6 — Sundzy. November 30, 1997 — North Shore News
north shore news

VIEWPOINT

Protesi co

OWEN Island played host to a
stark contrast in protests recent-
ly.

And that contrast should underline
for all those fortunate enough to live
here the harsh realities elsewhere
around the globe.

In a spellbinding presentation to a
small audience in a Bowen Island
home, 64-year-old Palden Gyatso
related his 33 years as a political pzis-
oner of the Chinese.

The Tibetan monk had run afoul of
the Chinese regime by daring to paste
up posters asking the Chinese to leave

Tibet.
' . His tales of torture at the hands of
the Chinese occupiers of his Tibetan
homeland included witnessing other
‘Tibetan prisoners being boiled alive
and ‘being forced to ‘eat his shoes to

Gyatso’s is a story of an
indomitable human spirit pitted
against unimaginable cruelty.

It is the story of the real price peo-
ple are willing to pay for freedom.

Meanwhile at the other end of the
island and the other end of the protest
scale, approximately 50 protesters
chanted slogans opposing recent fare
increases instituted by the B.C. Ferry
Corp.

The demonstration ended without
incident beyond token civil disobedi-
ence. No electric cattle prods waiting
in the wings to be thrust in the
mouths of demonstrators; no jail for
years in barbaric conditions without
the benefit of open trial.

Only a restrained response to a
legitimate protest: a contrast in the
price of protest under two different

Just
TRYING TO
MAKE THOSE GUYS
FROM CHINA
AND INDONESIA
FEEL AT HOME

D

RCMP DEFEND USING STRONG-ARM

stave off starvation.

THE North Shore News Free Speech Defence
Fund is closing in on $150,000.

To press time Friday, donations from over 2,000 News
teaders and free speech supporters to the fund stood at
$144,241. Legal fees expended thus far by the News have
already exceeded $200,000.

All funds received will help detray the legal costs faced
by the News in its battle with the Human Rights
Tribunal over a complaint laid against the news-
paper and its columnist Doug Collins by the
Canadian Jewish Congress.

The hearing into the matter, which began on
’ May 12, concluded on June 27,

‘The decision from: tribunal chairman Nitya Iyer
was handed down on Nov. 12. Full coverage of

~ the decision appeared in the Nov. 14 News.

‘yer found that Collins’ column was not hateful,
but also ruled that, while the Iegislation under
which the News was prosecuted infringes upon
the Charter’s guarantee of free expression, it was
constitutionally valid.

-Extra copies of the News’ Free Speech
Supplement, which was originally published in
the Aug. 20 News, are available at the News
offices. oo,

Another excerpt from the thousands of respon-
dents to the cause:

o09

“Enclosed is a further cheque to support your case as we
feel very strongly about this issue, and also that it is a
shocking waste of taxpayers’ money that it should bave gone
to this length.” .
— Mr, and Mrs. Stephen Jackson

g00
Donations to the fund can be sent to: 1139 Lonsdale
Ave., North Vancouver, V7M 2H4. Cheques should be
made out to the North Shore News Free Speech Defence
und. -
— trenshaw@direct.ca

north shore

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986-1337 (124)

61,582 faverage creutaion, Wednesday. Friday & Sunday)

political systems.

Pee
onde Sees Rowe
TEaLIVe SeLVICES

985-2131 (127)

TACTICS TO SUPPRESS APEC PRatesters

Freedom’s price eternal vigilance

TYRANNY, unless by act of war,
seldom shackles the citizenry
overnight. It creeps up on them
in tiny steps, until one day they
discover too late

they’re helpless

slaves of the state.

Three recent events in
B.C. illustrate ryranny’s
well tested techniques
which, if unchuilenged,
become nails in free-
dom’s coffin. Firs:, the
NDP government’s 1995
Election Act forbidding
individuals to spend
more than $5,000 on :
political advertising and also limiting the
publication of opinion polls during an
clection campaign.

