Good on them: the more we demonstrate that speech must remain unfettered, the more of us stand up against tyranny, the more difficult it will be to silence us all!
And, with freedoms, it is like everything else: if you don’t use it, you loose it!
So, stand up tall, Phoenix, Arizona!
So many of us came to the Shores of North America in order to be free – and we are not going to be silenced by thugs and terrorists!
H/T: Vlad Tepes
Eric Brazeau is Canada’s honest to goodness political prisoner.
Yes, he is out on bail while he is awaiting his appeal.
If you have been following his story, he was arrested last July for having had a politically incorrect conversation on the Subway in Toronto. Yes, the subject was indeed Islam…
One of the other passengers had pulled the emergency brake on the train, in between stations, because, well, when somebody is being politically incorrect – what else can you possibly do?
The transit cops gave chase and pursued Eric for a long time before finally arresting him, handing him to the real cops and having him thrown into jail.
Where he was denied bail and awaited his trial in jail.
Yes, violent criminals and drug dealers are routinely granted bail prior to trial, but their actions were deemed to be much less dangerous than Eric’s politically incorrect speech. No violence, no threats, no intimidation – just straight forward statement of his deeply and honestly held beliefs.
His trial in January was a farce: the judge seemed more interested in sound bites than justice, with his ‘you had a ticket to ride, not a pass to harass’ pronouncement…
Finally in April, he was granted bail till his appeal comes up.
Which is awesome, but…
We live in a country with a common law legal system.
This means that each and every case sets a precedent which is binding on judges in all subsequent cases.
What this means is that if anyone charged with an offence for something they have said – whether we like them or not, whether we agree with their opinions or not – comes before the courts with a lousy lawyer and they loose their case, the freedom of speech of each and every one of us in Canada, US, Britain, Australia and other common law countries, our freedom of speech will now be restricted because of the unfavourable outcome in this one trial.
So, regardless of who is charged and for what, if it is a freedom of speech issue and they lose their case – each and every one of us loses along with them.
Which is why we have to make sure that for his appeal, Eric can actually afford a competent lawyer.
And this is how we can do it: his appeal fundraiser is here.
Please, do consider a donation – for freedom’s sake!
Thanks to BlogWrath who was there with his phone, here is a picture of Eric as he is being released:
For the story of how I came to Toronto for this hearing, please see here.
For the anticipation of the trial before the courtroom opened, please see here.
Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, here is the ‘meat’ of the story:
It turns out that even though Mr. Brazeau was listed as ‘self represented’, his former counsel, a certain Misha, was there to speak on his behalf.
Let’s get this clear: I have never seen this Misha before, nor had an contact with him, but, I don’t like him. I don’t know why – call it a gut reaction, based on seeing him in court and briefly meeting him in person afterwards: he might be a competent lawyer for all I know, but that ‘like’ button for me was just not clicked. My subconscious mind put him squarely in with ‘the silly bunnies’…
Yet, it seems that when in court, he had ‘collaborated’ with the Crown and both had their ducks lined up in the same row: Eric Brazeau is to be released on bail with the guarantee of two citizens in good standing willing to vouch for him and let him live with them.
Yes, yes, yes.
It was, somehow, anticlimactic…
But, until the actual appeal date (the day and month of which I did not catch, but I think it’ll be some time in June or July of this year..but when I do know, I will let you, my dear readers, know), Mr. Brazeau is out on bail!!!
No money to be paid, but he had to agree to certain conditions: including staying off of public transit.
It turned out that the two guarantors into whose custody Eric had been released were siting in the courtroom, directly behind me. Also in the courtroom was Miro, of BlogWrath, and his pretty wife Toshiko. Also there was Eric’s friend Ron.
It was a great pleasure for me to make their acquaintance!
So, there we were, waiting for the paperwork to be done.
For, before he could walk out, Eric and his guarantors had to sign tons of paperwork – in front of a justice of peace. And the justice of peace had to clear all the cases before Eric’s first.
So, in the hallway of justice, we sat and waited…and chatted. At this point, my friend Robert, who has been trying to raise the funds for Eric’s new lawyer fro BC to come to Toronto and represent him at the actual appeal, joined us.
