The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

A Public Statement Regarding
Ernst Zundel
&
Internet Interactivity
Index & Introduction


1. I am the Founder and Director of The Nizkor Project, an electronic Holocaust educational resource dedicated to the refutation of Holocaust denial, and to providing Holocaust educational resources on the Internet ("the Net").

2. Barbara Kulaszka, a lawyer acting for Ernst Zundel, requested my assistance through electronic mail ("Email"):

Date sent: Sun, 02 Feb 1997 15:04:38 -0500
From: Barbara Kulaszka
To: kmcvay@nizkor.org
Subject: Zundel

Dear Mr. McVay,

My name is Barbara Kulaszka. I am one of Ernst Zundel's lawyers.

As you probably know, two complaints have been laid against Mr. Zundel under the Canadian Human Rights Act alleging that he is sending out hate messages on the Internet.

We have commenced an application for judicial review of the decision of the Commission to send the matter to a Human Rights Tribunal. One of the grounds of this application is a constitutional challenge to section 13 of the Act ("hate messages") on the basis that the Internet is a medium which is interactive and participatory and allows for falsehood to be rebutted easily and effectively.

Could you provide us with an affidavit in support of this application? Your affidavit would set out who you are, what work you have undertaken with Nizkor, your relations with the Zundelsite, and your experience in using the Internet to refute what you believe are falsehoods, etc.

The purpose of the affidavit? To show the court that the best way to fight ideas is with other ideas, not with censorship or jail.

Would you be willing to give such an affidavit?

Do you believe that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act is unconstitutional as a violation of freedom of speech on the Internet? You must truly believe this first or you cannot really give us an affidavit. Secondly, you must be able to give us an affidavit that provides the court with the information it needs to make this determination and the reasons why the section should be found unconstitutional.

Could you let me know if you are willing to do so? You can contact me be e-mail or by telephone at 613-475-3150. If I/m not in just leave a message and a number where I can reach you.

Yours truly,

Barbara Kulaszka

3. I agreed to respond, but found I could not support the premise that "...the Internet is a medium which is interactive and participatory and allows for falsehood to be rebutted easily and effectively..." It is misleading and, in the context of Mr. Zundel's work on the net, false.

4. In my capacity as the Director of the Nizkor Project, I have repeatedly tried to engage Ernst Zundel in interactive discourse, either directly, or through the "Zundelsite." I am an active technical participant on the Internet, and have participated in other computer networks since 1983. My experience demonstrates how "interactive" and "participatory" the net has proven to be for the Zundel site over the past two years, and how "easily and effectively" rebuttals have taken place.


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