Cotler File #1

Authors:

HIGHLIGHT:
A BREAKTHROUGH of sorts has occurred in the saga of Raoul Wallenberg. Not that the Swedish hero who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews towards the end of World War II has been found alive in a Russian prison, or even that the date of his death has been established. But there is now a chance that the mystery of his disappearance, after his arrest by the Russians in Budapest on January 17, 1945, will finally be cleared up.

A BREAKTHROUGH of sorts has occurred in the saga of Raoul Wallenberg.

Not that the Swedish hero who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews towards the end of World War II has been found alive in a Russian prison, or even that the date of his death has been established. But there is now a chance that the mystery of his disappearance, after his arrest by the Russians in Budapest on January 17, 1945, will finally be cleared up.

This is a direct result of glasnost and the revolution in Soviet attitudes to human rights. Its concrete expression was the establishment of a 10-member commission of experts to investigate Wallenberg's fate. Part of the breakthrough was that the commission was granted wide and hitherto unheard of powers; and that while five of its members are Russian, the other five are from Sweden, Canada and the U.S.

The name says it all. It is The Soviet-International Joint Commission on the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg. The commission, which was in Russia from August 27 to September 12, was actually permitted to enter prisons and search their records. In an unprededented move, the Soviet Union agreed to an "open-ended" investigation, whose only purpose would be "search for the truth."

Colonel Gulayev, who heads the prisons service in the Interior Ministry (MVD), told commission members: "We will do everything to assist you in determining the true fate of this great man ... We do not want to be on the wrong side of history."

To judge how great a departure that was from earlier attitudes, one need only recall that as recently as this June, the Soviets refused to allow the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights to inspect their prisons. The immediate reason for the change in attitude may have been the 1,200-page report on Wallenberg issued by the veteran Canadian human-rights lawyer Irwin Cotler, chairman of the Wallenberg commission, only a few months ago. On the faculty of McGill University in Montreal, he is here for a year as a visiting professor at the Bar-Ilan and Hebrew Universities.

He gave The Jerusalem Post a full report of the work the commission did during its stay in Russia. Its principal conclusions (all arrived at unanimously) were as follows:

* There is incontrovertible evidence that Raoul Wallenberg did not die of a heart attack in Lubianka prison on July 17, 1947, as the Gromyko memorandum claimed in 1957.

* The final evidence appears to be in the hands of the KGB secret police.

* Given the preponderance of evidence from released prisoners that Wallenberg was alive in the 1950s and 1960s, and credible evidence that he was alive in the 1970s and 1980s, the commission must proceed on the assumption that he may still be alive today, unless there is evidence to the contrary.

I ASKED Cotler outright whether he thinks that Wallenberg is still alive.

He answered: "Juridically, I must say there is no evidence that he died ... So we must assume he is still alive."

About 15 witnesses claim to have had contact with Wallenberg at Vladimir prison during the 1950s and 1960s. Cotler said that his gut feeling was strengthened by the knowledge that foreigners held in Vladimir received better treatment than native Russians, and therefore had a greater chance of survival.

Regarding the possibility that anybody could survive 45 years in Russian prisons, Cotler mentioned the case of the Ukrainian, Danylov Shumuck, now 78, who went to Canada two years ago after spending 45 years in the Gulag system. "And he is not the only example."

I asked him whether it was conceivable that if Wallenberg was still alive, he would not over the years have heard through the grapevine about the search for him, and somehow got a message through?

His answer was that if Wallenberg had been held in a psychiatric hospital for a long time, he might no longer be aware of his own identity.

One member of the commission has unshakable faith that Wallenberg is still alive. He is physicist Guy von Dardel, Wallenberg's younger half-brother, who fought for 14 years to have the present commission set up. Typical of his faith is the statement he made to The Jerusalem Post in 1980, when he said of the family: "We know he is still alive, and we are confident that his Russian jailers will release him this year."

The U.S. member of the commission is Prof. Marvin Makinen, head of the Biochemistry department at the University of Chicago. While traveling in the USSR during his student years, he was accused of being a spy and was jailed in the Vladimir prison for two years.

Another former Vladimir prisoner on the commission is Cronid Lubarsky. Today a publisher in West Germany, he was once a dissident in the Soviet Union. One of the Swedish members is Rolf Bjoernestedt, formerly a top UN official.

One of the five Russian members is Arseny Roginsky, who works as an historian for the recently formed Memorial society, which tries to throw light on many dark aspects of Soviet history. Paradoxically, he was imprisoned years ago for trying to do exactly the same work as he is now officially encouraged to do - exploring the past.

Another Russian member is the historian Mikhail Chlenov, co-president of Vaad, the Confederation of Jewish Communities and Organizations in the USSR. A third Russian, also a Jew, is genetics professor Vadim Birstein, a former dissident and an expert on Soviet prisons.

Alexei Kartsev is a senior journalist for Komsomolskaya Pravda and an expert on the Wallenberg dossier, although he was not allowed to write on the case until 1988. The fifth Russian is cinematographer Alexander Rodyansky, who is preparing a documentary on Wallenberg.

The commission began its investigation with eight days at the Vladimir prison, about 100 km. north of Moscow, the first time such an exhaustive enquiry has been permitted. Members had the full cooperation of the prison staff, and access to all parts of the complex, where about 500 prisoners are held today. Staying at a small hotel in a nearby town, they spent many hours in the prison archives every day.

The commission found that during the past 45 years, the Soviet Union never conducted any investigation about Wallenberg either at Vladimir or any other prison. Prison archives were not examined, officials were not interviewed, and witnesses whose testimony was relevant were not heard.

COTLER QUOTED the head of another prison, the infamous Butyrka: "Wallenberg was a non-person for us until 1988, an unmentionable. We could not even talk about him, let alone investigate whether he was imprisoned here."

To commission members, such a finding was particularly painful, since for 12 years - from 1945 to 1957 - the Soviet Union had insisted that, based on thorough investigation, Wallenberg was not in their country.

An ominous finding was that foreigners imprisoned at Vladimir were generally registered not under their own name, but under a number or a false identity. Tragically, most, if not all, of these "numbered prisoners" have disappeared forever into the dark void of Soviet history.

The commission examined some 104,000 prison registration cards at Vladimir and selected 1,430 for further computer analysis and videotaping. Of these cards, about 30 were in the "number" category, and the commission actually found 10 of them. The feeling was that if Wallenberg's was a numbered card, the discovery of his fate might be well-nigh impossible.

A further complication was that all the dossiers of foreign prisoners were at one stage transferred from Vladimir to KGB files in Moscow. Although the KGB had initially promised full cooperation, this was not forthcoming. Cotler said that the head of the KGB, General Vladimir Kryuchkov, has promised to meet commission members and cooperate with them in the future.

The commission was more than puzzled by the fact that last October, the KGB returned to the Wallenberg family Raoul's personal belongings, including his diplomatic passport, his address book, a diary, and more than $1,000 in cash. The KGB claimed to have discovered these items "by accident." The story is hardly compatible with earlier protestations that the secret police had no knowledge of Wallenberg. Meanwhile, the possessions are being held in trust for Wallenberg in Stockholm.

According to Cotler, the commission's work received wide publicity in Russia. He himself appeared twice on a Mabat-like television program and Pravda spread an interview with him over half a page. In Sweden, of course, the story was front-page news.

While the foreign commission members have gone home, their Russian colleagues continue to investigate prison archives and interview officials. Cotler says that he himself may return to Russia within a few weeks, and adds: "We'll know the whole truth within six months."

GRAPHIC: Illustration: 2 photos; Caption: 1. A peek into Vladimir prison: Was Wallenberg here during the 1950s and '60s? 2. Montreal human-rights lawyer Irwin Cotler in a Vladimir cell.

LOAD-DATE: May 7, 1991

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 6A

LENGTH: 297 words

HEADLINE: ISRAELIS AGAIN POSTPONE SUSPECTED NAZI'S RELEASE

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
Israel's top judge on Friday held up John Demjanjuk's departure for the fourth time in three weeks, reflecting Israel's reluctance to free a suspected Nazi war criminal even as legal recourses crumble. Holocaust survivors have been seeking to try Demjanjuk on new war crimes charges after he was acquitted July 29 [1993] of being "Ivan the Terrible," a sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp during World War II.

Two different Supreme Court panels and the attorney general have come out against a new trial, citing the danger of double jeopardy, weak evidence and already lengthy legal proceedings against the retired Ohio auto worker. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk has denied all involvement in war crimes. He said he spent most of World War II in German POW camps after being captured as a Soviet soldier in May 1942.

On Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice Meir Shamgar granted the petitioners two weeks more to try to convince the high court it should look at the case again. Legal experts have said chances of a new trial are remote, but that because of the sensitivity of the case the court was permitting the petitioners to exhaust all legal avenues.

"It is clear that it is going to be a very uphill battle," acknowledged Irwin Cotler, a Canadian attorney. Cotler told Shamgar that Israel is required by international law to try any suspected Nazi war criminal in its jurisdiction. Other petitioners said Israel also had a moral obligation as the state that gave refuge to 300,000 Holocaust survivors.

Demjanjuk's son, John Jr., said he was disappointed and worried about his father's well-being. "It is difficult to imagine that he has to continue to suffer in a 12 foot by 10 foot, 100 degree prison cell. But that is the hand we have been dealt," he said.

