A Canadian businessman whose company provides Internet sites to neo-Nazis is claiming that his right to free speech is being violated.
Bernard Klatt made the charge after the town council of Oliver, British Columbia, withdrew permission for him and his supporters to meet at the local town hall.
The council cited the potential for violence.
Adolf Hitler is portrayed as a hero on one of the sites hosted by Bernard Klatt’s Fairview Technology Center.
Klatt made headlines recently after a dozen skinheads in Britain and France were charged with uttering threats and using material posted on Internet sites rented from Fairview.
Sol Littman, director of the Canadian arm of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Called Oliver the “hate capital of Canada” when he first heard about the proposed meeting. He later congratulated town officials for the cancellation.
Former newspaper columnist Doug Collins, a Holocaust denier, held an impromptu news conference with Klatt outside Oliver’s town hall after the meeting of their Canadian Association for Free Expression was canceled.
They and a handful of their supporters were outnumbered by more than 100 protesters, who demonstrated peacefully nearby.
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