{"id":4824,"date":"2013-06-06T18:12:48","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T18:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4824"},"modified":"2013-06-06T18:12:49","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T18:12:49","slug":"queers-against-israeli-apartheid-do-not-violate-hate-laws-in-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=4824","title":{"rendered":"Queers Against Israeli Apartheid ‘do not violate hate laws in Toronto’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Toronto c\"\"<\/a>ity council has no legal grounds to deny grant money to Pride over the gay festival\u2019s refusal to ban the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto\u2019s chief lawyer has told Mayor Rob Ford\u2019s executive committee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a confidential and frank April report obtained by the Star, city solicitor Anna Kinastowski says she \u201ccannot recommend\u201d that council require Pride to ban the phrase \u201cIsraeli apartheid\u201d as a condition of receiving taxpayer funds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kinastowski writes: \u201cThe term \u2018Israeli Apartheid\u2019 does not violate the city\u2019s human rights policy, does not appear to violate the Ontario Human Rights Code, and does not appear to constitute \u2018hate\u2019 as the (Supreme) Court has interpreted it and would therefore appear to fall within the realm of potentially \u2018offensive\u2019 yet protected speech.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The committee will again discuss Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) on Tuesday during a debate on the city\u2019s anti-discrimination policy for grant recipients. Pride\u2019s annual grant \u2014 about $124,000 last year \u2014 will be debated by council in June, only 10 days before the festival begins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pro-Israel councillors have repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to find a way to tweak city rules in a way that might prevent the activist group from marching in the annual Pride parade. Councillor James Pasternak, who does not sit on the executive, has even floated the idea of offering Pride a \u201cdiversity bonus\u201d for excluding QuAIA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Citing a February Supreme Court decision, Kinastowski also warns against a 2012 suggestion from the executive to change the anti-discrimination policy to prohibit \u201canything which shows a lack of respect for all persons.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Kinastowski, cautioning against imposing \u201can overbroad standard for \u2018discrimination,\u2019 \u201d says such a policy would be \u201cunlikely to withstand a court challenge\u201d on freedom-of-speech grounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s what we know. I mean, it\u2019s not a secret. Every single report that comes out says we don\u2019t violate any hate laws or anything like that,\u201d said QuAIA member Tony Souza. \u201cWe\u2019re not breaking any laws, and we certainly don\u2019t \u2018hate\u2019 anybody. We just want justice in Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t think the question is a legal question \u2014 I think the question is one of morality and divisiveness,\u201d said Avi Benlolo, chief executive of the pro-Israel Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. \u201cAnd if we want to live in a pluralistic society where we demonstrate respect for one another, then there\u2019s just morality. . . . We\u2019re just saying to the city we don\u2019t think this is socially acceptable.\u201d – Toronto Star<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Toronto city council has no legal grounds to deny grant money to Pride over the gay festival\u2019s refusal to ban the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto\u2019s chief lawyer has told Mayor Rob Ford\u2019s executive committee. In a confidential and frank April report obtained by the Star, city solicitor Anna Kinastowski says she \u201ccannot … Continue reading “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid ‘do not violate hate laws in Toronto’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[2903,164,1017,2904,178,2902,2015],"class_list":["post-4824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-anna-kinastowski","tag-apartheid","tag-canada","tag-gay-pride","tag-israel","tag-queers-against-israeli-apartheid","tag-toronto"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/QuAIA.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4827,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4824\/revisions\/4827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}