LOAD-DATE: October 11, 1993

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A14

LENGTH: 517 words

HEADLINE: More time urged for hunt of Nazi suspects

BYLINE: By Dana Flavelle Toronto Star

BODY:
A federal inquiry into Nazi war criminals in Canada will be seriously hurt if Ottawa refuses to give it more time to probe allegations against hundreds of suspects, Jewish leaders say.

"We will not accept an answer that says there was not enough time or evidence," Milton Harris, national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, warned yesterday.

"We want a completely thorough investigation of the problem," he told delegates to the Congress' 21st Plenary Session at the Metro Convention Centre.

About 1,000 people are attending the conference, held once every three years. It continues through to tomorrow. sun

Six-month extension

Harris was responding yesterday to a Star story that quoted Justice Minister John Crosbie as saying the government probably would not extend the Deschenes commission's mandate beyond June 30 [1986].

Commissioner Jules Deschenes this week asked the government for more time to follow up leads in Soviet-bloc countries. Both the Soviet Union and Poland have just given the commission approval to gather evidence in those countries.

However, Crosbie said Deschenes was given a six-month extension back in December and "it's not our wish to have the commission sit any longer than that."

The use of Soviet evidence has been controversial because Ukrainian Canadians, who feel their members are under attack in this inquiry, fear Soviet witnesses could be intimidated and evidence fabricated by the KGB (Soviet secret police).

The Deschenes commission has three mandates: to determine how many alleged Nazi war criminals are in Canada, how they got here and what can be done to bring them to justice.

"If their (the commission's) mandate is not extended, documents will not be discovered, witnesses will not be heard," said Irwin Cotler, counsel for the Congress at the Deschenes inquiry and a professor at McGill University in Montreal.

Unnamed suspects

The probe must be allowed "to follow the evidence wherever it leads," he said. "What's at stake is the integrity of the commission's work."

The commission has received complaints against more than 700 Canadians since it was appointed nearly 1 1/2 years ago and wants to go to the Soviet Union to investigate eight unnamed suspects, Cotler said.

Sol Littman, Canadian representative for the U.S. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, said he's had doubts about the commission's role from the beginning.

"The impression we had was the intent of the commission was to prove it (Nazi war criminals in Canada) was not much of a problem," he said.

But Michael Meighen, general counsel to the Deschenes commission, defended its work.

While agreeing they could not possibly complete their inquiry before June 30, he said Deschenes' findings up to that date "will be a great step forward in dealing with the problems we've put off far too long.

"If we don't get to the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia or the U.K., it's not necessarily fatal or seriously damaging to the work of the commission," he added. "We've been provided with written statements from most of the witnesses."

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A11

LENGTH: 431 words

HEADLINE: Canada condemned for inaction on Nazis

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: HULL, QUE.

BODY:
HULL, Que. - Canada has obstructed justice for the past 40 years by consciously abdicating its moral responsibility to bring alleged Nazi war criminals to justice, a federal commission of inquiry has been told.

Successive federal governments have also failed to show any evidence of regret or horror at the senseless murder of more than 6 million Jews and others by the Nazi regime, Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler said yesterday.

"One searches in vain throughout these 40 years for any evidence of moral sensibility about the horrors of the Holocaust, or any evidence of concomitant responsibility to bring suspected Nazi war criminals to justice," said Cotler, who represents the Canadian Jewish Congress.

"Rather, what one finds throughout is the reduction of the Holocaust to a footnote and the concomitant bureaucratization of horror into a technical rationalization of why nothing can be done - a bureaucratization of evil that emerges as a blueprint for government inaction."

Final report

Cotler's stinging indictment of 40 years of government inaction came at the final public meeting of the inquiry, which was established 15 months ago to determine how many alleged Nazis are in Canada, how they got here and what can be done about bringing them to justice.

Now Mr. Justice Jules Deschenes, who heads the commission, must prepare his final report. He could seek an extension if the Soviet Union agrees to a request to provide evidence and potential witnesses.

The commission, which has investigated allegations against almost 800 Canadians, including at least 15 against whom serious war crimes charges have been made, is scheduled to report to the government on June 30.

Deschenes also heard from lawyer Y.R. Botiuk, representing the Brotherhood of Veterans of the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army, who said that if there are any Nazis here the Criminal Code should be amended to allow "for the prosecution and punishment in Canada of those accused of war crimes against humanity."

Cotler said Canada's lamentable record includes the destruction of what Mounties called "crucial evidence"; a refusal until 1982 to investigate war crimes allegations; a bureaucratic belief that nothing could be done; and decisions to provide sanctuary for Nazi collaborators while at the same time restricting Jewish immigration.

Deschenes closed the hearings by saying that he was "not a master of the future" and it appeared unlikely that any further public hearings would be necessary, although in-camera meetings with suspects would continue.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 765 words

HEADLINE: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: 'SET UP A NAZI WAR CRIMES UNIT'

BYLINE: By ERNIE MEYER, Jerusalem Post Reporter

HIGHLIGHT:
Even at this late stage, Israel should establish a unit to investigate war crimes, similar to the Office for Special Investigations set up in the U.S. Justice Department 10 years ago, says human rights campaigner Irwin Cotler. And denial of the Holocaust should be seen as a crime and a collective libel of the Jewish people.

BODY:
Even at this late stage, Israel should establish a unit to investigate war crimes, similar to the Office for Special Investigations set up in the U.S. Justice Department 10 years ago, says human rights campaigner Irwin Cotler. And denial of the Holocaust should be seen as a crime and a collective libel of the Jewish people.

Cotler, who teaches human-rights law at McGill University in Montreal and is also a visiting professor at Harvard, was giving the Second Annual Raoul Wallenberg Lecture on Human Rights at the Israel Bar Association here last week.

He explained that bringing Nazi war criminals to justice was a matter of international humanitarian law and a direct legacy of the Nuremberg war-crimes trials. "As the parable of the Ancient Mariner put it, it is a matter of the soul of humanity," he said.

Israel had expressed its sense of primacy regarding the matter as early as 1951, when it passed the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators Punishment Law. But since then, only the Eichmann and the Demjanjuk cases have been prosecuted here, with only a small unit in the police force doing investigative work on a regular basis.

Cotler said that there is today a new mythology regarding Nazi war criminals which, if unchecked, will prejudice the entire effort to bring these men to justice. "It will end up distorting the question of Holocaust remembrance and indeed corrupt our entire understanding of justice and human rights."

Myth No. 1: Why should insignificant old men, who have been living as "quiet neighbours" in Canada, the U.S., Australia and Europe, be brought before the courts more than 40 years after the Holocaust?

His answer was: "Fidelity to the rule of law, and so that the murder of innocents should not go unpunished." He also cited respect for citizenship and respect for international obligations. Cotler said that as early as 1946 the UN General Assembly devoted its third resolution to the "extradition and punishment of war criminals." Between 1969 and 1973 the General Assembly adopted at least five further resolutions to the same effect.

Myth No. 2 concerns the contention that bringing Nazi war criminals to justice is just an issue of Jewish revenge.

To this the rebuttal should be, Cotler said, that the issue is one of international responsibility for justice. "Nuremberg was not a Jewish initiative, but an international one."

Myth No. 3: This is nothing more than a private ethnic quarrel, with Jews and Ukrainians in Canada, for instance, acting out animosities they brought with them from Europe.

The answer to that one, said Cotler, should be that Canada or the UK or Australia should prosecute Nazi war criminals even if no members of concerned minority groups live within their borders. No witch hunt or collective indictment of any ethnic group, such as Ukrainians or Lithuanians, should be tolerated.

Myth No. 4 relates to the allegation of selective discrimination, with only Nazi war criminals, rather than all war criminals, singled out for prosecution.

Here the reply should be that it is indeed the legacy of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals to bring all war criminals to justice: "It would be wrong to argue that unless we prosecute all war criminals, we cannot go after the Nazis. It's the other way round. If we did not have the Nuremberg precedent, we'd have no standing regarding other war criminals."

Myth No. 5 says that all evidence against former Ukrainians, Latvians and Lithuanians emanating from the Soviet Union is, ipso facto, tainted because of that country's intrigues against these ethnic components of its empire.

The answer to that is that Soviet evidence in the hands of Soviet courts may well be tainted. But evidence released by the Russians to the West and evaluated according to Western standards of justice is another story altogether.

The last myth, No. 6, concerns the argument that the Holocaust is a hoax. Cotler said that the hoax issue links up with that of individual prosecution. The reasoning goes like this: If there was no Holocaust - there were no crimes. If there were no crimes - there are no criminals and no one can be prosecuted.

"My reply to that one," Cotler said, "is that unless we prosecute individuals, some people will say that since there are no criminals, there were no crimes, and therefore no Holocaust. Every time we bring a Nazi war criminal to justice we strike a blow against the Holocaust-deniers."

GRAPHIC: Illustration: Photo; Caption: Irwin Cotler Credit: G. Feinblatt / Media.

LOAD-DATE: May 6, 1991

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A8

LENGTH: 195 words

HEADLINE: Deschenes to rule on Soviet trip

BYLINE: CP

DATELINE: HULL, QUE.

BODY:
HULL, Que. (CP) - Justice Jules Deschenes has reserved decision on whether his one-man commission of inquiry should travel to the Soviet Union to collect further evidence against Nazi war criminals living in Canada.

