Free Speech Silenced
Seems there might be more to the Pickton Case than what we're told.
The Silencing of Free Speech on Public Airwaves in Canada:
The New Tyranny at Vancouver Co-op Radio
By Kevin Annett and others
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
November 24, 2010
Two days ago, the host of a program at the state-funded Vancouver Co-op Radio was confronted by a surly board member as he tried entering the studio to record his weekly show.
The programmer was told he'd have to sign a document before he could broadcast, as would every other member of his program collective. After forcing the signature, the board member then hovered around and monitored the program, and later instructed the programmer that certain parts of his program would have to be cut.
The programmer in question had done nothing "wrong" at the station, and had not been the subject of controversy or conflict. He was simply the victim of a new regime of overt censorship and tight-fisted control that has descended on the oldest and once-freest public radio station in Canada.
The document that he was forced to sign that day allowed him to lose his program if he engaged in virtually any behavior distasteful to the four staff members at Co-op radio, including, absurdly, "patronizing or condescending behavior". The document in effect grants the staff a blank cheque to silence or ban any programmer or volunteer at the station -- which is everyone but the staff -- under any pretext.
This draconian measure was promulgated last Sunday at what was ostensibly the "Annual General Meeting" of Co-op radio, held at a community centre in Vancouver. An odd sort of "general meeting" it was, considering that "undesirable" members were prevented from entering the hall, certain topics -- like my own banning without due process from the air last August -- were forbidden to be discussed, and long-honored rules of the general meeting, like the right to ask questions to board members and allow new members to vote, were suddenly abolished.
"The entire thing was a staged, rubber stamped event" described one member, who prefers anonymity.
"The staff phoned up their supporters last week and told them to arrive a half hour early to get all the seats. I saw ten or more people turned away at the door. My motion to challenge this was not even allowed on the floor. It was just massive intimidation. I'm appalled that people went along with it."
Why this sudden tyranny?
Individual programmers have felt such oppression before, and been arbitrarily forced off the air, but never has a general policy of blanket censorship and control been imposed on the entire station and its members.
"It's because we've finally named the names of the cops who are trafficking in our women" describes Geraldine Two Bears, a Dene native woman who has worked in Vancouver's downtown eastside for years, and who was physically attacked and threatened by two men last week after she publicly protested my banning from Co-op radio.
"Last summer on Kevin's program, we started talking on the air about the Mounties who are tied in with the snuff films and the Pickton serial killers. In August he gets canned. Then when people start objecting, they shut everybody down with this scare tactic and these new rules. The station's half funded by the feds. Go figure."
Events seem to bear out Geraldine's words. Soon after I allowed an eyewitness to speak on my program last June, where she described seeing RCMP officers bring native women to the Pickton farm in Coquitlam, I was asked by an RCMP officer to appear for "questioning" at "E" division headquarters. I replied by inviting the officer, instead, to question me on the airwaves of my program, where I would, in turn, ask the RCMP some hard questions.
The officer declined. But two days later, I was assaulted in the downtown eastside by two men, one of whom bore a strong resemblance to the man who attacked Geraldine Two Bears.
Vocal Indians tend to end up dead. My friend Bingo Dawson, who led our protests about the missing women and children, died last December 6 after being beaten severely by three Vancouver policemen. The coroner's report says Bingo died of "alcohol withdrawal", but no alcohol or drugs were found in his bloodstream.
The airwaves of Vancouver Co-op radio began humming with these facts, and evidence of police and government complicity in the murder of native people, and child trafficking on the west coast of Canada. Clearly, an order came down to stop such exposure – and to intimidate the rest of the station programmers into silent subservience.
What now?
A group of programmers at the station are uniting to confront the new tyranny and possibly launch a legal action against station staff and the Board. They also are organizing a new radio station they plan to call “Vancouver Co-operative Truth Radio” – a station free of government control and censorship.
Meanwhile, my banning and defamation by Co-op radio staff and their government string pullers will be the subject of its own legal action, and will be brought before the first International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State, in London next April.
The free public airwaves will be restored.
