Tag Archives: SFSC article

SFSC Article: Bill C51 – Zero Tolerance for Criticism of Israel

fearMany Canadians are aware of the Harper government’s big fear agenda in this federal election. Bill C-51’s threats to the fundamental rights and liberties of Canadian citizens have been highlighted by judges, present and former MPs, lawyers, academics, unions, environmental groups, First Nations, civil libertarians, business leaders, and mainstream media.

Less well-known, but equally frightening, are the Conservative’s actions to be “Israel’s best friend” no matter what it does. That includes suppressing Canadians who criticize Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and those who support non-violent efforts – such as boycotts – to end the occupation. Continue reading

SFSC Video: Singing the Praises of the ‘Anti-Terrorist’ Bill C-51


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SFSC Article: Bill C-51 (Anti-Terrorism Act 2015) is the culmination of repressive government legislation

Brian Campbell, Canadian Library Association (CLA) Advancement of Intellectual Freedom Award Acceptance Speech, 2015

I would like to begin by thanking the CLA Intellectual Freedom Advisory Committee, and Alvin Schrader, Chair and former recipient, for choosing me for the prestigious CLA Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada Award. It is an honour to follow in the footsteps of June Callwood, Les Fowlie, the Toronto Public Library Board, and other exemplars of intellectual freedom in Canada.

This award does not represent the work of one person but the work of many. Thank you to all those involved in the work of the BCLA Intellectual Freedom Committee, and the BCLA and CLA Information Policy Committees. I would especially like to thank everyone who wrote such generous letters of recommendation about my work.

The early years of the BCLA Intellectual Freedom Committee focussed, like many, on defending individual authors and books from censorship. We participated in Freedom to Read Week and developed educational materials, but our work was primarily defensive. However, a climate was developing, following the example of the Reagan Administration, to reduce government collection of data and access to it. The suppression of information access through self-censorship and government regulation was growing.

The BCLA Intellectual Freedom Committee began to take on projects broader than cases of individual defence. In conjunction with and under the leadership of Les Fowlie we participated in the 1988 fight against Bill C-54 (proposed amendments to the Criminal Code and the Customs Tariff regarding pornogaphy). As BC libraries distributed postcards, Toronto Public Library, in an heroic act of defiance, shut down most of its branches for a half day study session. Continue reading

SFSC Article: BILL C-51: SHUT IT DOWN BEFORE IT SHUTS US UP!

Billc51flyerSFSC Flyer
A spectre is haunting Canada, the spectre of so-called “anti-terrorism legislation”, raising fear in order to enable control.

The Harper Conservative government, supported by the Liberals, is about to pass Bill C-51, the 2015 Anti-Terrorism Act, that substantially expands the already-considerable powers of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service), the RCMP, border services and other agencies.

Among other things, it lowers the bar for “preventive detention” if an agency thinks someone “may” (changed from “will”) commit a crime. It lowers standards for putting someone on a no-fly list, and broadens the definition of “terrorism”.

Under Bill C-51, you would break the law “by speaking, writing, recording, gesturing or other visible representation, knowingly advocate or promote the commission of terrorism offenses in general”.

Terrorism includes “undermining the security of Canada”, “interference with critical infrastructure” or “the economic or financial stability of Canada”. Continue reading

SFSC: Harper’s Anti-Terrorism Act isn’t about Terrorism: it’s a Torture Act

By Michael Keefer, SFSC Member

The Harper government’s Bill C-51, or Anti-Terrorism Act, has been in the public domain for over a month. Long enough for us to know that it subverts basic principles of constitutional law, assaults rights of free speech and free assembly, and is viciously anti-democratic.

An unprecedented torrent of criticism has been directed against this bill as the government rushes it through Parliament. This has included stern or at least sceptical editorials in all the major newspapers; an open letter, signed by four former Prime Ministers and five former Supreme Court judges, denouncing the bill for exposing Canadians to major violations of their rights; and another letter, signed by a hundred Canadian law professors, explaining the dangers it poses to justice and legality.

As its critics have shown, the bill isn’t really about terrorism: it’s about smearing other activities by association―and then suppressing them in ways that would formerly have been flagrantly illegal. The bill targets, among others, people who defend the treaty rights of First Nations, people who oppose tar sands, fracking, and bitumen-carrying pipelines as threats to health and the environment, and people who urge that international law be peacefully applied to ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. (Members of this latter group include significant numbers of Canadian Jews.)