And we waited..
…and we waited…
And, finally Eric came out!
Oh, what a glorious moment!!!
We met him with a standing applause and our arms outstretched for hugs!
A small victory in the grand scheme of things, perhaps, but a definite step in the right direction!!!
Long live Freedom!
Long live Eric!!!
This is a mood-setting background description – for the actual event itself, please, see here.
Finally, the day is here: Eric Brazeau will have his appeal motion hearing today!
What’s more: I am going to get to watch history be made!!!
For a wordy account of my journey here and the impressions of the courthouse, please, see here (written in the in-between time from when my bus arrived downtown Toronto to when I got to enter the courthouse, so it sets the atmosphere outside and is indulgently loquacious).
In the hour-and-a-half while I was outside in the foggy Toronto dawn (the direct sun rays never reached street level), I managed to get….sunburned. Now, my face is pink and turning redder and itchier by the minute! But, I digress!
It took me a while to find the proper place to go: that is the cost of showing up at the courthouse before the daily schedule does. Helpful people try to give you the best advice they can, but they just might send you to another building a block away and it just might take you an hour to get back to where you were in the beginning.
But, this time, the schedule was posted and I had no trouble going up the escalator and down the long corridor and around the corner, all the way to courtroom 2-6, where Eric’s case is scheduled to be heard at 10am.
There are no chairs just outside courtroom 2-6, so, at 9:15am, I am sitting around the corner, in front of 2-4, hoping that I’ll see other people who come here to support Eric and/or report on this incredibly important lawsuit and typing all this in, so that I may report to you, my dear readers, my freshest impressions of this day.
The Toronto courthouse is extremely different from the Ottawa one. First of all, the security is much, much tighter.
Of course, after the October terrorist attack in Ottawa, the security in the Ottawa courthouse also increased: main entrance only, checking bags etc. But, as of March, metal detectors and such were only used in select cases, placed in front of select courtrooms. Here, we are talking full TSA workup, with dire warnings that if they find even the tiniest pen-knife, you will be arrested and thrown in jail, never to see the light of day again, as will your children, and your children’s children and… OK, I may be paraphrasing a bit, but that is the general gist of the warning. I was a bit afraid they might confiscate my Redbull, as getting wings might seem dangerous, but I got lucky!
And while the security people checking bags and people coming in were friendly enough, in an officious kind of way (asking cheerfully if I’m showing up for jury duty), the security guard nearby the desk that lists the daily roster would do an about face and march in a different direction if a person even threatened to try to catch his eye.
The Ottawa guys are different: they go out of their way to be helpful, thinking of ways to search for your case (and, yes, at times, it almost seems like the way the cases are listed is meant to confuse and discourage). Let’s hope the Ottawa guys keep their friendly demeanour.
While waiting for 10 o’clock to arrive, I stuck up a conversation with a nice lady sitting next to me. As we were chatted amiably, I explained why I was there and why Eric’s case was such an important one.
She took a great interest in it. At the time, she heard something about some stuff happening on the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission), but from the mainstream newspapers, she did not understand what it was all about. When she learned that Eric was still in jail, just because he said out loud that he did not like a specific religion, she was very angry on his behalf!
She confided that once, not that long ago, she was taken aback by a fundie (that is short for Christian fundamentalist) co-worker who had expressed a rather homophobic belief. She did not like it, and explained to he co-worker that she did not like it, but she thought that it would have been wrong to stop the co-worker from saying out loud what she truly believes, even if it was stupid!
And I fully agreed with her!
The best response to bad speech is more good speech.
Yes, she agreed, because of the danger of driving bad speech underground, where it would gain power precisely because it was persecuted!!!
I was so happy to hear that she gets it! She really, really gets it!
Perhaps there is still hope for our citizens!
It was on this note of high expectations that I am packing up and getting ready to enter the courtroom.
This is a mood-setting background description – for the actual event itself, please, see here.
COURT HOUSE
361 UNIVERSITY AVENUE
That is what the carved letters beneath the royal crown on the wall of a 70’s, perhaps 60’s looking stubby concrete building said.
Nestled in the shade of the CN Tower and skyscrapers looming all around, it looked more like a prison fortress than a hall of justice.
