Ahenakew guilty of hate crime !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: First Perspective
August 4, 2005 Author: Len Kruzenga

David Ahenakew has been convicted of a rarely-used offence under the criminal code and fined $1000 for widely-reported anti-Semitic comments made to a Saskatoon Star Phoenix reporter in an interview published three years ago.

Provincial Court Judge Marty Irwin ruled that Mr. Ahenakew was wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group when he told a reporter in Saskatoon on Dec. 13, 2002, that the Jews were a 'disease' and Hitler was trying to 'clean up the world' when he 'fried six million of those guys' during the Second World War.

'To suggest that any human being or group of human beings is a disease is to invite extremists to take action against them,' said Irwin in a 20-page decision.

Ahenakew is the first known case of a convicted under the nation's hate-crime laws and several legal authorities have characterized the case as both an important and controversial test of those laws, which are said to attempt to balance freedom of speech with the protection of equality and minority rights.

But a clearly incensed Ahenakew struck back at the courts, non-natives and the Jewish community shortly after his conviction and fine and said he intends to appeal the decision.

'My conviction says the power in this country lies with those who have the funds to back their lobbies and the corporate and financial influence to bend the Canadian judicial system and government to their will,' he said. 'Despite the injustice of the charges brought against me, my comments in 2002 helped to serve as a wake-up call for all Canadians who still believe that racism against First Nations people does not exist in Canada.'

Ahenakew has also been informed of the intent to strip him of his Order of Canada award.

'This, of course, was the direct result of the pressure put on the [Governor-General's] advisory committee by some of the Jewish community, including a letter-writing campaign and the lobbying by the Canadian Jewish Congress,' he said. 'The decision by the advisory council is a clear indication of where the power in this country lies,' he said. But Ahenakew also said he doesn't intend to return the award or the pin which he wore during the trial.

'They are going to have to take it away. I am now forced to choose between freedom of speech and the Order of Canada. I choose free speech.'

Ahenakew's conviction is the first 'single speech utterance' prosecuted in the nations, said the aboriginal leader's lawyer, Doug Christie, who has also defended holocaust deniers, James Keegstra and Ernst Zundel.

'When the judge focused on the words themselves and ignored the context in which they were spoken, I think he disregarded the central issue of intention,' Christie said.' I think we will have ample and good grounds of appeal on the issue of intent from a spontaneous, unpremeditated, off-the-cuff and really, ill-considered remark.

'An off-the-cuff remark to the media should never be considered criminal, no matter how wrong it might be.'

But the Canadian Jewish Congress welcomed the verdict.

'Ahenakew's actions may have temporarily captured the attention of Canadians, but they do not define the relationship between the Jewish and aboriginal communities,' said Ed Morgan, the Congress' national president.

'Our communities have a long history of interconnection and compassion for each other's issues and that will not change because of an individual.'

Although First Nations leaders across the country have repeatedly rebuked Ahenakew for his comments and gone to great lengths to assure the Jewish community Ahenakew represents an aberration in aboriginal thought, there are many who say Ahenakew's conviction and punishment will inflame private resentment against the Jews.

'Native people in this country are far more oppressed and the victims of racism than Jews,' said Portage La Prairie First Nations resident, Norman Bone. 'I haven't seen the CJC (Canadian Jewish Congress) leading any charge to fight racism against our people. We don't have their power and connections when are people are killed by the police like in Saskatoon or in Vancouver. Racism against our people ends up in death for them not stupid words from a stupid man. There's a difference.'

Saskatchewan M'tis leader Jim Sinclair called the conviction of Ahenakew 'excessive.'

'What's disturbing is the attention a case of one man who said some clearly objectionable things receives over the violent and daily racism aboriginal people suffer in this country,' said Sinclair. 'That's a point that's lost in this but isn't lost to ordinary aboriginal people who see yet another group of white people being able to use the system to make their case while aboriginal people still don't have a real voice in this country.'