But the Anti-Terrorism Act is more mortally dangerous to Canadian democracy than even these indications would suggest. A central section of the act empowers CSIS agents to obtain judicial warrants―on mere suspicion, with no requirement for supporting evidence―that will allow them to supplement other disruptive actions against purported enemies of Harperland with acts that directly violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other Canadian laws.
The only constraints placed on this legalized law-breaking are that CSIS agents shall not “(a) cause, intentionally or by criminal negligence, death or bodily harm to an individual; (b) wilfully attempt in any manner to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice; or (c) violate the sexual integrity of an individual.”

The second of these prohibitions―occurring in the midst of a bill that seeks systematically to obstruct citizens in the exercise of their rights, pervert justice, and defeat democracy―might tempt one to believe that there is a satirist at work within the Department of Justice. (Note, however, that CSIS agents can obstruct, pervert and defeat to their hearts’ content, so long as they do so haphazardly, rather than “wilfully.”)
But the first and third clauses amount to an authorization of torture. Continue reading

SFSC Article: Professor Steven Salaita’s fight against censorship comes to Vancouver

By Sheila Delany, SFSC Member, The Georgia Straight

Ever had the rug jerked out from under you? Had your life forced into a sudden 180 degree turn? Steven Salaita has. The young professor, author or editor of six books and numerous articles on indigenous peoples, colonialism, and Arabic culture, was a well-liked tenured teacher at Virginia Tech University. Over a year ago, in autumn 2013, he accepted another tenured position in American Indian studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He and his wife quit their jobs in Virginia, sold their house, moved north with their child, and Salaita began preparing classes.

Then in August, three weeks before classes were to start, came the surprise. Pro-Israel students and wealthy donors to the University of Illinois, some of them prominent Zionists, had monitored Salaita’s personal Twitter account, on which he had registered angry comments during Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza. Doubtless they also knew that he had been active in the BDS—boycott, divest, sanction—movement to pressure Israel into ending its occupation of Palestine, and particularly the academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. They may have known that his parents are Jordanian and Palestinian.

Accusing Salaita of anti-Semitism and incivility, some donors contacted the chancellor of the university and threatened to withdraw funding if the hiring went through. It had, of course, been approved by the department and relevant administrators, and contractually agreed, but now the chancellor, Phyllis Wise, was motivated to interfere. She refused to send the hiring package on to the last step in the process, the normally pro-forma approval of the board of governors or board of trustees. In other words, the job offer was canceled, nullified, withdrawn, rescinded, revoked. This has been variously referred to in news articles as “de-hiring”, “un-hiring”, “reversal”, et cetera. Continue reading

SFSC Letter: Kinder Morgan’s lawsuit another outrageous SLAPP suit filed to silence opposition and intimidate protesters

The Seriously Free Speech Committee opposes Kinder Morgan’s SLAPP suit against Burnaby Residents Opposing Pipeline Expansion and four protesters and joins with more than 65 community, environmental and labour groups and thousands of citizens condemning this outrageous attack against citizens’ rights of free speech and protest, including civil disobedience.

The Seriously Free Speech Committee was originally formed to fight this type of legal bullying when CanWest, former owners of The Vancouver Sun, filed a SLAPP suit in 2007 in an attempt to punish those who published a satirical critique of The Sun’s pro-Zionist coverage of the Middle East. Though Canwest went bankrupt and dropped the suit, we’ve continued to advocate for the need to pass anti-SLAPP legislation to stop corporate giants from misusing and abusing the legal system. Continue reading

PAC: Let Gaza Live

On August 7, 2014, the Palestine Awareness Coalition published a full-page ad in the Georgia Straight in response to the Israeli assault on Gaza, calling to “Let Gaza Live.”

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SUPPORT GAZA?

1. Contact your MP to demand an end to the siege of Gaza: Find your MP using your postal code!

2. Attend or organize demonstrations. These demonstrations are coming up in Vancouver, Friday August 8 and Saturday August 9. Please join in!

3. Boycott Israeli Goods. Some products you should boycott include SodaStream, Keter Plastics, Hewlett-Packard electronics, Sabra hummus, and Ahava cosmetics. Learn more about the global boycott.