The Silencing of Free Speech on Public Airwaves in Canada:
The New Tyranny at Vancouver Co-op Radio
By Kevin Annett and others
www.hiddenfromhistory.org
November 24, 2010
Two days ago, the host of a program at the state-funded Vancouver Co-op Radio was confronted by a surly board member as he tried entering the studio to record his weekly show.
The programmer was told he'd have to sign a document before he could broadcast, as would every other member of his program collective. After forcing the signature, the board member then hovered around and monitored the program, and later instructed the programmer that certain parts of his program would have to be cut.
The programmer in question had done nothing "wrong" at the station, and had not been the subject of controversy or conflict. He was simply the victim of a new regime of overt censorship and tight-fisted control that has descended on the oldest and once-freest public radio station in Canada.
The document that he was forced to sign that day allowed him to lose his program if he engaged in virtually any behavior distasteful to the four staff members at Co-op radio, including, absurdly, "patronizing or condescending behavior". The document in effect grants the staff a blank cheque to silence or ban any programmer or volunteer at the station -- which is everyone but the staff -- under any pretext.
This draconian measure was promulgated last Sunday at what was ostensibly the "Annual General Meeting" of Co-op radio, held at a community centre in Vancouver. An odd sort of "general meeting" it was, considering that "undesirable" members were prevented from entering the hall, certain topics -- like my own banning without due process from the air last August -- were forbidden to be discussed, and long-honored rules of the general meeting, like the right to ask questions to board members and allow new members to vote, were suddenly abolished.
"The entire thing was a staged, rubber stamped event" described one member, who prefers anonymity.
"The staff phoned up their supporters last week and told them to arrive a half hour early to get all the seats. I saw ten or more people turned away at the door. My motion to challenge this was not even allowed on the floor. It was just massive intimidation. I'm appalled that people went along with it."
Why this sudden tyranny?
Individual programmers have felt such oppression before, and been arbitrarily forced off the air, but never has a general policy of blanket censorship and control been imposed on the entire station and its members.
"It's because we've finally named the names of the cops who are trafficking in our women" describes Geraldine Two Bears, a Dene native woman who has worked in Vancouver's downtown eastside for years, and who was physically attacked and threatened by two men last week after she publicly protested my banning from Co-op radio.
"Last summer on Kevin's program, we started talking on the air about the Mounties who are tied in with the snuff films and the Pickton serial killers. In August he gets canned. Then when people start objecting, they shut everybody down with this scare tactic and these new rules. The station's half funded by the feds. Go figure."
Events seem to bear out Geraldine's words. Soon after I allowed an eyewitness to speak on my program last June, where she described seeing RCMP officers bring native women to the Pickton farm in Coquitlam, I was asked by an RCMP officer to appear for "questioning" at "E" division headquarters. I replied by inviting the officer, instead, to question me on the airwaves of my program, where I would, in turn, ask the RCMP some hard questions.
The officer declined. But two days later, I was assaulted in the downtown eastside by two men, one of whom bore a strong resemblance to the man who attacked Geraldine Two Bears.
Vocal Indians tend to end up dead. My friend Bingo Dawson, who led our protests about the missing women and children, died last December 6 after being beaten severely by three Vancouver policemen. The coroner's report says Bingo died of "alcohol withdrawal", but no alcohol or drugs were found in his bloodstream.
The airwaves of Vancouver Co-op radio began humming with these facts, and evidence of police and government complicity in the murder of native people, and child trafficking on the west coast of Canada. Clearly, an order came down to stop such exposure – and to intimidate the rest of the station programmers into silent subservience.
What now?
A group of programmers at the station are uniting to confront the new tyranny and possibly launch a legal action against station staff and the Board. They also are organizing a new radio station they plan to call “Vancouver Co-operative Truth Radio” – a station free of government control and censorship.
Meanwhile, my banning and defamation by Co-op radio staff and their government string pullers will be the subject of its own legal action, and will be brought before the first International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State, in London next April.
The free public airwaves will be restored.
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8:29 AM
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