3. From there I returned to Quesnel and worked in a substitute capacity for the local School District (#28) until I resigned in September of 1998. It was also during the year 1998 that I established my publishing business known as The Radical Press. From June of 1998 until June of 2002 I published a monthly, 24-page tabloid called The Radical which sold in retail outlets throughout B.C. and across Canada and by subscription around the world. Due to financial challenges the hard copy edition of the newspaper ceased in June of 2002 and from that date I carried on publishing online with my website known as http://www.radicalpress.com . In 2005, using my lifetime of personal experience in the log building trades and construction industry which I had developed in conjunction with my tenure as a school teacher I formed a carpentry business and have been operating said business up to this point in time. I have lived out in the country for the vast majority of my life, have build my own home, grown my own garden, and maintained a philosophy of independence both in thought and deed. Throughout the course of my life I have fathered four children and now, along with my dear wife of thirty years, also have been blessed with seven grandchildren.
In many respects my life has been an open book to the community in which I have resided since 1970. I began writing letters to the local Quesnel newspaper known as The Cariboo Observer, [email protected] beginning in 1976 and have steadily contributed to that publication over the ensuing years both as a regular columnist and an inveterate contributor on matters of public concern. While I would describe myself as a very controversial writer (and most, if not all of my readers would agree) I nonetheless need to stress the fact that throughout all the years of presenting my ideas to the general public on a number of issues ranging from politics to religion to social justice and environmental issues, I have never made any racist, hate-filled remarks against any person of Jewish or any other religious or ethic grouping. All this I state with respect to the present allegations made against me by Mr. Z and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada; charges that they would fain convey to the public that insinuate I am a person who promotes hatred toward others, in this case Jews. The records of my writings would not, I suggest, indicate this to be the case….
There is one last, missing factor in this ‘hate’ equation which Mr. Z and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada have accused me of which needs to be mentioned. I feel it poignantly illustrates the absurdity of what is going on with respect to the danger of abuse inherent in such laws as Sec. 13(1) when exploited for partisan purposes by people and organizations such as Mr. Z and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith. It also epitomizes the spuriousness of all the allegations and contentions which they have used in their attempt to harass and intimidate me by falsely and publicly accusing me of the crime of promoting ‘ongoing hatred affecting persons identifiable as Jews and/or as citizens of Israel.’ I now present this final factor to you Ms. Kozak and to the CHRC Tribunal as the culmination of my testimony to the frivolous and vexatious nature of these charges. For me to either admit to or accept that I am promoting hatred toward Jews would be tantamount to saying that I hate, rather than love and cherish beyond description, the one person in my life who has been wife and friend and companion to me over the last thirty years. For she too is Jewish.’
Final observations on Crown’s handling of evidence
Given that the total cost to Canadian taxpayers to proceed with this trial is likely over one million dollars throughout the duration of this two week trial the court has been witness to endless problems dealing with Crown’s disclosure materials. Given the fact that Crown has now had over three and half years to put together the evidence in a format that would easily facilitate the normal reading habits of the jurors and Defence counsel what we have witnessed throughout the trial is a disgrace to the supreme court system in British Columbia.
From the onset of the case (beginning in May of 20120), defence had to fight tooth and nail to get disclosure from Crown and to try and have Crown particularize the evidence so it was clearly evident what would be used in the actual trial. Instead Crown insisted that the case was an ‘ongoing investigation’ and therefore they couldn’t provide the full disclosure until final weeks preceding trial. When they did send Defence counsel their Disclosure much of it was unreadable. Defence had to redo pages and pages of Crown evidence in order that it could be read in court, not only by defence but also by the jurors who would be expected to follow along in their own Binders. This aspect of the trial consumed hours of time and even after the trial was well underway it became blatantly obvious that the last two binders would have to be republished so the jury might have a readable copy to refer to. Those final two binders didn’t enter into the court until the morning of Friday, November 6, 2015!
Typical of the quality of the documents is the image below taken from one page of KILLING THE HUNDREDTH MONKEY: The Battle for Control and Censorship of Canada’s Internet by B’nai Brith Canada It would not be a stretch of the imagination to conceive of the jurors being each given a magnifying glass in order to try and read the evidence. Given that it cost the taxpayers an additional $2000.00 to have them reprinted twelve magnifying glasses might have been a more cost effective measure.
Screen Shot 2015-11-08 at 12.13.33 PM
Still to come
Monday, November 9, 2015 will see Crown present its summation to the jury. On Friday Justice Butler asked the jury if they would be ready to have him charge them on Tuesday morning the 10th of November. He told them that if he charged them on Tuesday that in the event they couldn’t come to a decision by the end of the day that they would have to remain sequestered through to November 11th which is Canada’s Remembrance Day federal holiday. The jury went out and discussed this and returned to tell Justice Butler that they would prefer to be charged on the 10th. That meant they didn’t think it would take more than one day to make their minds up.
As it now stands Tuesday, November 10th, 2015 will conclude the trial and a verdict will be handed down on that day. Stay tuned folks!