Jews Planning for International Internet Censorship
Source: Canadian Jewish News | April 5, 2000
Cotler Calls for Int’l legal Team to Fight Hate
By JANICE ARNOLD
MONTREAL – Irwin Cotler is calling for leading legal experts from around the world to join in the fight against the proliferation of hate speech and other racially motivated activity, including that presented on the Internet. Cotler made the appeal at the recent Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance, attended by representatives of some 60 democratic countries.
The Mount Royal MP headed the Canadian delegation and gave one of two keynote addresses. (The other was given by Mary Robinson, United Nations Commissioner on Human Rights.)
In an interview after his return to Montreal, Cotler discussed the message he presented in Stockholm. He said a legal strategy must be developed that transcends borders and draws upon the successful prosecutions that have taken place in certain jurisdictions, including Canada, against the wilful promotion of hatred against identifiable groups. Countries must also find ways to incorporate into their domestic laws the principles of the international treaties to which they are party, he said.
The international legal commission that he envisages could assist in that effort. The time is ripe for such action, Cotler said, because in the last five years, a “revolution in human rights law” has occurred, surpassing the progress made in the previous 50 years.
Yet, this “explosion” in human rights legislation has not stopped hate crimes of the worst sort, he said.
The problems persists in the free world as well. “Democracies are challenged by the shadows and resonances of the past, by the language of racism and hate. We see the internationalization and globalization of racism and racist networks, on the one hand, and yet the privatization and localization of racism and racist violence on the other: the convergence of far-right and far-left extremists, the increasing stereotyping and scapegoating of the foreigner, the other, the migrant, the refugee; the mainstreaming and marketing of populism; the increasing preponderance of hate crimes and hate movements.”
Particularly disturbing to Cotler are Holocaust denial and neo-Nazism, which “represent not only an assault on truth and memory, but an international conspiracy to cover up some of the worst crimes of our century.” The Holocaust began with “the teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other,” that is, with words. Yet that lesson remains unlearned, he said.
The destruction of European Jewry and the genocides of Armenians, Cambodians and Rwandans were able to take place, not only because of a “culture of hate,” but also because of “the crimes of indifference” and “conspiracies of silence,” he continued.
Cotler, who is on leave as a law professor at McGill University, said even today there are “too few people of moral courage and too many of political expediency.”
Cotler urged more anti-racism, Holocaust and human rights education in schools, greater community action that “engages all the actors in our society” and more attention and sense of responsibility among the media in informing the public about these issues.
Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson, in the conference’s closing address, picked up on some of the points raised by Cotler.
“We need to gather the world’s best lawyers in the fight against intolerance and xenophobia. We need to set up a clearinghouse for the best remedies and the best practices in the legal fight against anti-Semitism and racism,” Persson said.
The Stockholm conference, attended by both governmental officials, generally at the ministerial level, and non-governmental organizations, served as a lead-up to the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance that opens in Durban, South Africa, in August.
In its concluding declaration, Cotler said, the Stockholm conference pledged to encourage all states and relevant international organizations to form networks to exchange information on combating intolerance and to develop the best means of doing so through education, legislation, community action and the media.
The conference said it will support research linking academics and policy makers in this work.
The conference also urged international co-operation in the establishment of a voluntary “Internet code of conduct against intolerance” and stated it will encourage the participation of Internet service providers in their countries.
This was the second Stockholm International Forum. The first, last year, was on the Holocaust.
Other members of the Canadian delegation were Philippe Kirsch, Canadian ambassador to Sweden; Adrian Norfolk, deputy director of Foreign Affairs Canada’s human rights division; and Karen Mock, executive director of the B’nai Brith Canada League for Human Rights.
Cotler applauded the Swedes for the exemplary honesty they showed by opening the conference with a film about neo-Nazi activity in their own country.
