Events

June 6: Golden Gag Award Rattles CanWest
May 14: CanWest: Media Bully - Watch Webcast

Please join the Seriously Free Speech Committee for these important events. And don’t forget to pass the word on to anyone interested in freedom of speech in Canada.

June 6: Golden Gag Award Ceremony rattles CanWest

Thank you to the more than 100 supporters who turned out despite the weather to help us present the Golden Gag award to CanWest on Friday June 6 - and a special thanks to David Rovics for entertaining the crowd. See Mordecai’s statement, the award citation and photo below of committee co-chair Jef Keighley with the award. If you missed the event, you can watch the webcast on Working TV.

You can read the memo that Vancouver Sun publisher Kevin Bent sent to staff just prior to the Golden Gag event that tries to explain how the lawsuit is consistent with CanWest’s position on freedom of speech.

The award citation read as follows:

2008 Golden Gag Award Winner
CanWest Global and the Aspers
For their SLAPP suit against Mordecai Briemberg, with whose opinions they disagree. For pressing Mordecai to “name names” while they press on with their agenda to suppress the truth. For suing Mordecai for alleged participation in the production of a farcical parody of a daily newspaper while they participate in a daily farce producing a parody of a newspaper. For forgetting that freedom of speech is a right for everyone, and for showing a sense of humour about as deep as their compassion for the fate of Canadian journalism.

THE GOLDEN GAG AWARD CEREMONY, JUNE 6TH

“THIS IS NOT A PROTEST”

Statement by Mordecai Briemberg

This is not a protest! We are here to celebrate!

Honoured guests – you have come by foot, by bus, by bike … to participate in this prestigious ceremony. Limousines, I must apologize, are reserved solely for the winner of the prestigious GOLDEN GAG AWARD.  After all, they can afford it.

But to be serious …

Those who would gag the voices of others hide their fear of open discussion underneath a large cloak of contempt for those who have differing views. This tension between fear and contempt requires great effort to sustain. And for all this effort they do deserve public recognition.

Hence the beautiful hand-made trophy to be presented to this year’s winner.

Consider: a media corporation writes an editorial that fervently defends the right of political free speech and lashes out at those who would try to restrict this right. Now consider the qualities it requires for this same media corporation simultaneously to try to suppress the political free speech of those whose opinions it opposes.

Yet Canwest has done just that. It published an editorial May 26th in their flagship National Post newspaper defending political free speech, speech that criticizes scientology (in England) AND it pursues a legal suit that punishes and tries to silence me for speaking critically about Israeli government policy.

On one hand – yes to free speech. On the other hand – no to free speech. It’s not easy to go in opposite directions at the same time. That deserves recognition.

Consider: a media corporation protests violation of exclusive use of its “trade mark”. Now consider the qualities it requires for this same corporation to pinch without request or permission what someone else has written on their website, cut-out the author’s name, and then paste it word-for-word on its own website.

Canwest has been accused of doing just that, of taking a movie review from the website of Xtra.ca, removing the author’s name, and then posting it four days later on the website of their Global TV.

If that is true, then it communicates this message. Take your hands off my trade-mark but give me a free-hand to take what you write and use it for my purposes. Not easy to go in opposite directions at the same time. You must agree, this too deserves recognition.
Consider: a media corporation not only reports sympathetically the situation of victims of a SLAPP suit but also gives voice to others who criticize that SLAPP suit. Now consider what qualities it requires for this same corporation itself to press onward with its own SLAPP suit and on top of that refuse to publicize criticism of their behavior.

Canwest has reported sympathetically the situation of residents of Powell River who have been sued by the mayor for daring to criticize his policy. And Canwest has given voice to the B.C. Civil Liberties Association who support the residents. Yet Canwest launched a SLAPP suit against me, and ever since has given no voice to any criticism of this, even refused to report when the same B.C. Civil Liberties Association that has acted in the Powell River case criticized Canwest and called for the suit against me to be dropped.

Two SLAPP suits: one opposed, the other initiated. Two similarly motivated statements by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association: one reported, the other ‘disappeared’ from the paper. This effort deserves recognition, don’t you think?

But there also are times when Canwest is entirely consistent. It launched a legal suit to harass and bully me. Lacking evidence to back-up its false accusation that I published a parody of the Vancouver Sun, what does it do? It doubles its bullying.

Recalling the behavior of the disgraced American whose name has become synonymous with political persecution – Senator Joseph McCarthy – Canwest now demands I provide them the name and address and contact numbers of every participant in the Seriously Free Speech committee, a perfectly lawful committee formed to defend free speech. They demand  I  not only provide names and contact information but every agenda, minutes of every meeting, every communication ..

Now that’s consistent harassment, and again, it certainly deserves recognition.

I can only conclude: some are recognized for the good they do. And others must be recognized for the danger they pose and the harm they cause.

We are here today to recognize these latter qualities, and to present the trophy to the media corporation that this year has best embodied them in practice.

Friday, June. 6th at noon
The Vancouver Sun Building
Granville Square, at the foot of Granville

Please join Mark Edge, author of Asper Nation; David Rovics, songwriter and singer activist for social justice; and Mordecai Briemberg in a special ceremony to honour Canwest’s action to suppress free speech and stifle dissenting points of view.

CanWest: Media Bully

Watch a webcast of the Media Bully Panel Discussion on Working TV

More than 200 people turned out to the excellent panel discussion on May
14th featuring Mordecai, his lawyer Leo McGrady, writer and broadcaster
Murray Dobbin and social justice activist Martha Roth. If you missed it,
you can watch the webcast on Working TV.

Wednesday, May 14 at 7:30pm
SFU Harbour Centre, Fletcher Challenge Auditorium

FREE PANEL DISCUSSION FEATURING:
Mordecai Briemberg: * Activist being sued by CanWest for ‘conspiracy to produce & distribute’ a Vancouver Sun parody
Leo McGrady, QC:* Legal counsel for Mordecai against media giant CanWest
Murray Dobbin:* Journalist, author and researcher for Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Martha Roth: *Speaking for Jews for a Just Peace and Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians

This SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) is being brought by Canwest in an effort to silence Mordecai and create a chill among all critical journalists and political activists. Attend this meeting to learn about the SLAPP suit against Mordecai, the dangers of media concentration and the difficulty in getting honest coverage of the Middle East and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.