Dr. Paul L. Williams, PhD
October 16, 2009
I am a United States citizen on trial in Canada for exposing a situation at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario that threatened the lives and welfare of Canadians and Americans alike. My book “The Dunces of Doomsday,” published in the U.S. by Cumberland House, revealed potential terrorist threats from al-Qaeda affiliates at McMaster. The university is suing me for libel, demanding $4 million in punitive and aggregated damages.
Unlike American libel laws where the plaintiff must prove that what said about him is not true and it was said in malice, Canadian libel laws, like the British, put the burden of proof on the defendant, not on the plaintiff.
What I wrote and said about McMaster from my home in Pennsylvania falls well within the standards of responsible journalism. Nevertheless, I have been dragged into court in Toronto, Canada, to be tried under Canadian law that lacks the U.S. Constitutional protection of free speech.
This ordeal has damaged my professional career, depleted my life savings, and placed me in financial jeopardy.
I am not alone.
Other writers have suffered a similar fate, including Joe Sharkey, a New Jersey-based freelance business journalist is being sued for reporting about a plane crash he survived over the Amazon. A woman who claims Sharkey offended the “dignity” of Brazil by criticizing its air-traffic control is suing him for libel in Brazil. This despite the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s conclusion that the Brazilian air traffic control was responsible to the crash. She demands $500,000 and apologies in national and international media outlets.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, whose criticism of a Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi billionaire who funded al Qaeda, has resulted in a judgment by default in British court against her for allegedly defaming the Saudi. She was ordered to pay $250,000, apologize in international media outlets and destroy her book: Funding Evil; How Terrorism Is Financed – and How to Stop It.
The same ordeal can befall all investigative reporters in the U.S. unless federal legislators pass The Free Speech Protection Act 2009, which is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Last week my pretrial took place in Toronto. It was not a pleasant experience. My Canadian lawyers and the appointed mediator spent seven hours attempting to coerce me into signing an apology to McMaster University for stating the truth. They maintained that none of my statements were factual according to Canadian libel laws.
I pointed to the fact that McMaster was home to several al-Qaeda members who plotted to blow up Canada’s Parliament and behead its prime minister. In fact, a week before my pretrial took place, the guilty plea of a McMaster student, Saad Gaya, to charges of terrorism captured the headlines of Canadian newspapers. Gaya was one of eighteen al-Qaeda affiliates also charged with planning to blow up trucks loaded with bombs at the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto office of the Canadian Security intelligence Service and a military base on Ontario. He was the eleventh to be convicted. The remaining seven members of the group, known as the “Toronto 18,” remain in prison awaiting trial. Such statements of fact have done little to persuade McMaster to drop the lawsuit, and my trial is set for April 2010.
In Canada, as in England and Brazil, truth is not an absolute defense.
No American citizen should be stripped of his/her Constitutional rights by foreign countries or foreign entities.
Congress should act immediately to pass the Free Speech Protection Act 2009.
About Dr. Paul L. Williams, PhD
Dr. Paul L. Williams, PhD, is an American author, journalist and consultant on radical Islam and counter-terrorism. He is also an adjunct professor of humanities. He is the author of six books, including The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, in which he expands on the American Hiroshima scenario he believes to be imminent, in which simultaneous nuclear attacks on 7 to 10 American cities would create havoc in American society. Prior to this, he served for seven years as a consultant to the FBI about terrorist and mafia criminal organizations.
UPDATE-UPDATE-UPDATE
Freedom of Speech Upheld in Golden State – - But Not from Maine to New Mexico
Will Americans Remain Gagged by the New World Order?
CALIFORNIA BECOMES SECOND STATE TO PROTECT AMERICANS FROM FOREIGN LIBEL LAWS
by
Michael Travis
The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a law yesterday that will protect American journalist and broadcasters from British and foreign libel judgments and the court rulings of other.
The new legislation effectively negates the practice of libel tourism.
It represents the growing opposition among Americans to Britain’s libel laws, which are in conflict with the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech.
The law gives California courts the power to block libel judgments from Britain and Canada which, the state’s Senate Rules Committee say, have “become the jurisdictional Mecca and Medina for the rich and famous”.
The Committee adds its new law would “diminish the chilling impact of libel tourism on aggressive reporting about important international issues.”
The California law echoes one enacted by the state of New York in March 2008, called the libel terrorism protection act, which is the direct result of the Rachel Ehrenfeld controversy.
Dr. Ehrenfeld was sued in London by a Saudi Arabian businessman over her 2003 book on terrorist financing, Funding Evil, which alleged that the man and his family had provided financial support to Islamic terrorist groups.
Though her book was not published in Britain, some 20 copies had been purchased through UK-registered websites and several excerpts had been published online.
Dr. Ehrenfeld, who chose not to defend the action, was criticized by British judge, Justice David Eady, who ruled that she must pay £10,000 to each plaintiff plus costs; apologize for her false allegations; and destroy all existing copies of her book.
The decision outraged many American politicians, journalists and lawyers who believe the British courts are inhibiting freedom of expression.
Dr.Ehrenfeld has also turned into a campaigner on the issue. She wrote an article last week in protest against the plight of Paul L. Williams and Canada’s libel laws.
Dr. Williams is being tried in Canada for statements he made concerning jihadi activity at McMaster University. The suit, he contends, has stripped him of his professional career and has left him financially destitute.
Two other states – - Illinois and Florida – - have enacted legislation to shield people from libel judgments made outside America.
There is also a proposal to create a federal US law, the Free Speech Protection Act, to bar American courts from enforcing libel judgments issued in foreign courts against US residents if the speech/editorial content would not be considered libelous under American law.
The Daily Mail (London) in an editorial that appeared yesterday refers to London as “the libel capital of the world”. It concludes: “Doesn’t it shame us that one American state after another… has found it necessary to pass laws protecting its citizens’ freedom of expression from the book-burning rulings of the British courts?”
As a Canadian,I am disgusted and ashamed that McMaster University would be able to sue Dr.Paul Williams for libel. Surely if he can prove that what he wrote was true, the suit will have to be dropped(?)The fact that nuclear material disappeared is cause for speculation.