4, Donate to medical aid. Two excellent organizations providing support are the Middle East Children’s Alliance and the UN Relief Works Association (UNRWA).

5. Donate locally to help pay for ads like these: by cheque or transfer to Vancity #656967, Branch 4, or online: https://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?charityID=s32200

6. Spread the word and raise awareness about Palestine! Share this page on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

The Palestine Awareness Coalition is comprised of a number of Vancouver-area organizations, including SFSC, collectively working to raise awareness.

SFSC Article: Bill C-13 – Criminalizing Criticism of Israel in Canada

A Hate-Propaganda Trojan Horse in Bill C-13 serious JAIL web

Joint Submission by SFSC and IJV-Canada to the Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Human Rights about Bill C-13, the supposed Anti-Cyberbullying Legisation.

Written by Dr. Michael Keefer

The international campaign calling for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, as a peaceful means of persuading that state to abandon its systematic violations of international law and its policies of apartheid dispossession, colonization, and blockade in the occupied Palestinian territories, has recently enjoyed a burgeoning number of successes.1

In early February 2014, The Economist noted that BDS “is turning mainstream,”2 and former Israeli Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg wrote in Haaretz that the “BDS movement is gaining momentum and is approaching the turning point […. at which] sanctions against Israel will become a fait accompli.”3

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a point of indicating that he and his allies would respond vigorously to this trend. Some of the reports about a cabinet meeting where tactics were discussed revealed more about internecine divisions between those ministers invited to take part and those who were excluded than about the substance of the meeting.4 Yet although Israeli media indicated “that ‘the discussion was held in secret’, with an imposed ‘media blackout’,” one source that reported this fact was able to give a fairly precise sense of what went on behind closed doors:

Ideas apparently discussed by senior ministers included lawsuits “in European and North American courts against [pro-BDS] organizations” and “legal action against financial institutions that boycott settlements … [and complicit] Israeli companies”. There is also the possibility of “encouraging anti-boycott legislation in friendly capitals around the world, such as Washington, Ottawa and Canberra”, and “activat[ing] the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S.” for such a purpose.5

This kind of “lawfare,” as it is sometimes called, is nothing new (nor, one can add, is the notion, also discussed at this meeting, of bolstering surveillance of pro-BDS organizations by military intelligence, the Shin Bet Security Service, and the Mossad). It’s also evident that the pro-Israel lobby has been active in mobilizing politicians in the “friendly capitals” of Washington, Ottawa, and Canberra for many years.

Recent fruits of that labour have included, in Canberra, threats made in June 2013 by Julie Bishop, a senior member of Julia Gillard’s incoming Australian government, that “supporters of an academic boycott of Israel” would have their “access to public research funds summarily cut off.”6 In Washington, a bipartisan “Protect Academic Freedom Act” that would deny federal funding “to colleges and universities that participate in a boycott of Israeli academic institutions or scholars”7 has been brought before Congress.

But what of Canada, whose Prime Minister is Mr. Netanyahu’s most faithful friend?8

This essay will argue that revisions to the Canadian Criminal Code proposed by the Harper government contain wording that is designed to enable lawfare prosecutions of human rights activists in precisely the manner desired by Mr. Netanyahu and his associates.

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SFSC/Palestine Awareness Coalition: Targeted For A Third Time: “Disappearing Palestine” Ad Disappears Again

Marty Roth, Palestine Awareness Coalition

VANCOUVER, October 10, 2013 – The “Disappearing Palestine” wall mural displayed at a Canada Line SkyTrain station was stolen by vandals for the third time overnight on October 9, shortly after it was replaced following two earlier thefts. The ad, part of a campaign by the Palestine Awareness Coalition, has been running since August 27.

The Skytrain ad was vandalized previously on the weekends of September 21 and October 5, when it was also stolen from the station by unknown vandals who appear to have scraped the ad from the walls.

The ad has been re-posted again. The Coalition is not aware of any suspects being identified in the repeated thefts.

“The repeat vandalism of the Skytrain poster cannot hide the realities exposed in the maps: shrinking Palestinian land and dispossessed Palestinian people,” said Marty Roth of the Palestine Awareness Coalition. “We placed these ads to educate and inform the public. Clearly, some would like to silence Palestinian history and present reality – and are not succeeding, Someone must really not want this information to reach the Canadian public,” Roth said. Continue reading