Last month, Deschenes announced that his commission was considering a trip abroad to gather more information against eight suspects.

Now he will review the conflicting advice he has received from Ukrainian and Jewish groups that have appeared before his commission.

At yesterday's final hearing to receive arguments, Toronto lawyer John Sopinka, representing the Ukrainian-Canadian Committee, told the commission that a trip to the Soviet Union would be premature and unnecessary.

"Valuable" evidence

He said the gathering of Soviet evidence for use against Canadians would violate their constitutional guarantees of fundamental justice and would bring the Canadian judicial system into disrepute.

But Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler of the Canadian Jewish Congress argued that the experience of the United States and West Germany in prosecuting Nazi war criminals proves that Soviet evidence is "not only valid but valuable."

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

LENGTH: 398 words

HEADLINE: RE: OACS - Media Advisory - Irwin Cotler to Address Fair Education Funding Rally

SOURCE: NEWS RELEASE TRANSMITTED BY CANADIAN CORPORATE NEWS

BODY: TORONTO, ONTARIO --

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1999 11:45 am
QUEEN'S PARK, Toronto

Internationally-renowned Human Rights advocate Irwin Cotler will be the featured speaker at a Queen's Park rally of an estimated 4,000 parents and students from a variety of independent schools across the province, which starts at 11:45 AM on Tuesday, May 4, 1999. The rally will "put a face to students at independent schools. They too are part of the Ontario school children the government keeps talking about." says Tina Van Beveren of Ancaster, Chairperson of Parents for Educational Choice (PEC). "As the government prepares to release its 1999/2000 Fiscal Budget, it's about time that our tax dollars, which show up on the government's Revenue side, are reflected in the provincial Education budget expenditures as well."

Dr. Cotler, a Professor of Constitutional and Comparative Law at McGill University, who has represented such international figures as Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela, will address the issue of education as a fundamental human right.

Following the rally, Irwin Cotler and some of the thousands of students will then be present in the Visitor's Gallery of the Legislature when MPPs present petitions from 15,000 parents in support of fair funding for independent schools.

Irwin Cotler and PEC spokespersons will also be available for media interviews following the rally. PEC spokespersons will also be watching the 1999/2000 provincial budget carefully to see whether the government can truly meet its commitment to fair funding for all students in the province.

PEC is a province-wide volunteer network of parents seeking government funding for the education of all children who are residents and students of this province. PEC is about empowering families to speak for themselves on this issue.

The rally is being sponsored by MPP Monte Kwinter (Wilson Heights). MPPs have been invited to greet students and parents from their constituencies on the South Lawn of the Main Legislative Building grounds.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Ontario Alliance Christian Schools Wayne J. Levin (416) 398.8900 (416) 398.3418 (FAX) Cell: (416) 727.2265 Email: [email protected] or Ontario Alliance Christian Schools Frank Swoboda (519) 898.2190 (519) 898.2190 (FAX) Email: [email protected]

LOAD-DATE: May 7, 1999

SECTION: Opinion

LENGTH: 172 words

HEADLINE: CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

BYLINE: Jerry Barach

HIGHLIGHT:
Sir, - In his article of December 28 [1992], Irwin Cotler wrote at great length about the conference on "Chartering Human Rights" which was held here last month and which involved top judicial officials and legal scholars from both Canada and Israel.

BODY:
Sir, - In his article of December 28 [1992], Irwin Cotler wrote at great length about the conference on "Chartering Human Rights" which was held here last month and which involved top judicial officials and legal scholars from both Canada and Israel.

Unfortunately, Professor Cotler saw fit to mention only one of the partners involved in organizing the conference - the Canada-Israel Legal Cooperation Program. He never once mentioned that the two other conveners of this prestigious undertaking were the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Faculty of Law and the university's Halbert Center for Canadian Studies. Nor did he acknowledge that nearly all of the sessions were held at the Hebrew University.

Since many people connected with the Hebrew University put in a great deal of time and effort in assuring that this conference would be successful and meaningful, it seems unfair that the university should be slighted in this manner.

JERRY BARACH, Media Relations and Publications, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

LOAD-DATE: January 12, 1993

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 450 words

HEADLINE: 'INDICTMENT' AGAINST SADDAM RELEASED

BYLINE: Jerusalem Post Staff

HIGHLIGHT:
International Human Rights lawyer Irwin Cotler released yesterday the first model indictment of Saddam Hussein, charging the Iraqi leader with "acts of genocide against the Kurdish people."

BODY:
International Human Rights lawyer Irwin Cotler released yesterday the first model indictment of Saddam Hussein, charging the Iraqi leader with "acts of genocide against the Kurdish people."

Cotler called on the international community to "discharge its responsibility and bring Saddam to justice for his genocidal crimes."

The "genocide charge" is part of a larger indictment charging Saddam with each and all of the "Nuremberg Crimes - War Crimes Against Humanity and Crimes Against the Peace," said Cotler, who is "Nuremberg II Group" chairman, a group of international law experts engaged in drafting a "war crimes" indictment against Saddam.

The charge details 10 counts of genocide, including the "intentional killing of members of the Kurdish people; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the Kurds; and deliberatly inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruciton in whole or in part."

The charges are based on documentary evidence and eyewitness testimony regarding the murderous use of chemical weapons, including "gassing" of Kurds between 1983 and 1988; the forced uprooting and expulsion of 500,000 Kurds from their homes, villages and towns; the wanton destrucion of whole villages and towns; and the conversion of Kurdish settlements into massive "killing fields" and "free-fire zones."

"It is shocking to realize that during the entire period of these genocidal acts against the Kurds, the UN Human Rights Commission could not bring itself to pass one resolution condemning Iraqi war crimes and crimes against humanity, let alone its genocidal acts against the Kurds, Cotler added. "Maybe if the international community had brought Saddam to justice in the '80s, he would not have been around to engage in his criminal conduct in the '90s."

Asked what chances there were that Saddam might yet be brought to justice, Cotler expressed disappointment in the "retreat" of the U.S. position from one which initially took the lead in charging him with war crimes and threatening to bring him to justice to one of almost "studied indifference."

However, he added that he was "encouraged" by a whole range of initiatives, including that of the European Community; the resolution of former Nuremberg prosecutors calling for Saddam to be brought to justice; and most important the condemnation of Iraqi "war crimes" by the UN Securtity Council itself, which invited member states to join in the effort to document these crimes.

Cotler said this "model indictment" is only the beginning of their effort. "We will be monitoring, documenting, advocating, keeping up the pressure. We will not rest until the job is done."

LOAD-DATE: June 13, 1991

SECTION: PART 1 THE USSR; SU/6207/i;

LENGTH: 125 words

HEADLINE: Prof Irwin Cotler's "concoctions" (See No 6200)

BODY: A Tass commentary by Yuriy Kornilov accused the Canadian media and the BBC of propagating the anti-Soviet concoctions of a certain Irwin Cotler. Cotler had in fact visited Moscow, supposedly as a delegate to the recent congress of the International Political Science Association. However, he had seldom been seen at the congress. Instead, he had tried to introduce "dubious persons" to the proceedings, fabricated anti-Soviet petitions, tried to find "so-called dissidents" in Moscow back alleys, gone in search of others in the provinces - in flagrant contravention of the rules on travel by foreigners, and had claimed to be some kind of lawyer who would review valid verdicts pronounced by Soviet courts. * For details see Sections.

LAWYERS (83%);

IRWIN COTLER (92%); YURIY KORNILOV (58%);

SECTION: Opinion

LENGTH: 145 words

HEADLINE: HUMAN RIGHTS CAUSES

BYLINE: Ian Fierstein

HIGHLIGHT:
Sir, - Hebrew University honorary doctorate recipient Canadian Professor Irwin Cotler urges Jews not to "allow unfair condemnation of Israel's human rights record to interfere with their supporting human rights causes" (June 18 [1992]). Those who contribute to human rights organizations should be aware of those unfair to Israel. Professor Cotler evidently knows the culprits and should make that information public. Contributors have a right to this information. The lack of such knowledge can result in contributing to none.

BODY:
Sir, - Hebrew University honorary doctorate recipient Canadian Professor Irwin Cotler urges Jews not to "allow unfair condemnation of Israel's human rights record to interfere with their supporting human rights causes" (June 18 [1992]). Those who contribute to human rights organizations should be aware of those unfair to Israel. Professor Cotler evidently knows the culprits and should make that information public. Contributors have a right to this information. The lack of such knowledge can result in contributing to none.

The public should be alert to the importance of political and social support and to the nature and extent of financial support by major foundations, including Ford and Rockefeller, some of which heavily support anti-Israel activities. Again, here Professor Cotler can help with information.

IAN FIERSTEIN, Jerusalem (Skokie, Ill. )

LOAD-DATE: July 6, 1992

SECTION: PART 1 THE USSR; A. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 1. GENERAL AND WESTERN AFFAIRS; SU/6207/A1/5;

LENGTH: 528 words

HEADLINE: The Case of Prof Irwin Cotler, a "Provocateur"

SOURCE: Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union in Russian for abroad 0749 gmt (also in English 0948 gmt) 30 Aug 79; Text of commentary by Yuriy Kornilov headed "Why did Mr Cotler come to Moscow?" (SU/6200/i) (Punctuation as transmitted by Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union):

BODY:
Western, and in particular Canadian, information organs (in particular Radio Canada and the British BBC) are still propagating stories by a certain Irwin Cotler about alleged "violations of human rights" and the "incarceration of dissidents" in the USSR. These stories are nothing new, and it wouldn't be worth drawing attention to them but for one thing - the writer of these fairy tales pretends to be a scientist who alleges that he himself all but became "a victim of groundless persecution" by the Soviet authorities. Who is this Cotler?

