The Internet engine of hate

BERNIE M. FARBER

Those of us dealing with hate promotion have tried desperately for many years to find the fine balance between the right to free speech and the right of individuals not to be the object of hate speech.

Indeed, many human rights advocates have wrestled with this issue ever since it has moved from the street corners to the Internet cafés of Canada and the world. The plummeting cost of technology has transformed the Internet into the most potent communication tool in human history. In such a space, it is only natural that the best and the worst of humanity should come together to discover and to obscure, to work and to play, to love and to hate.

Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) has never adhered to the notion that the Internet should forever be an electronic version of the Wild West – lawless and uncontrollable. For members of communities under siege, such as our own, the responsibility is to be vigilant when hate is transmitted via website, newsgroup, e-mail or chat room and to communicate concerns regarding content to the police or the Canadian Human Rights Commission to ensure that appropriate action is taken.

Over the last few months, CJC has actually put these words into action, by working co-operatively with the Alberta Crown's office in a case that has made Canadian legal history.

In the matter of Reni Sentana-Reis of Edmonton, we had the case of an Internet site owned and run by a man who believed himself connected to superior beings from worlds beyond. This alone might have been seen to be peculiar but not enough to warrant much attention – except for the fact that he also believed Jews were evil and told the world so on his website. From Holocaust denial to some of the most pernicious Jewish world conspiracy theories ever to appear on a Canadian site, Sentana-Reis wrote about Jews spreading AIDS, or engaged in ancient blood libel themes and accused world Jewry of wanting to control the world. Jews owned the media and ran the world economy, alleged Sentana-Reis; they were, in his mind, diabolical.

Edmonton police, supported by Alberta Crown Steven Bilodeau, decided the material on this site was so hateful that Sentana-Reis was charged - marking the first time Canada's anti-hate laws had been used in this way - for promoting hatred via the Internet.

There were to be more firsts in this case. In previous judicial proceedings dealing with hate propaganda charges, the matters were heard only by a judge. This case was heard by a jury of Sentana-Reis's peers. He was found guilty. And during the sentence proceedings, where I was called upon to bring expert evidence on the impact of hate crime, Sentana-Reis, acting in his own defence, engaged me in a bizarre cross-examination. Repeating virtually all the anti-Semitic slurs on his site, Santana-Reis demonstrated no remorse for his actions or the depth of his hatred towards Jews.

In another first, Judge Philip Clarke of the Court of Queens Bench sentenced Sentana-Reis to 16 months in jail, three years probation and confiscated his computer equipment. This was to be the most significant sentence ever handed down on a hate crimes case in Canada.

Many might ask, why all the fuss over a man who posts hate but also believes in UFOs? Surely we cannot take him seriously? Yet one cannot disregard such a person just because he is odd. His hatred is not odd; it hurts and cuts to our very soul. One should remember that Ernst Zundel – possibly one of Canada's foremost hatemongers – also wrote about his firm belief in UFOs and aliens. It did not make his hatred any less destructive.

As we continue to deal with the type of vile writings spawned by people like Sentana-Reis, we must also look for ways to protect society from its impact. The solution lies with each of us in our capacities as parents, peers, educators, clergy and everyday citizens.

We must teach our children that hatred of the "other" is a cancer that eats away at the fragile threads that bind together the fabric of our civil (and sometimes not so civil) society. We must work to ensure that equality in the educational, economic and social sense of the word is the order of the day for all our citizens – and, in so doing, eliminate the festering discontent that is so often the medium in which hatred grows.

Bernie M. Farber is the CEO of Canadian Jewish Congress and a widely recognized expert in hate crimes.

^TOP