Jeff MacKinnon Contributing Writer OVER the relentless pounding of protesters on the door to the meeting room, a deaf- ening fire alarm and constant heckling, retired North Shore News columnist Doug Collins delivered a speech in downtown Vancouver Thursday blasting the NDP gov- ernment’s stance on free speech. Collins spoke at a fundraiser at the Vancouver Public Library organized to help offset the costs of his ongoing legal battle with the province. . _. The case dates back toa human rights com- ‘Paint, lodged by Victoria resident Harry Abrams in 1994 that four af the Second World ., War veteran’s columns were likely to expose _ Jewish persons to hatred or contempt. ‘Jn February, a 8.C. Human Rights Tribunal upheld the complaint. The News and Collins were: fined §2,000 and. the newspaper. was ordered to print the tribunal’s findings: _ 3 Collins ts secking a court appeal of the human rights decision. ‘The provincial attorncy general's. ministry, meanwhile, is attempting to prevent the retired columnist. trom. havi ing his appeal. heard in court: AST reported i in the Sept. 28 News, the B.C ‘ Press Councii is applying’ to_ intervene on : behalf of Collins in his appeal. The press coun- J: cil is challenging the trbunal’s authority and i the constitunoaality of the B.C. Human Rights c. Collins; his lawyer Doug Christic, and Canadian Association of Free Expression direc- tor Paul Froimm all spoke at Thursday’s chaot- ic, one-hour mecting. About two dozen people” paid $10 each to’ ‘attend. Many came.tv con-: - front Collins. Ouiside; a group “of protesters got past a” aoe Vancotiver Police detail at the main entrance to _ the library, forced their way.zo the lower lével of the bu aiding and kicked and pounded’on the: door'té the mecting room tor the dufation of Collins’ speech. : This is a demonstration of what opponents of free’ specch in this : province are up to. They’ © “hare beyond . reason, " Callios said after the DOUG Collins ... attorney general's shock meceting, as he signed copies of his book of collected columns Here We Go Again. “It's organized NDP and communist violence and. it's hard to tell the difterence berween the two,” Christie said. Added Fromm, “This is extra- ordinary that the people would be so violent. P’'m also very disappointed that the authorities didn’s move them away from the door. You can't run a meeting with all this pounding.” Said Vancouver Police Insp. Bill Jones: “They charged and some of them got through and some of them didn’t. Once they were down here we were faced with the problem of trying to remove people. So it’s better to hope chat everyone here will share a common interest in keeping the peace. Noise is not an issuc.~ It was for Collins, who had to yell over the challenges of a member of the audience throughout his speech, Collias stopped several times to engage in a shouting match with the man. “You're afraid to hear what i have to say,” Collins told him. “And you're afraid to hear what I have to say,” the man responded. As Collins read an excerpt from one of the columns for which he was fined, a woman calmly walked up co the edge of the podium ro inform him that “I don’t have any living rela- tives in this world. They all died in World War Two.” In his speech Collins lambasted Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh for attempting to have Collins’ judicial appeal thrown out. “This is a fundraiser, yes. To challenge the NDP’s outrageous Human Rights Code. It's no coincidence, by the way, that Dosanjh and “the the discredited NDP government and the peo- ple in the pay of the provincial government want to stop this meeting,” Collins said. “One docs it physically and the other does it through the legislature.” Collins charged that the protest organizers were supported by the attorney general’s . department through government grants from immigration ; the © Multicultural” and * Community Liaison Branch. He called the protesters “the attorney gen- cral’s shock troops. They are the Browsshires of the left. They terrify people into not attend- ing. 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