This gentleman has actually been to Moscow recently. He came to the USSR as a member of a Canadian delegation to the Congress of the International Political Science Association. However, one would have searched for him in vain in the halls where the Association was meeting. The fact is that although he is listed as a member of the Canadian Association of Political Scientists, the last thing Cotler was interested in were scientific debates.

When he came to Moscow, he wasted his time on quite different things. He tried to drag into the Congress shady characters who had nothing to do with political science; he made up anti-Soviet "petitions"; he searched out so-called "dissidents" in dark alleyways (in the hope that they might offer him some slanderous anti-Soviet fantasies); and he tried to pass himself off as a self-styled "lawyer", who would virtually "review" certain cases in which the Soviet court had already passed sentences.

Having failed to acquire the "materials" he needed in Moscow, Cotler decided to take trips to other places, flagrantly violating existing Soviet laws on the movement of foreigners. In this connection he was stopped and invited to leave Soviet territory. Well, what do you think? When he passed through the airport customs examination, bulky packages containing crude anti-Soviet fabrications were found on Cotler. To put it mildly, strange luggage for someone pretending to be a political scientist!

Now that he is back home in Canada, this "scientist" for want of a better word, is distributing all kinds of anti-Soviet fairy tales, even stating that he intends to call a "press conference". But what can Cotler tell people at this press conference? For all his shopworn slanderous inventions once again confirm one thing - this gentleman has used a scientific forum as a cover for visiting Moscow and afterwards appearing in the role of an anti-Sovieteer and slanderer. An unseemly role, it must be said!

As for Cotler's attempts to present himself in the USSR as some kind of "lawyer" one can only say that Soviet courts act strictly in accordance with the existing law in the USSR, which says among other things that the defendant must take part in the trial proceedings. All attempts by amateur "lawyers" from abroad to "amend" existing Soviet law and to interfere in Soviet legal procedure can hardly be seen otherwise than being out of place - if not provocative. And our hospitality does not extend to provocateurs.

[Note: The English version carried the note "(For distribution to the Canadian press)" above the Tass heading.]

LIBEL & SLANDER (90%); HUMAN RIGHTS (77%);

IRWIN COTLER (95%);

SECTION: Opinion

LENGTH: 179 words

HEADLINE: "SUB JUDICE"

BYLINE: Martin Bar-Shalem; Ed. J.P.

HIGHLIGHT:
Sir, - On August 17 [1993], you published an op-ed article by Professor Irwin Cotler, a professor of law at McGill University, whom you describe in the footnote as one of the petitioners in the case which was the subject of the article and on which the Supreme Court was due to give its ruling on the next day.

BODY:
Sir, - On August 17 [1993], you published an op-ed article by Professor Irwin Cotler, a professor of law at McGill University, whom you describe in the footnote as one of the petitioners in the case which was the subject of the article and on which the Supreme Court was due to give its ruling on the next day.

Section 71 (A) of the Courts Law 1984 (consolidated version) states: "A person shall not publish anything concerning a matter pending in any court if the publication is calculated to influence the course or outcome of the trial." (Section 7l is known as the sub judice rule.) Why else did that petitioner write that article with its adverse critique of the attorney-general's submissions to the court and for publication by that time?

Can any party to a case now publish biased comment on the eve of the court's decision, or only a limited class of people who have given themselves that right?

MARTIN BAR-SHALEM, Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Post was advised by legal counsel that publishing the article did not violate the sub judice rule. - Ed. J.P.

LOAD-DATE: September 8, 1993

SECTION: Opinion

LENGTH: 303 words

HEADLINE: GENOCIDAL WAR

BYLINE: Asher Eder

HIGHLIGHT:
Sir, - In his article of January 1 [1993] dealing with the questions about the legality of recent deportations, Prof. Irwin Cotler brings eight points to be dealt with by the High Court.

BODY:
Sir, - In his article of January 1 [1993] dealing with the questions about the legality of recent deportations, Prof. Irwin Cotler brings eight points to be dealt with by the High Court.

May I suggest that before dealing with these eight points about the legality of the deportations, the Court should rule about the question of the legality of organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PLO, etc. They are not mere murder gangs, or mafias, or the like. Their declared goal is to wipe the State of Israel off the map and to chase its Jews back to where they came from. This would in fact mean the death of millions of Jews either by the hands of these intoxicated groups, or in pogroms all over the world which no one could prevent - neither the pope nor Mr. Kohl, nor Mr. Yeltsin nor Mr. Clinton, nor anyone else.

In this context, one has also to take into consideration what the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the architect of the Jihad against Israel, demanded already in 1943: "Kill the Jews wherever you find them, this is pleasing to Allah." This theme was taken up by the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research which convened at the behest of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1968 in Cairo. There Arab theologians from 24 countries laid down the rules for the Jihad against Israel, which prove that these organized, state-sponsored fanatics had pledged the destruction not only of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people.

This leads one to the conclusion that these above-mentioned terrorist groups and their attitudes match the facts of the case of the Nuremberg trials, which established as law that planning, instigating and waging genocidal wars are punishable crimes against international law. It should not be out of the way for any court to rule accordingly.

ASHER EDER, Jerusalem.

LOAD-DATE: January 18, 1993

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 401 words

HEADLINE: CANADA CALLED WORLD CENTER OF HOLOCAUST-DENIAL LITIGATION

BYLINE: Greer Fay Cashman

HIGHLIGHT:
ONE-THIRD of his first-year law students at Montreal's McGill University believes the Holocaust did not take place, Prof. Irwin Cotler said yesterday at the three-day Canada-Israel Law Conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on "chartering human rights."

BODY:
ONE-THIRD of his first-year law students at Montreal's McGill University believes the Holocaust did not take place, Prof. Irwin Cotler said yesterday at the three-day Canada-Israel Law Conference at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on "chartering human rights."

Cotler attributed this to their frequent exposure to reports of Holocaust denials and to the fact they were born into the post-Holocaust era.

Canada, he said, has emerged as one of the world centers of hate propaganda and Holocaust-denial litigation. It is one of many democratic societies which in recent years has witnessed "an almost unprecedented explosion" of racial and religious incitement against vulnerable minorities.

Cotler recalled the prescience of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who when still foreign minister of the defunct USSR two years ago had spoken of racial incitement as a "gathering storm."

In Israel, legislation against incitement to racism was enacted by the Knesset in 1985, in response to the election of Kach leader Meir Kahane to the legislature. Yet despite the racial violence promulgated by Kach, the only conviction obtained under the law, observed Prof. Amos Shapira of Tel Aviv University, was of an Israeli Arab who distributed pro-Saddam Hussein pamphlets during the Gulf war.

At informal discussions yesterday, High Court Justices Menachem Elon and Aharon Barak were at odds over the wording of the proposed Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty.

Whereas the Canadian Charter of Rights and freedoms refers to a free and democratic society, the basic law relates to the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Barak would rather omit the word "Jewish."

"If I want to know about democracy," Elon said, "I go to Canada. If I want to know about human dignity, I have to go to Jewish sources. Basic human rights originated 3,000 years ago in the Tora."

Barak recommended that an attempt be made to avoid contradiction between Jewish and democratic values. He admitted to being afraid that, in clashes between Jewish values and democratic values, Jewish law would prevail.

Former attorney-general Yitzhak Zamir was more optimistic. "As far as future legislation is concerned," he said, "the legislature could enact laws which give expression to religious values and norms, but only if they could be tolerated in a democratic society and vice versa."

LOAD-DATE: January 21, 1993

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 264 words

HEADLINE: Cotler urges all Jews to continue supporting human rights causes

BYLINE: Jerusalem Post Reporter

HIGHLIGHT:
Israeli and Diaspora Jewry should not allow unfair condemnations of Israel's human rights record to interfere with their supporting human rights causes, said Prof. Irwin Cotler, a Canadian lawyer and Soviet Jewry activist, at Hebrew University's annual convocation ceremony yesterday.

BODY:
Israeli and Diaspora Jewry should not allow unfair condemnations of Israel's human rights record to interfere with their supporting human rights causes, said Prof. Irwin Cotler, a Canadian lawyer and Soviet Jewry activist, at Hebrew University's annual convocation ceremony yesterday.

Cotler, of McGill University, was among 12 recipients of honorary doctorates at the ceremony. Regular Ph.D. degrees were also awarded to 179 graduates of the various faculties and schools of the university.

Cotler said it was unfortunate that unfair attacks by other countries on Israel's human rights record had led some Jews to reduce their support for human rights causes.

He urged Israelis to become advocates of human rights, both for the rights of Israel and the Jewish people as well as for all people.

The human rights activist said human rights are nothing if they do not include the the rights of Jews, but Jews must also work to build a just society and make the human rights struggle part of the Jewish agenda.