Right in front of the downtown Toronto Court House was an indulgently big open space – inlaid brick and slate slabs, of course, greenery only in confined concrete grave-beds, and of the prickly kind too. Perhaps some of the bushed might look friendlier, had they had any leaves, but on this cool, damp and foggy April morning, they were only prickly sticks, as bare and lifeless as the concrete building beyond them.
This urban opening – is it a park? – seems made even more open because University Avenue is a split road, with a wide median, keeping the buildings opposite farther than most city streets manage to. And, in addition to the squat bunker of a courthouse, there are several other ‘historical’ buildings which boast their opulence by not being tall: every square meter in the heart of Toronto’s downtown is serious money, so a building that is short is, in fact, wasting tons of money each minute it refuses to grow tall!
In order to attend the courthouse today, to hear the appeal in the case of Eric Brazeau, Canada’s honest-to-goodness political prisoner, I took the overnight bus from my home to Toronto, thinking this would be a convenient way to spend the night and arrive refreshed and ready to go. I can sleep quite comfortably on an airplane, in a car, so, why not a bus? After all, these days, long distance buses have more legroom than airplanes!
My 5-1/2 hour bus ride was to start at 1 am, so arrived at the station nice and early (2+hours ahead), so my poor, long-suffering hubby could get to bed. There I discovered that while the seating at the Ottawa bus depot is plentiful, it is uniquely uncomfortable… Oh, well. I put my earbuds in and listened to the audiobooks of ‘The Song of Ice and Fire’ by GRR Martin.
I read the books years ago, then followed the show faithfully. Now that the narratives of the two are set to diverge in the 5th season of the show, I thought I’d refresh my memory of the books by listening to the audiobooks of them when I had insomnia or time on my hands – like a bus ride between Ottawa and Toronto!
My plan seemed flawless….the key word being ‘seemed’!
It turns out that the seats on this particular doggy bus are even more uncomfortable than the Ottawa bus depot ones!
Not only is the seat short and somewhat forward sloped, making you feel like you will slide off the smooth surface of the seat with every slight breaking of the vehicle, the back rest is concave so that if your lower back is actually touching the seat, your head and shoulders are thrust into an aching forward-crouching position. And since the seat is so short, trying to sit sideways will jolt your ‘hanging’ hip with every pothole on the highway. And in today’s Ontario, the potholes on the highways are exquisite!
I was glad to escape my little torture-chamber on wheels when we reached the downtown Toronto bus depot at 6:30 in the morning! Making my way through the throng of waiting and eager taxi drivers, I walked the few short blocks from the bus depot to the courthouse, only stopping briefly at Timmy’s to pick up a tea.
Aside: I’ve discovered a most amusing way to converse with our British cousins! One time, in a line-up (queue for our cousins) I struck up a conversation with a couple of Brits in front of us. Inevitably, the Canadian obsession with Tim Horton’s came up. I professed my deep love and appreciation for fine tea, which met with their full appreciation. I ended by pointing out that tea just does not taste the same if it is served in anything but a Timmy’s paper cup!
I thought they were going to choke! But, eventually, they seemed comforted by the thought that I was just joking them – so I left them happy.
Currently, I am sitting on a cold concrete bench in front of that dungeon-ish courthouse and waiting for 8 o’clock, when the doors are supposed to open. Hence the, perhaps, over-sharing of my impressions and experiences so far.
My apologies.
As I am sitting here, typing, the sun is beginning to shine and burn off the early fog. It looks like it will be a glorious day outside! Let’s just hope that it will be as glorious inside…
Looking around, one cannot miss the centerpiece of this urban square: a nod to the Greek roots of our democracy. Sort of…
It is a statue-type thingy with the triangular roof resembling an ancient Athenian temple, but instead of supported by Greek pillars, it is supported by 12 flat, two-dimensional grey metal abstract representations of humans. 3 males and 3 females on each the front and back. These abstractions of the human figures are featureless – no faces, no arms: so the ‘triangle of justice’ roof thingy is not being supported by their arms, it is standing on their heads.
Let’s hope the justice meted out beyond them today will not also be standing on its head….
We cannot be reminded of this often enough:
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 