Gary Nixon, a gutsy Vancouver
accountant, deliberately defied the act by
spending $6,329, including GST, on anti-
NDP ads, thereby exceeding the limit by
$1,329. His punishment: a fine of
$13,294 — 10 times the amount of his
excess expenditure. Morcover, instead of
suing him for non-payment the electoral
officer obtained a court order enforcing
payment and thus denying Nixon his
chance to oppose the fine in court.

So now, he’s launched an action asking
B.C. Supreme Court to declare parts of
the Election Act unconstitutional because
they violate the freedom of speech guar-
anteed in the Charter of Rights.
Meanwhile, Pacific Press, publisher of the
Vancouver Sun and Province, is also haul-
ing the NDP government into court on
the same grounds, including — in its case

ice Bhatia? © Un PETER SPECK
Human Resources Manages Sales & Marketing Director Publisher
RS-2131 (177) ON-AIR «= SB5-2131 (101)

Photography Manager
985-2131 (168)

Classified Manager
986-8222 (202)

Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Lid. Ail rights reserved.

— the limits on publishing polls.

Second, the unexpected verdict in the
costly “Human Rights trial” of Doug
Collins, which found him not guilty of
expressing direct hatred, yet still upheld

the infamous B.C. gag
laws under which he
was charged. So it’s
arguable chat anyone
wishing to publish his
views on whatever in
language as strong as
Doug’s ~ just provided
it gets no stronger! —
is in the clear.
But it’s not quite that
simple, of course.
Collins has never been
successfully sued for
libel, thanks to his professional mastery of
words — a talent not shared by every
writer for a worthy cause, such as ridding
the province of its NDP would-be dicta-
tors. So the effect of confirming their gag
laws is still to silence anyone who cannot
risk three years in limbo and legal costs of
over $200,000.

Finally, the RCMP’s dictatorial treat-
ment of certain UBC protesters during
last week’s APEC summit. We are not
talking here about the final Tuesday
evening, when some campus demonstra-
tors got out of hand, leaving che
Mounties no alternative but to pepper-
spray them. We are talking about six peo-
ple arrested the previous weekend at the
Museum of Anthropology who were
forced to agree to a totally unacceptable
limitation on their right to freedom of
expression in order to get out of jail.

They were forced to sign an undertak-
ing to “not participate cr be found in

LETTERS TO THE EL!TOR
Letters must include your name,
full address & telephone number.

VIA e-mail: trenshaw @ direct.ca

Doug st
Comptroller Managing Editor
985-2131 (133) 985-2131 (116)

Teixl Agrios
Promotions & Acting Display Manager
985-2131 (218)

all Sneigreve

Genera! Ottice Manager
985-2131 (105)

internet: http-//jwwrw.nanews.com

attendance” at ANY public demonstration ©:
against APEC or its members. Otherwise, :”
they would be kept behind bars. ;

It’s easy, perhaps, to become a little

aranoid about cases like the above three; ':
but the truth behind each is hardly dis- .
putable. vl

If the Charter of Rights guarantee of
freedom of expression had wished to limit
it in ANY ways during elections, it should
have said so. If you must exercise extreme
caution in voicing ANY controversial
views in B.C. for fear of devastating penal- ~.
ties brought about by someone who dis
agrees with you, the Charter is again
worthless. .

And if Mounties can force non-aggres-,
sive UBC students to sign away their right
to peaceably demonstrate elsewhere or. (2
remain in the slammer, then our national :.-*-.
police force already secs itself as replacing‘:
the courts of law. . vote

These are just three examples of those
“tiny steps” that can eventually lead toa”
police state. Watch out for them constant-
ly. As has been so well said, the price of
freedom is eternal vigilance

Q

Qa :
MANY HAPPY RETURNS of tomor- .
row, Dec. 1, to West Van Kiwanian Ron
Ingraham and his fellow Kiwanian Fred
Whitebread.
O00

WRIGHT OR WRONG: It’s not your
age that matters, it’s how your matter
ages.

— The North Shore News believes
strongly in freedom of speech and the right
of all ‘ides ina pis be heard. The
columnists published in the News present
differing points of view, but those views are
not necessarily those of the newspaper itself.

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