Malcolm Ross, a Moncton teacher, will not be prosecuted for allegedly promoting hatred against Jews.
After a year-long investigation by the Moncton police force and several outside experts, New Brunswick Attorney-General David Clark announced late last week that Ross, the Maritime Provinces director of the rightwing Christian Defense League, will not be charged under section 281.2 (2) of the Criminal Code, which makes it an offense to willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group.
Ross is the author and distributor of several publications alleging the Holocaust was a hoax and that there is a Jewish conspiracy to seize control of the world.
The complaint against Ross was filed last summer by Julius Israeli, a Holocaust survivor living in Newcastle, about 100 miles north of here. Israeli alleged that the booklets by Ross — The Real Holocaust, Christianity versus Judeo-Christianity, and Web of Deceit — willfully promote hatred against Jews.
BASIS OF CLARK’S RULING
But Clark ruled that since Web of Deceit is no longer available to the public, prosecution cannot take place. Clark said, however, that the booklet, which has been out of print for five years, did appear to fall into the definition of hate propaganda. Clark’s ruling boils down to the fact that Web of Deceit’s lack of public availability outweighs its being hate propaganda.
“The Web of Deceit does appear to fall within the category of material that could reasonably be put before a court to determine if it was hate propaganda. However, Web of Deceit is currently unavailable to the public and this fact was fundamental in our decision that no prosecution could or should be commenced,” Clark said in a prepared statement.
The other books in question were at best borderline examples of hate propaganda, Clark added.
An angry Israeli said in an interview that he feels “the refusal to prosecute (Ross) is a condonement of hate propaganda in New Brunswick and is an open permit to Ross to continue with this type of activity.” Israeli added that Web of Deceit is available to the public in several bookshops in Moncton and in local libraries.
Shimon Fogel, executive director of Canadian Jewish Congress’s Atlantic Region, said he would have reached the same conclusion as did Clark. “It would not have been in the best interest of the Jewish community to prosecute,” he said, adding that winning such a case would have been much more difficult than the cases of Jim Keegstra and convicted Holocaust falsifier Ernst Zundel. Fogel said Ross’s books convey opinion and not historical truth.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