Others receiving honorary doctorates were former President of the Supreme Court Justice Shimon Agranat; Israeli actor Shimon Finkel; Prof. Arthur W. Galtson, Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson, Henry Taub and Prof. Arthur Kornberg of the US; Lord Rothschild of Britain; Prof. Helmut Schwarz of Germany; and Mike Feldman and Jacobo Zabludovsky of Mexico.

Rabbi Rene Samuel Sirat, chief rabbi of the Consistoire of France, received the Samuel Rothberg Prize in Jewish Education and Prof. Meir Kister of Hebrew University received the Solomon Bublick Prize.

LOAD-DATE: June 18, 1992

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 310 words

HEADLINE: Soviets may rehabilitate Sharansky, Yosef Begun

BYLINE: WALTER RUBY

HIGHLIGHT:
MOSCOW - Soviet Procurator-General Nikolai Trubin has agreed to review the cases of Natan Sharansky, Yosef Begun and other former prisoners of Zion to determine if they should be officially rehabilitated, Canadian human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler said yesterday.

BODY:
MOSCOW - Soviet Procurator-General Nikolai Trubin has agreed to review the cases of Natan Sharansky, Yosef Begun and other former prisoners of Zion to determine if they should be officially rehabilitated, Canadian human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler said yesterday.

Cotler said Sharansky, Begun, and other former clients, such as Vladimir Brodsky and Vladimir Slepak, had asked him to find out whether the government is prepared to accord them unconditional rehabilitation.

According to Cotler, Trubin said the government has already rehabilitated Alexander Solzhenitsyn and numerous other exiled dissidents after deciding "their conduct at the time would have been legal under the today's laws."

Told by Cotler that most of his clients were arrested under laws forbidding "anti-Soviet slander and agitation," Trubin reportedly said: "In that case, there should be no problem."

Trubin warned that espionage charges brought against Sharansky in 1977 would be harder to resolve, but promised to check into the case, Cotler said.

He also promised that his office would open a no-holds-barred investigation into Raoul Wallenberg's fate. He said that in the past, the KGB and Communist Party had blocked his efforts to carry out such an investigation, but that was no longer the case.

Earlier, Cotler received a similar commitment from Vadim Bakatin, the new chief of the KGB. Bakatin has promised the international team of investigators looking into the Wallenberg case full access to KGB files. This had been blocked by Bakatin's predecessor, Vladimir Kryuchkov.

"We are now closer than ever to the truth about the fate of Wallenberg, and I now believe we can arrive at the truth," Cotler said. If the Soviets really cooperate with the investigators, it should be possible to determine what happened to Wallenberg within a year, he said.

LOAD-DATE: October 7, 1991

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 407 words

HEADLINE: STUDY SHOWS SYRIAN JEWS 'HELD HOSTAGE' TO SECRET SERVICE

BYLINE: BATSHEVA TSUR, Jerusalem Post Reporter

HIGHLIGHT:
Syrian Jews are not only a captive community denied the right to leave but are "hostage" to the Syrian secret service, which holds a dossier on every member and considers them allied with the "Zionist enemy," Prof. Irwin Cotler told the Jerusalem Post yesterday.

BODY:
Syrian Jews are not only a captive community denied the right to leave but are "hostage" to the Syrian secret service, which holds a dossier on every member and considers them allied with the "Zionist enemy," Prof. Irwin Cotler told the Jerusalem Post yesterday.

Cotler, an international human rights lawyer from McGill University in Canada, did a study, to be released shortly, of Syrian Jewry and human rights, which also includes an updated report on the incarceration of Jews.

"Syrian Jewry is in a prison without walls, where the right to leave is not only forbidden but the attempted exercise of that right may result, and has resulted in the past, in arrest, detention and imprisonment, torture and disappearance," he said.

Cotler has paid three visits to Syria over the past 13 years, and on one occasion met personally with President Hafez Assad. He noted that there are some 5,000 Jews in Syria - 3,500 in Damascus and the rest in Aleppo and Kuamishli.

Cotler expressed the hope that the U.S. and the European Community would exercise the appropriate diplomatic, political and economic leverage "so that it becomes in Assad's self-interest to let Syrian Jews go."

The denial of the right to leave also involves that of family reunification, Cotler said, because there is scarcely a Syrian Jewish family which has not been divided over the years.

There is a disproportionate number of single Jewish women, in comparison to eligible males, and after their early twenties the remaining women are not able to find men to marry. As a result, the women must choose between celibacy or conversion.

Like Syrians generally, but even more so given their vulnerablity, Jews are constantly subject to harassment, Cotler said. This is so either because they did not inform the Mukhabarat (secret police) of their activities -for example, holding a bar-mitzva or wedding, meeting with a foreigner, or knowing someone traveling abroad.

The Middle East Watch Group, an affiliate of Human Rights Watch, last year reported testimony of a recent Syrian Jewish escapee, Cotler added. The man recalled the pattern of intimidation and virtual house arrest: "When they came into my store, I never knew what was going to happen. Were they looking for a bribe ... (or) checking my family? Had someone told them something that would get me into trouble? I felt powerless because whatever happened there was no recourse."

LOAD-DATE: June 13, 1991

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 384 words

HEADLINE: SADDAM SHOULD FACE TRIAL FOR WAR CRIMES, JURIST SAYS

BYLINE: Jerusalem Post Staff

HIGHLIGHT:
"We need a Nuremberg II tribunal to bring Saddam Hussein to justice for each and all the Nuremberg crimes - crimes against the peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity," human rights lawyer Prof. Irwin Cotler said last night at the annual Raoul Wallenberg lecture at Bar-Ilan University.

BODY:
"We need a Nuremberg II tribunal to bring Saddam Hussein to justice for each and all the Nuremberg crimes - crimes against the peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity," human rights lawyer Prof. Irwin Cotler said last night at the annual Raoul Wallenberg lecture at Bar-Ilan University.

Cotler added that "it was as if Saddam consulted an international lawyer, asked him what crimes he could commit, and then proceeded to commit each and every one of them."

"The notion of a Middle East order under the rule of law is a contradiction in terms as long as Saddam is not brought to justice."

Cotler called on the UN Security Council to pass the necessary resolution creating an international tribunal to try Saddam and those associated with him for these "Nuremberg crimes."

"It is absurd for the Security Council to hold Iraq accountable for these crimes and then do nothing about the person who was responsible for planning, initiating and perpretating them. Indeed, in not bringing him to justice, the Security Council is turning its back in the Nuremberg principles, if not its own resolutions condemning Iraq for grave breaches of international law," the McGill University professor said.

Cotler called on U.S. Secretary of State James Baker to convene a Security Council meeting and initiate the process to bring Saddam to justice. "The U.S. justified the Gulf war on the grounds that Iraq - and Saddam - had committed all the imaginable international crimes; Bush and Baker then spoke of a post-Gulf new Middle East order founded on the rule of law. But the Bush/Baker notion of a Middle East under the rule of law is a mockery so long as Saddam remains free even though he committed each and every one of the Nuremberg crimes - including the 'mother of all crimes' - crimes against the peace."

Cotler concluded that the case for bringing Saddam to justice "is as compelling as it is clear." He said that his jurists coalition - the Nuremberg II Group - and other NGO's like the International League for Human Rights are urging such action on many grounds.

He listed seven points: the moral imperative for such action, fidelity to the rule of law, deterrence, redress and retribution, fidelity to principle and precedent, bearing witness and a matter of education.

LOAD-DATE: June 5, 1991

SECTION: Features

LENGTH: 2491 words

HEADLINE: INSIDE THE GULAG

BYLINE: Irwin Cotler

HIGHLIGHT:
ELEVEN years ago, as counsel to Natan Sharansky, I traveled to the Soviet Union to see my client, who was then being held incommunicado in the forbidding Chistopol prison.

BODY:
ELEVEN years ago, as counsel to Natan Sharansky, I traveled to the Soviet Union to see my client, who was then being held incommunicado in the forbidding Chistopol prison.

The Canadian government had arranged a meeting for me with Roman Rudenko, then procurator-general of the Soviet Union, and I was hoping that my request to see Sharansky would be granted.

One day before these meetings were to take place, while driving to visit Sharansky's parents with his brother, Leonid, our car was stopped by militiamen. We were taken to a nearby military compound and the interrogation began.

It soon became clear that the only person the Soviets wished to interrogate was me. All my requests to contact the Canadian Embassy, the procurator-general's office and my Soviet hosts were denied.

After being detained and interrogated for three hours, I was driven to the airport, put on a plane, and expelled from the Soviet Union. I was told I would never return again - unless it were to a Soviet prison.

I could not help but recall these events when I recently became the first foreign lawyer ever permitted to visit the infamous Chistopol prison, 800 kilometers east of Moscow.

I was also the first western lawyer ever authorized to visit a Soviet political prisoner in Chistopol - in this case, my client, Mikhail Kazachkov, who is now serving his 15th year in the Soviet Gulag.

THE PARALLELS between the Sharansky and Kazachkov cases are dramatic. Both were arrested after seeking to emigrate, and were convicted in what were clearly politically motivated prosecutions.

Kazachkov was arrested in November, 1975, 16 months before Sharansky. Both served most of their sentences in the Gulag, and both spent a good deal of time in the brutal "punishment cells" of Chistopol and Perm Labor Camp 35.

