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Title: Canada signs protocol against Web racism
Source:
Toronto Globe & Mail
URL Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv ... yberhate09/BNStory/Technology/
Published: Jul 11, 2005
Author: SUE BAILEY
Post Date: 2005-07-13 11:48:23 by 1776
Ping List: *Israeli Espionage*
Keywords: protocol, against, Canada
Views: 106
Comments: 10
OTTAWA — Canada has joined an international crackdown on Internet racism and its links to terrorism, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler says. He was in Strasbourg, France, yesterday as Canada became the first non-European country to sign a protocol to fight hatred on the Web. "We're talking about a faceless, anonymous, borderless, predatory racism," he said in a telephone interview. "And we've got to find the ways and means to combat it. "No country standing alone can do that. It can only be done through international co-operation." Mr. Cotler was in England a day earlier at Cambridge University when four bombs ripped through London, killing at least 50 people and injuring 700 others. Officials are investigating an Internet claim by a little-known group calling itself The Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe that it staged the attacks. Mr. Cotler says the new protocol means law enforcers can pool efforts internationally to prosecute Internet racists and shut down their sites. He cites a connection between terrorist attacks and an increase in the past decade of sites used to swap tips on everything from exterminating whole ethnic groups to building bombs. "Incitement to hatred can itself be a connecting link to terrorism," he said. "And in some instances, it's the most proximate cause of terrorism itself." Canada, which signed the Convention on Cybercrime in November of 2001, joins 28 other countries in supporting its first additional protocol to fight Internet racism. The number of websites promoting violence against specific groups has rocketed in the past decade to 5,000 from a single neo-Nazi site in 1995, says Leo Adler, a spokesman for the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel is the best example of why international action is needed, he said. Mr. Zundel, prohibited from spreading his Internet message from Canadian-based sites, simply switched to a server in Tennessee, Mr. Adler said. Mr. Zundel was deported to Germany in March. Anyone convicted under the Criminal Code of promoting hatred against a specific group faces up to two years in jail.
Poster Comment: Tuesday, December 9, 2003 Lawyer backed anti-terrorism bill: Says he'll promote human rights Cotler not afraid to speak his mind by Tonda MacCharles OTTAWA The first thing you need to know about the new Justice Minister Irwin Cotler renowned human rights scholar and advocate is he will speak his mind.The second thing you need to know about Cotler, the law professor, is that he loves lists. So the first thing on his list yesterday was to meet with his new justice officials, but not before he spoke his mind about his new job. And that's where things got interesting.Cotler, 63, told reporters he personally supports the marijuana decriminalization bill, a public inquiry into the Maher Arar case, and believes the same-sex marriage reference to the Supreme Court of Canada should be broadened to ask the high court to review all options including whether "civil unions" would meet the requirements of equality guaranteed in the Charter." As a law professor my view was that in the context of a reference, then the broadest possible options should be put before the court to allow for the broadest possible discussion and debate, and to allow for the most comprehensive and informed advisory opinion. "But as justice minister, he said, he could not respond directly. "That's not a copout, that's being a responsible minister who's about to meet his officials today, and we'll discuss it and then we'll then come forward with our position." The press secretary to Prime Minister Paul Martin, sensing trouble, struggled to cut off reporters' persistent questions to Cotler only to give up.Then hours later, the first question that confronted Martin at his first formal news conference as Prime Minister was whether he would expand the questions asked to the Supreme Court on the issue of gay marriage a move almost certain to delay the high court hearing now scheduled for April. "We will be discussing this in cabinet," said Martin, who repeated his ambiguous position that "we've got to support the Charter of Rights." "Mr. Cotler and some of the Jewish lobby have supported (Israel) blindly," Asfour said in an interview. Martin called Cotler, MP for Pierre Trudeau's old riding of Mount Royal, Thursday with the offer of a lifetime." He mentioned to me something to the effect that 'what do you do with a guy who has all kinds of ideas about human rights in terms of justice?'" "I said, 'Well, I always thought human rights meant justice.' He said 'Congratulations, minister of justice,'" Cotler related with a broad grin. Cotler replaces Martin Cauchon who was dropped from cabinet. "The protection and promotion of human rights, and amongst them minority rights, will be my guiding principle." As a backbench MP, Cotler often issued stinging indictments of the Liberals' failure to articulate strong opposition to groups like Hezbollah later outlawed as a terrorist organization or to foreign regimes that abuse human rights. He said at the time he regarded his political career as an "extended sabbatical from my career as an academic and human rights lawyer." Cotler's credibility as a human rights expert was a trump card in the push to persuade a suspicious Canadian public of the merits of the controversial new Anti-Terrorism Act, C-36. As a widely published law professor, now on leave from McGill, and onetime counsel to prisoners-of-conscience like Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela, Cotler's backing gave the bill the boost it needed.Cotler argued anti-terrorism laws and broader police powers are not an attack on civil liberty, but a bulwark protection against attacks on the ultimate human right to live in a secure society, free from terror.
The appointment of Yale-educated Cotler, a Jewish Montrealer and a former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, as the country's leading lawmaker is at once a thoughtful, daring move, yet perhaps a risky one. John Asfour, past president of the Canadian Arab Federation, said Cotler's pro-Israel comments could get in the way of his job as justice minister, reported Canadian Press.
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#2. To: robin, Eoghan, christine, zipporah (#0)
Just another little "coincidence" yeah, sure.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Mr. Cotler was in England a day earlier at Cambridge University when four bombs ripped through London, killing at least 50 people and injuring 700 others.
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