Canada - Jewish brothers launch lawsuit over anti-Semitic posters
A pair of prominent Jewish real-estate developers in
Winnipeg have launched a lawsuit aimed at using the civil courts to stop the
distribution of anti-Semitic posters, after government officials declined to
pursue hate-speech charges against the man behind the propaganda.
The posters, labelled with the title “$hitlers List,”
first appeared on Winnipeg streets last year, and included many anti-Semitic
tropes. They featured a list of allegedly influential Jews as part of a “cabal
of cockroaches,” accompanied by references to swindlers, dishonesty,
conspiracies and “dirty money.” Personally targeted by name on the posters, and
later in allegedly defamatory emails to their clients, and also on a public
website, brothers Sandy and Robert Shindleman brought the libel claim last week
against Gordon Warren, a failed Winnipeg city council candidate who admitted in
January to making the posters.
“The motivation is to stop this person, and people like
this person, from doing these overtly racist, bigoted remarks against any group
of people, and to hold them responsible for their actions when sometimes others
won’t,” said Sandy Shindleman, president and CEO of Shindico, a real-estate
company at which his brother Robert is also an executive.
Many people, including the government, are reluctant to
stand up to bullies, Mr. Shindleman said.
“We’re not. We’ve never backed down from a bully, or let
a bully succeed in bullying people that we know. We’ll stand up for ourselves,
we’ll stand up for others, and we’ll be counted,” he said.
Their lawyer, Robert Tapper, said this is primarily a
libel action, but will also allege that the Shindlemans are the victims of hate
speech. If proven, the hate-speech claim will allow the court to issue an
injunction that would prevent Mr. Warren from “making statements or comments
concerning the [Shindlemans] in any manner whatsoever.”
Comments
Post a Comment