Sharansky was once confined to a punishment cell in Chistopol because he participated in a solidarity hunger strike on behalf of Kazachkov, who had himself been on a hunger strike to protest prison brutality.

The connection between the two goes deeper than that. Sharansky called Kazachkov one of the three heroes of his book, Fear No Evil, (the other two are Soviet dissident Valery Smirnov and Ukrainian political prisoner Bhodan Klimchak, who is still imprisoned in Perm Labor Camp 35).

My recent visit to the Soviet Union, 11 years after I was expelled, was authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I was accompanied by Soviet scientist and long-time refusenik Leonid Stonov, who recently received permission to emigrate after being denied an exit visa for 10 years on grounds that he possessed state secrets. We were hosted throughout the visit by the Tartar region director of prisons, Colonel Rif Muratov.

The most dramatic evidence of glasnost in the Gulag came when Muratov told me that "Five years ago, I would have been obliged to arrest you as a foreigner driving through Kazan ..."

WE ARRIVED at the prison and were met by the entire prison administration, including Chief of Prison Minivazikh Akhmadeev.

Our discussion centered on whether glasnost, and perestroika, had indeed come to Chistopol. Because of my involvement with Soviet political prisoners, including former Chistopol prisoners Sharansky and Yosef Mendelevitch, I had a fairly good understanding of conditions in Chistopol, which was regarded as one of the strictest in the Soviet Union. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, approximately 35 political prisoners were held there. That number has dropped dramatically since then.

I had come with a list of questions about the prison's current confinement conditions. I hoped to evaluate the prison using, among other guidelines, the UN Minimum Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners.

But there is no substitute for listening to the testimony of the prisoners themselves, as well as evaluating information provided by prison officials.

So at our request, the prison director led us through whatever part of the prison we wanted to see and let us talk with the prisoners about whatever we liked.

We began by observing visits between prisoners and their families. The prisoners are separated from their visitors by a glass partition and speak by telephone. They have unobstructed visual, though not physical, contact.

Legally such visits may take place every six months, but the system has been notorious for punitively postponing and canceling them to isolate and demoralize political prisoners.

For example, Sharansky's aging mother once traveled the 800 kilometers in the bitter winter for her semi-annual meeting with her son, only to be turned away at the prison door. Mikhail Kazachkov's mother had been allowed only three visits in 14 years. Imprisoned Helsinki monitors had their family visits routinely canceled, and so on.

It now seemed that these visits were proceeding according to the law, or what one official called "Soviet compliance with standards of civilized society."

Our next visit was to the punishment cell, often regarded by prisoners as a torture chamber because it isolates and brutalizes, particularly during the harsh winters.

The punishment cell does not seem to have changed much since Sharansky experienced it. It remains cramped, and has jagged stone walls. Its only "furniture" is a narrow wood plank which serves as a bed and which is folded during the day, when the prisoner is prohibited from using it. At night, a prisoner turns over in his "bed" at his peril, since the wooden plank is next to the jagged edges of the wall.

The only bathroom facility is a tiny latrine in the corner that is literally carved out of cement. The switch for the cell's single light bulb is controlled from outside the heavy metal door and can be used as another punitive device.

But while the punishment cell's design does not appear to have changed much, the practise of confining prisoners for up to 15 days in such cells appears to have stopped.

Akhmadeev, the prison chief, said that he has not confined any prisoners there for the last year. When asked if that meant that a new regulation prohibits its use, he said, "No, the regulation is the same. I still have the right to confine a prisoner in a punishment cell for up to 15 days. It is just that I have chosen not to exercise that right.

"If situations required that kind of confinement, I would still do it," he continued. "I have not abandoned it as a matter of policy, but I have not instituted it as a matter of practise."

We also learned that while the "architecture" of the punishment cell has not changed since Sharansky wrote about it, the conditions of confinement have been altered. For one, prison authorities are now legally required to heat the cell during the winter to a minimum temperature of 18C; prisoners are supplied with blankets; they must have one hot meal a day; and radios are permitted.

The isolation and harshness, however are still there.

DURING our discussions with prisoners, which took place in several places in the work zone, the communal cells, the medical wing and elsewhere, it was clear that the prisoners were speaking freely.

I put similiar questions to all the prisoners I met, and from these discussions an independently corroborated picture of life in Chistopol emerged:

* There is no indiscriminate beating of prisoners.

* The practise of canceling family visits as a punishment is no longer prevalent, though prison officials acknowledge that visits may sometimes be postponed.

* Correspondence is not impeded or censored.

* Prisoners receive an improved diet, including a steady if limited supply of fruit, vegetables, fish, and occasionally meat. One prisoner joked that the food situation is not much better outside the prison - and in some places, even worse. Another said that at least they don't have to wait in long lines to buy their food. A third said that while Moscow was experiencing a "cigarette crisis," prisoners were still smoking.

* Prisoners did not complain about unsafe working conditions, or brutalizing labor. The "work zones," where such things as pajamas and clotheslines are made, were noteworthy more for the age of the equipment than for indications of inhumane working conditions.

* Prisoners said they were supplied with Bibles if they asked, and were visited by clergy. There were no complaints of religious discrimination or interference with religious practises.

* Head shaving still exists, but is not uniformly enforced. We were told that this practise will soon be prohibited, and it already appears to have abated.

* Prisoners said relations with prison guards and officials are good. Guards who had been known for abusing prisoners had been removed.

* Many prisoners were appealing their sentences or convictions, but these attempts appeared to meet with little success. Few seemed able to afford lawyers, and many were cynical about the chances for success in appeals. They acknowledged the assistance of prison authorities in processing their appeals, but felt that the "system" was unresponsive.

PERHAPS the most important development at Chistopol was visits of "prison monitors," including Soviet deputies.

Two weeks before my visit, a monitoring group including Sergei Kovalov, a former political prisoner and now a member of the Russian Supreme Soviet and chairman of its Human Rights Commission; Arsenyi Raginsky, a former political prisoner and an expert on prison conditions; and Mikhail Molostrov, a former political prisoner who is also a Russian Supreme Soviet deputy and member of its Human Rights Commission, and yet another former political prisoner, visited the prison.

The advent of these visits by Soviet monitoring groups and my unrestricted visit are signs that glasnost and perestroika have come to the Gulag.

The main reason for my visit itself was to meet with Mikhail Kazachkov.

A measure of my client's status in the prison was that even prison officials called him a "political prisoner." When I asked the authorities how many political prisoners remained in Chistopol, one answered - not without some banter - "Ask Kazachkov. He's the expert. He knows the exact numbers."

Kazachkov's 15 years in the Gulag and his systematic study of prison conditions have given him a huge reservoir of knowledge about Soviet prisons.

My moving, two-hour exchange with Kazachkov took place, significantly, not in his cell but in the office of the prison chief.

I suggested to Kazachkov that we meet privately if he wished, since the prison chief had offered us that option. But Kazachkov said he has "no secrets, nothing to fear and nothing to hide. The authorities might just as well hear what we have to say." In any case, our conversation was entirely free of intrusion.

Kazachkov's English is excellent, the best of any political prisoner I have ever represented, including Sharansky.

Kazachkov, convicted of smuggling, currency speculation and treason, resolutely maintains his innocence. He says that both the trial and the presentation of evidence against him were utterly Kafkaesque. On the charge of smuggling, the authorities acknowleged that everything Kazachkov had done was legal, but was in fact "illegal" because Kazachkov "was using Soviet law against the authorities."

He was also convicted for allegedly conveying state secrets to an American Embassy official. In fact, Kazachkov had made eight unsuccessful attempts to emigrate, but Soviet officials were constantly confiscating his invitations and thereby depriving him of the chance to apply. So Kazachkov asked an American Embassy official for information on how to emigrate and work at an American university, and the official replied in writing.

That information from an American official to Kazachkov was stretched into "evidence" that Kazachkov had conveyed state secrets to an American official.

Kazachkov told us that at one time, there had been up to 35 political prisoners at Chistopol. All but Kazachkov had been released, he said, and one other man whom he considered a victim of politically motivated prosecution.

But he did say that there are still about a dozen political prisoners at Perm Labor Camp 35. These include Bylorussian Christian Alexandar Goldovitch, who was charged with treason for trying to cross the Black Sea in a rubber raft; Ukrainian political prisoner Bohdan Klimchak, whose release was scheduled but who has received an additional "sentence" in an "internal" trial in Perm; and Jewish political prisoner Alexander Rasskazov, who says he wants to emigrate to Israel upon his release.

INDEED, while the situation at Chistopol had improved considerably, glasnost has yet to come to the Urals and Perm Labor Camp 35. When New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal visited Perm in December 1988, prison authorities refused to allow Kazachkov, who was then held there, to meet with him, saying he was ill. Kazachkov managed to stick his head out of a window to make contact with Rosenthal. For that, he was tried and convicted in August 1989, of violating the state correctional regime and sentenced to an additional 3 years.

This latter conviction was quashed this summer after an appeal. Kazachkov is now due to be released on November 21 [1990]. He refused to be "amnestied" earlier because he felt it would suggest that he was guilty.

Kazachkov is seeking full rehabilitation, which he would like to secure even before his release. He authorized me to apply for rehabilitation on his behalf, and upon my return to Moscow I met with an official to begin the process.

