Alberta
On January 10, 2005, Edmonton Police hate crimes unit officers traveled to Langley, BC to arrest Glenn Bahr. Together with Peter Kouba, Bahr had founded the neo-Nazi group Western Canada for Us (WCFU) one year previously.
WCFU was originally centred in Edmonton and Calgary, but rapidly expanded to include representatives in Winnipeg, Red Deer, and Vancouver. During its brief but active heyday, the group operated a website (www.wcfu.com) that featured extensive hate material, including downloadable electronic books such as The Turner Diaries, a work that advocates the genocide of Jews and blacks, and inspired Oklahoma-city bomber Timothy McVeigh. The group also held a number of demonstrations in Edmonton in support of imprisoned Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel before he was deported to his native Germany.
In addition to the material contained on the WCFU website, a federal human rights complaint filed against Bahr also identified Internet postings in which he refers to Aboriginals as “vermin” and states that he wants to get a swastika tattoo because “dead or alive Hitler is my fuhrer”. Even more troubling were Bahr’s assertions that gays and lesbians, as well as the mentally disabled, should be killed: “I believe no matter how or why you are a homosexual your life should be terminated… They should be terminated along with retards and any other degenerates that nature would do away with in the wild.”
Bahr, formerly of Red Deer and Edmonton, returned to his family home in Langley, BC after the local police hate crimes unit raided the residence where he was staying on May 7, 2004. Police seized the computers involved in running the web site and Bahr’s extensive collection of neo-Nazi paraphernalia. Although the group dissolved, many of its members, including Bahr, have continued with their activities. Bahr was released on strict bail conditions, including a ban on computer use, and has remained in the Edmonton area.
Bahr’s preliminary hearing for the criminal charge began on January 23, 2006 and adjourned on January 27, 2006 and continued the week of October 2, 2006. The hearing before the CHRT took place in May and June of 2006 in Edmonton and the Tribunal’s decision is now pending.
In August of 2005, the CHRC referred to the CHRT for full hearing a federal human rights complaint filed in June of 2004 against Peter Kouba, co-founder of Western Canada For Us. The complaint alleged that Kouba’s myriad of postings to several neo-Nazi website forums were likely to expose Muslims, Hindus, Jews, homosexuals, blacks, First Nations persons, East Asians, non-whites, Pakistanis, and Roma (aka Gypsies) to hatred and/or contempt, contrary to section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal held hearings into the matter in July of 2006 and a decision is now being awaited from Tribunal member Julie Lloyd.
A permanent cease and desist order was issued by the CHRT in April of 2005, in a case against Calgary anti-government activist Eldon Warman. The original complaint had been filed on 1 June 2003 and dealt with hundreds of Warman’s profanity-strewn, antisemitic rantings made to Google taxation forums. In rendering the initial cease and desist order last April, the Tribunal urged Google to cooperate in enforcing this order.
Following the initial order, correspondence was sent in May 2005 by Valerie Phillips, CHRC legal counsel, to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, outlining the nature of the order and requesting Google’s assistance. To its credit, Google acted like a responsible corporate citizen by removing all of the material covered by the Tribunal order within a week. The Tribunal’s final decision noted an affidavit filed by a process server who was chased by a rock-carrying Eldon Warman, who threatened to kill him when he served Warman with materials related to the case.
On December 14, 2005, in the first criminal prosecution related to Internet hate propaganda to go to trial in Canada, former Edmonton resident Reinhard Mueller was convicted by a jury of the willful promotion of hatred under s. 319 of the Criminal Code. The charge arose as a result of antisemitic material on his website that described Jews as sub-humans, and Judaism as demonic. Among other things, Mueller’s ‘Federation of Free Planets’ website put forward his theories as a self-declared ‘prophet’, using extra-terrestrial gibberish. He engaged in repeated Holocaust denial, supported Saddam Hussein, and argued that the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was true and that, pursuant to the Protocols, Jews were controlling the West politically and economically. Mueller also warned Jews that in the coming New Era, “[w]here the blood of the jews may flow, it is only because they shed the blood of the righteous and of the innocent!” [sic]
Media reports indicate that the jury took only three hours to find Mueller guilty and in August of 2006 he was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment along with being ordered to close his website.
The wealth of action and success by the Edmonton Police hate crimes unit in addressing the problem of hate, both on the Internet and elsewhere within Edmonton, stands as a model for best practices in effective community policing.
