B.C. man fined $6,000 for spreading hatred on web

by Barry Artiste | January 10, 2008 at 07:48 am | 359 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Opinion

Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor

No Jail time, certainly smacks of Par for the Course when it comes to Justice for None.

It would have been nice to have a photo of Mr. Beck to have publicly posted for all to see.

If it were up to me, I would sentence him to 2 years community service. I would have him dressed in all his Resplendid Finery, White Flowing Robes, complete with a Starched White Pointy Hat and send him out to Hastings street to pick up condoms and syringes off the streets of Downtown East Side. But, Alas, that would infringe on his rights as BC apparently protects this mans right to Hate. As they say about Justice in British Columbia "They Call Me Nancy".

B.C. man fined $6,000 for spreading hatred on web

Don Butler, CanWest News Service

Published: Wednesday, January 09, 2008

OTTAWA -- The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has fined a Kelowna, B.C., man $6,000 and ordered him to stop using the Internet to disseminate material that exposes Jews, non-whites and the disabled to hatred.

In a decision released today, the tribunal concluded John David Beck was responsible for much of the content on a white supremacist website called bcwhitepride.com.

Among other things, the site described former governor general Adrienne Clarkson as an immigrant from Hong Kong who married "race traitor" John Ralston Saul.

The tribunal ruled the material on the site "discriminates against a wide range of people, and encompasses comments that are vicious and dehumanizing, especially with respect to the disabled, a particularly vulnerable group."

The website, which no longer operates, purported to speak for those alarmed by "the premeditated decline" of people of European descent.

But in advancing those views, said the tribunal, "non-whites and the disabled are treated as persons whose value and contribution to society is less than white peoples'." And Jews "are represented as a powerful menace to society, responsible for many of its evils."

The case was prompted by a 2003 complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission from the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, a Montreal-based civil rights group.

Fo Niemi, the centre's executive director, said today's decision and other recent tribunal rulings make it clear there's "an organized network of individuals in different cities who are committed to hateful ideologies."

To deter hatemongers, he said, Parliament should raise the maximum $10,000 fine provided for under Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The section is the world's only non-criminal legislation that deals specifically with hate on the Internet.

According to the tribunal, bcwhitepride.com portrayed non-whites as "undesirables" whose entry into the country is a "calamity" that must be restricted. It also contained material that portrayed people with severe mental or physical disabilities as "parasites" and "genetic throwbacks" who must be "culled from the herd."

After concluding Beck was indeed the author of most of the material, the tribunal ordered him to cease and desist from posting similar messages on the Internet.