Kazachkov has also set aside his plans to emigrate for now. He does not believe, he said, that he has the "moral right" to abandon all those engaged in the human-rights struggle in the Soviet Union and who have helped him while he has been in prison. He also feels that he cannot abandon his fellow political prisoners.

AT THE END of our meeting, I gave Kazachkov a copy of Sharansky's Fear No Evil. At first the authorities questioned whether it was permissible to give a prisoner a book that was not in Russian and that had not been published in the Soviet Union.

I argued that much of the book was conceived in Chistopol and is about the prison itself. In any case, I said that the book was in English and probably only Kazachkov would be able to read it. The authorities relented.

The meeting, already morally uplifting, ended on an inspiring note when Kazachkov said that 15 years of imprisonment had not broken him; that he was still full of energy; that he was looking forward to taking his place in the rights struggle; that ultimately this struggle for human rights would succeed.

There was no need for more words. Only an embrace - and a sense of being in the presence of a person of immense moral courage.

GRAPHIC: Illustration: 3 photos; Caption: No caption (3 photos of Irwin Cotler)
Credit: Nitsan Shorer.

LOAD-DATE: May 7, 1991

SECTION: (524) F 14'00 pg 1,9; ISSN: 0848-0427

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4789503

LENGTH: 1279 words

HEADLINE: Bloc set to fuel fire on Clarity Bill committee: rookie Grit MP Irwin Cotler beats out other Quebec veteran MPs

BYLINE: Scandiffio, Mike

BODY:
Rookie Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler has won a seat on the legislative committee set up to study the government's referendum Clarity Bill, beating out other more politically seasoned Quebec MPs who lobbied for a seat.

MPs speculate he was handpicked by Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephane Dion to sit on the committee, edging out other veteran Quebec MPs who were lobbying to get on the legislative committee. More politically seasoned Quebec Liberal MPs Nick Discepola (Vaudreuil- Soulanges, Que.) and Eleni Bakopanos (Ahuntsic, Que.), who have debated and sparred with separatists in Ottawa and in Quebec over the years, had said they would like to be on the committee.

Mr. Cotler, a bilingual constitutional law expert, won the Montreal riding Mont-Royal in a by election last fall after veteran MP Sheila Finestone vacated her seat for a Senate appointment.

Mr. Cotler told The Hill Times he did not lobby for a spot on the committee and denied that he was recruited by Mr. Dion.

''I was advised by the whip, Mr. Kilger, that I was going to be named to the committee shortly before the matter became public,'' he said.

Last-minute announcement or not, Mr. Cotler admitted his appointment does make sense.

''I have taught constitutional law, that is my area of expertise so I can bring that kind of experience to the work of the committee,'' said Mr. Cotler.

Last week, the House released the legislative committee list. Eight Liberal MPs will have a seat, including Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Man.), Irwin Cotler, Ray Bonin (Nickel Belt, Ont.), Claude Drouin (Beauce, Que.), chair of the Quebec caucus, Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds- Dollard, Que.), Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood, Ont.), Karen Redman (Kitchener, Ont.), Andy Scott (Fredericton, N.B.); three Reform Mps Grant Hill (Macleod, Alta.), Rahim Jaffer (Edmonton-Strathcona, Alta.), Val Meredith (South Sourrey-White Rock-Langley, B.C.); two Bloc Quebecois MPs Daniel Turp (Beauharnois-Salaberry, Que.) and Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier-Montcalm, Que.) and NDP House Leader Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Transcona, Man.) and Tory MP Andre Bachand (Richmond- Arthabaska, Que.).

As expected, House Speaker Gib Parent (Niagara Centre, Ont.) named Deputy Speaker Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands, Ont.) as the legislative committee chairman.

As the committee gets ready to start its hearings, the Bloc Quebecois is set to derail the legislation. Bill C-20, the Clarity Act, sets the rules for secession. The separatists have tried to stir up public opposition to the bill with condemnation of the bill by former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau and Bloc stalling tactics in the House. The Bloc goes into the committee with no intention of approving the bill and is attacking it as an infringement of Quebecers' right of self- determination.

''Our object is not to have this bill changed, it's to have it withdrawn,'' said the Bloc's lead critic Daniel Turp, who argues that Quebec does not need referendum rules from the federal government but a sense that the government will respect an affirmative sovereignty vote and will negotiate with a separatist government.

Liberal MPs say Mr. Cotler's main role will be to serve as a counter to Mr. Turp, who is also a law professor.

Responded Mr. Cotler: ''Daniel Turp and I happen to be friends so that should be an interesting set of exchanges.''

The bill passed second reading last week after the government invoked time allocation in response to procedural stalling by the Bloc. The committee is expected to hold an organizational meeting this afternoon to set the agenda and draw up witness lists and opposition members will try to convince the government to allow the committee to travel.

''We want people to be heard in numbers, not just here in Ottawa but in Quebec and in the rest of Canada,'' said Mr. Turp.

In a publicly-released letter to Bloc Quebecois House Leader Michel Gauthier (Roberval, Que.), Government House Leader Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Ont.) said the government does not intend to stick rigidly to the Standing Orders regulation of only calling witness on technical questions, as long as that does not delay the committee.

However, Mr. Boudria said the government is unconvinced the committee needs to travel as requested by the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party. He maintained the hearings in Ottawa will allow the committee to hear from relevant witnesses without losing time.

Mr. Turp said the government's refusal to travel is part of a process to rush the bill through Parliament.

''What do you make of it? A government invokes closure after eight hours of debate, who doesn't want a committee to go to the people about a bill that is very important for the future,'' he said. ''There is something undemocratic about the process.''

Liberals have put lower-key MPs on the committee in an effort to avoid public confrontation on the bill and move the bill quickly through committee stage.

Meanwhile, the Bloc has teamed Mr. Turp up with Mr. Bellehumeur who is also a lawyer known for his aggressive and fiery partisan style in the House. With his famous bow-tie and polite debating style, Mr. Turp is considered more of a academic than a politician in temperament.

''It's a good idea to have a good argumentative lawyer on the committee. It will be a good team and it shows we are serious,'' said Mr. Turp.

Parliamentary Secretary Reg Alcock, who will be responsible for getting the bill through the committee, rejected opposition calls to let the committee travel to hear from witnesses.

''I wouldn't anticipate a committee travelling,'' he said. ''It is a very straightforward bill and affects every province in Canada. If we were to travel, we would, by necessity, have to travel everywhere and I'm not sure with a bill that is small and technical, it is necessary.''

Liberal MPs say the five-page bill is more technical in nature, laying out the process the House would follow in deciding to accept a secession referendum question. They say the committee does not need to debate such controversial details as what would constitute an acceptable majority. Liberals predict the committee could be finished its hearings in a couple of weeks.

Mr. Alcock pointed to the government's decision to set up the legislative committee as proof that the Liberals are not shutting out the opposition in a plan to fast-track the bill through the House.

'Because of the sensitivity of the issue, he did not want to have this seen as a strictly full-speed ahead, the government is charging headlong with it,'' said Mr. Alcock. ''That's why this device was chosen. The chair has the respect of all the parties. There is more of an assurance that the process will be more even handed.''

Mr. Alcock said under a legislative committee, the chair is answerable to the Speaker and not the government and, therefore, will be more impartial during committee study.

Mr. Milliken, who has chaired the House's Procedure and House Affairs Committee in the last Parliament, said a legislative committee chair differs from a House chair in that, as a Speaker appointee, he is technically ''not a member of the committee.'' He said he will not take part in meetings of the Liberal committee members to discuss the bill. And it's assumed Mr. Milliken will not vote. Liberal MPs are also depending on Mr. Milliken's procedural expertise to keep the Bloc from turning the committee hearings into a forum on sovereignty.

''As a chair, Peter knows the rules, if they try anything, he can cut them off,'' said Mr. Discepola.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1075

LOAD-DATE: June 7, 2000

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A16

LENGTH: 464 words

HEADLINE: DEMJANJUK'S RELEASE BLOCKED ;
ISRAELI COURT GRANTS ANOTHER TRY

SOURCE: Wire services

BYLINE: The Associated Press

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
Israel's top judge on Friday held up John Demjanjuk's departure for the fourth time in three weeks, reflecting Israel's reluctance to free a suspected Nazi war criminal even as legal recourses crumble.

Holocaust survivors have been seeking to try Demjanjuk on new war crimes charges after he was acquitted July 29 of being "Ivan the Terrible," a sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp.

Two Supreme Court panels and the attorney general have come out against a new trial, citing the danger of double jeopardy, weak evidence, and already long legal proceedings against the retired Ohio autoworker.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk has denied all involvement in war crimes, saying he spent most of World War II in German POW camps after being captured as a Soviet soldier in May 1942.

But on Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice Meir Shamgar granted the petitioners another two weeks to try to convince the high court that it should look at the case again.

Legal experts have said chances of a new trial are remote, but that because of the sensitivity of the case the court was permitting the petitioners to exhaust all legal avenues.

"It is clear that it is going to be a very uphill battle," acknowledged Irwin Cotler, a Canadian attorney.

Cotler told Shamgar that Israel is required by international law to try any suspected Nazi war criminal in its jurisdiction. Other petitioners said Israel also had a moral obligation as the state that gave refuge to 300,000 Holocaust survivors.

Asked about the protracted legal wrangling, Uri Dromi, head of the Government Press Office said: "We are trying to reconcile historical justice and legal justice. There are so many painful issues involved here that there is no easy way out."

