Hate website fine a first
A Human Rights ruling says Internet servers are as liable as their clients for hate material.
By RANDY RICHMOND, FREE PRESS REPORTER
Sat, March 11, 2006
For the first time in Canada, an Internet service provider has been found guilty and fined for hosting websites that spread hate messages against blacks, Jews and Muslims.
In the landmark ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal yesterday, southern Ontario's white supremacy movement also took a hit, with two leaders and one group found guilty of violating the Canadian Human Rights Act and ordered to pay $8,000 in fines and compensation.
The Internet service provider, Affordable Space. com, was fined $5,000.
"The ruling sends a very strong message that Internet servers, if they are aware there is hate content and don't take timely action to remove it, can be held liable," said Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman, who filed the complaint in February 2002.
The ruling was the third victory in as many tries for Warman in efforts to shut down Internet hate and a boost to his complaints against several other London-area white supremacists.
"I am absolutely thrilled," he said. "This is proof human rights laws work."
The ruling also shows that online pseudonyms, used by both men in the case, are no protection against the law, said Monette Maillet, the Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer who argued the case before the tribunal.
"The ruling shows Canadians have no tolerance for hate," Maillet said.
In the ruling, ex-Londoner James Scott Richardson was fined $1,000 for several Internet postings, including one calling for attacks on Jewish and Muslim agencies, temples and residences.
Longtime white supremacy leader Alexan Kulbashian of North York was fined $1,000 for his hate messages.
Kulbashian must also pay $5,000 to Warman for online attacks against the lawyer.
Reached at his parents' home near Toronto, Kulbashian expressed anger at media coverage of the issue.
"My comment for you is shut up," said Kulbashian, before hanging up.
Richardson, now living in Hamilton, couldn't be reached for comment.
Richardson and Kulbashian were members of the Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team (CECT), now defunct, which also must pay a fine of $3,000.
The CECT website and a related web forum were hosted on Affordable Space.com.
Kulbashian may be on the hook for the $3,000 fine against Affordable Space.com, because he owned the company.
The CECT web forum was "littered with statements of extreme ill will to various ethnic, racial and religious groups," ruled tribunal members Athanasios Hadjis,
Some of the material suggested whites use any means possible to ensure the "white race prevails."
"I find that the material in question constitutes hate messages," Hadjis said.
The Human Rights Act prohibits the communication of messages over the Internet likely to expose people to hatred or contempt based on religion or race.
The two men, the group and the server must "cease and desist" sending similar material over the Net, Hadjis ruled.
The ruling is backed by the federal court, which can fine or imprison the two men for contempt if they break the order, Warman said.
Warman and the commission had also sought penalties against a website called tricityskins.com.
Hadjis dismissed the complaint because the extent of Richardson and Kulbashian's involvement with the site or a group with the same name was never made clear.
At a February 2005 tribunal hearing in Oakville, Richardson threatened several times to walk out and he and Kulbashian accused London police and Maillet of lying.
The two men vowed earlier to fight the allegations, but decline to offer any evidence in their own defence at the hearing.
