July 17, 2008
Don’t Let Canwest SLAPP* Briemberg and YOU !
*News Flash: Producers of CanWest parody speak out in the Georgia Straight *
Imagine you go to a public meeting on the Middle East; you see a humorous parody of the local daily, pick up a few copies and hand them out. Six months later you are served with a writ of summons that charges you with producing the parody, that threatens to cost you tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, that takes up hundreds of hours of your time and aims to prevent you from expressing your opinions in future. Impossible? A Kafkaesque fantasy? This is what is happening to Mordecai Briemberg in Vancouver today and we want you to help us stop it.
In early June, 2007, a parody of The Vancouver Sun newspaper was produced and copies distributed. The parody, a slim four-page edition, coincided with the 40th year of the continuous Israeli occupation of territories it conquered in the 1967 war. The parody focused on the biased media coverage of Israel/Palestine in The Vancouver Sun.
In solidarity,
Brian Campbell and Jef Keighley, Co-Chairs, Seriously Free Speech Committee
New Honourary Members of the Seriously Free Speech Committee*:
Tom Hayden, activist and author; Nettie Wild, film-maker; Susan Crean, writer; Svend Robinson, Public Services International*; Jim Sinclair, President B.C. Federation of Labour*
*affiliation for identification purposes only / à des fins d’identification seulement
Honourary Members of the Seriously Free Speech Committee**:
Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, John Pilger, Avi Lewis, Linda McQuaig, Edward S. Herman, Omar Barghouti, Tariq Ali, Irene MacInnes, James Petras, Gabor Mate, Cy Gonick, Ivar Ekeland, Joel Kovel, Michael Lebowitz, Justin Podur, Marta Harnecker, Emmanuel E. Rozental, Ilan Pappe, Joy Kogawa, Bill Fletcher Jr., The Rev. Robert Assaly, Badri Raina, Murray Dobbin, Cameron Ward, Sid Shniad, Diana Ralph, Michael Mandel, Bonnie Klein, Carl Rosenberg, Bill Pegler, Bill Saunders, Mark Leier, Dr. Federico Allodi, Hilla Kerner-Soliman, Tim Louis, Dr. Sally Mahood, Dr. J. F. Conway, David Diamond, Jamelie Hassan, Anton Kuerti, Blair Redlin, Sister Elizabeth Kelliher, Reverend Beverly Faust, Maurice J. Freedman, Ali Abunimah, Dr. Hari Sharma, Judy Rebick, Michael Byers, Thekla Lit, Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Haifa Zangana, Satinath Sarangi, Bill Siksay, Libby Davies, Sunera Thobani, Todd Wong, Dr. Qais Ghanem, Dr. M. I. ElMasry, George Heyman, Harsha Walla, Rachad Antonius, Brian Barton, Gregory Baum, Normand Baillargeon, René Charest, Michel Chossudovsky, David Fennario, Malcolm Guy, Robert Jasmin, Raymond Legault, Serge Mongeau, Lorraine Pagé, Jean-Marc Piotte, Sid Chow Tan, Chris Spannos, Jon Elmer, Derrick O’Keefe, Elia Zureik, Matthew Behrens, Alan Twigg, Cindy Oliver, Dr. Bill Rees, Donald Gutstein, Susan Lambert, Yves Engler, Kim Elliott, Jim Sinclair, Pierre Jasmin, Françoise David, Ronald Cameron, Francis Dupui-Déri, Dominique Peschard, Susan Crean, Svend Robinson, Nettie Wild, Tom Hayden
**For more information about the committee’s honourary members, go to our About page
*SLAPP - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. This form of litigation is frequently filed by corporations to intimidate and silence critics or opponents by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense so that they abandon their criticism or opposition.