Demjanjuk's son, John Jr., said he was disappointed and worried about his father's well-being. "It is difficult to imagine that he has to continue to suffer in a 12-foot-by-10-foot, 100-degree prison cell.

But that is the hand we have been dealt," he said.

Demjanjuk's son-in-law, Ed Nishnic, even said he understood Israel's reluctance to free Demjanjuk.

"Israel rose out of the ashes of the Holocaust. There is no question that the crimes of Ivan the Terrible and other alleged crimes of Nazi war criminals should be considered very seriously in this country," he said.

Petitioner Noam Federman of the ultra-rightist Kach movement, which has threatened to kill Demjanjuk, said he was "happy for every day that Demjanjuk is suffering." In court, he demanded that Demjanjuk be tried and hanged.

Demjanjuk, 73, has been held in an isolation cell in Ayalon Prison since he was extradited from the United States in February 1986 to stand trial as "Ivan."

LOAD-DATE: October 4, 1995

SECTION: JEWISH WORLD; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 681 words

HEADLINE: Cotler takes crusade to Canada's parliament

BYLINE: Yehuda Poch

BODY:
Professor Irwin Cotler isn't the typical rookie member of Parliament, waiting to learn the ropes.

After more than 30 years in the forefront of human-rights activism, he was elected to the Canadian parliament last month in the biggest federal landslide ever.

Cotler won 92.4 percent of the vote against three other candidates in the Jewish-dominated Montreal district of Mount Royal.

"I do not regard my election as a detour from my present involvement in the struggle for human rights and human dignity," Cotler said, "but as a continuation, intensification, and amplification of my work in the cause of human rights these past 30 years."

To begin, Cotler is applying his agenda locally. He plans on addressing health care, social assistance, and housing - three major domestic issues - as human-rights issues.

He also plans on addressing children's rights, and credits his daughter, Gila, with his main campaign slogan: "If you want to know the real test of human rights at any time, in any situation, in any part of the world, ask yourself one question - Is it good for children?"

"That two out of 10 Canadian children live in poverty - and that this is true for four out of 10 children of visible minorities - is simply unacceptable," says Cotler.

In addition, Cotler's domestic agenda contains advocacy of minorities', women's, and aboriginal people's rights to fair treatment and freedom from discrimination.

Of course, the issue of human rights has an international element as well, and it is not one from which Cotler shies away.

Canada needs to develop "a human-rights foreign policy where we do not engage in protracted, after-the-fact debates about humanitarian intervention, like in Kosovo or East Timor, let alone Rwanda, where we did not even intervene to stop a preventable genocide, but where we can develop a culture of prevention to preempt the killing fields in the first place."

Cotler also advocates a fair and open immigration and refugee policy, and he views other domestic issues, such as education geared toward a hi-tech economy, criminal accountability, and political activism as human rights issues.

"The struggle for human rights is, in the most profound sense, the struggle for ourselves. Because in what we say, or more importantly in what we do, we make a statement about ourselves as a people, and we make a statement about ourselves as people."

Cotler's first job after earning his doctorate from Yale Law School in the late 1960s was as special adviser to then-justice minister John Turner.

While occupying that position, Cotler forged alliances with many young politicians in Ottawa, who are now cabinet ministers and senators.

Herb Gray, now deputy prime minister, and Lloyd Axworthy, who was also then a special assistant, and is now foreign minister, were two of these. Prime Minister Jean Chretien was a backbench MP at the time, and Cotler made his acquaintance then as well.

Cotler was active in the leadership of the Soviet Jewry movement in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s, and is a leading member of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. He is a professor at the law faculty of McGill University in Montreal, and was recently appointed to the law faculty of Hebrew University, an appointment that was scheduled to take effect beginning in 2001.

Current Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour was active with Cotler in the Soviet Jewry movement, and was, for a time, the leader of the Soviet Jewry friendship group in parliament.

Current Justice Minister Anne McLellan is a former colleague of Cotler's, who also served as a professor of law.

"I trust that the personal, as well as professional, relationships that I have developed with these ministers and MPs over the years will facilitate the advancement of the human rights agenda in all its aspects," says Cotler.

"My objective in presenting my candidacy - and now since my election - is to be as effective an MP as possible on behalf of my constituents and the common cause which we espouse."

GRAPHIC: Photo: 'That two out of 10 Canadian children live in poverty - and that this is true for four out of 10 children of visible minorities - is simply unacceptable. (Credit: Nitsan Shorer)

LOAD-DATE: December 6, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. B13

LENGTH: 130 words

HEADLINE: Soviets said to be freeing dissidents soon

BYLINE: (CP)

DATELINE: MONTREAL

BODY:
MONTREAL (CP) - Human rights activist Irwin Cotler said yesterday he has indications that the Soviet Union is preparing to release a number of prominent dissidents.

Cotler, well known for his part in securing the release earlier this year of Anatoly Shcharansky, said he got hints of new developments in talks with Soviet officials at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Representatives of the 35 countries that signed the 1975 Helsinki human rights accords attended the conference, held in Vienna last week, to monitor how member countries are complying with the agreement.

"My sense is that we are going to witness the release of a number of high profile dissidents," Cotler, a law professor at McGill University, said in an interview.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: Domestic News

LENGTH: 162 words

HEADLINE: McGill Law Professor Irwin Cotler is sworn in

DATELINE: MONTREAL, 26 Nov. 1999

BODY:
McGill Law Professor Irwin Cotler, recently elected Member of Parliament for Mount Royal riding, will be sworn in on Monday, November 29th,[1999] at 1:15 PM in Room 253-D, Centre Block of the House of Commons. Professor Cotler will be escorted into the House of Commons by Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

In the words of Professor Cotler:

"I regard my election to Parliament as a continuation and amplification of a lifelong involvement - the struggle for human rights and human dignity at home and abroad - a theme which inspired and resonated throughout my campaign encounters. Human rights is not "single issue" matter. The struggle for human rights is, in the most profound sense, the struggle for ourselves. Because in what we say, or more importantly in what we do, we make a statement about ourselves as a people. We make a statement about ourselves as people".

For further information: Charmaine Lyn, (514) 398-5372

LN-ORG: HOUSE OF COMMONS (77%); MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT (56%);

LOAD-DATE: November 26, 1999

SECTION: PART 1 THE USSR; SU/6200/i;

LENGTH: 65 words

HEADLINE: Canadian delegate to political science congress expelled

BODY:
Montreal radio reported on 20th August [1979] that Prof Irwin Cotler of McGill University (Note: a delegate to the International Political Science Association Congress in Moscow, a report of which will be published later) had been arrested in the USSR and given "five minutes to pack and catch a flight for London". He had been "seeking the release" of the dissident Anatoliy Shcharanskiy.

ARRESTS (53%); IRWIN COTLER (70%); ANATOLIY SHCHARANSKIY (65%);

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A2

LENGTH: 117 words

HEADLINE: WALLENBERG ALIVE IN 1968, GROUP SAYS

BYLINE: From press services

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
A group investigating the fate of Raoul Wallenberg said Thursday it had evidence the missing Swedish diplomat was alive as late as 1968, when the Soviet Union is said to have offered him in a prisoner swap.

Canadian lawyer Irwin Cotler, a member of an international committee studying Wallenberg's case, urged the Soviet government to make public the fate of the diplomat, who disappeared in Hungary in 1945.

Cotler's plea came a day before Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh was to visit Israel, the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to do so. Israel has agreed to raise the case with the Soviets but might not be able to during Bessmertnykh's brief visit, Cotler said.

LOAD-DATE: January 26, 1996

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A18

LENGTH: 426 words

HEADLINE: Soviets urged to give Montreal lawyer a visa

BYLINE: By Nomi Morris Toronto Star

BODY:
Ottawa has intervened on behalf of human-rights lawyer Irwin Cotler, who has been denied a visa for an international conference in the Soviet Union.

Cotler is a McGill University law professor who has acted for dissidents Natan Sharansky and Ida Nudel. He was told last week he would not be granted a visa for a two-day conference of the International Bar Association, which starts tomorrow night.

Sharansky, who has remained close friends with Cotler, was in Toronto yesterday to publicize his prison memoirs, Fear No Evil.

Cotler has been to the Soviet Union three times before, most recently in February when he was part of a human-rights delegation that met with a number of top Soviet officials.

The London-based bar association announced on Thursday that it was cancelling its session on peace and human rights, since Cotler and 46 other foreign legal experts had not yet received visas.

But by yesterday afternoon, the Association of Soviet Lawyers, co-host of the conference, told the bar that all of the 500 foreign delegates would be allowed to attend except Cotler.

Among those who had been waiting were 18 Israelis, four British lawyers and a number of South Koreans. Another 400 Soviet lawyers are registered for the conference.

An External Affairs source said yesterday that Canada has "vigorously" protested the barring of "a distinguished Canadian jurist" from an international conference.

"The Soviet authorities claim they want to reduce barriers between East and West. They claim that they wish to increase contacts, that they are giving greater respect for human rights. And yet their actions in denying professor Cotler the right to take part belie these claims," he said.

"This is not in accordance with the public positions the Soviet Union has been taking."

A spokesman at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa said that Moscow has given no reason for Cotler's visa refusal. He said at least five other Canadian lawyers have received visas.

"It happens in diplomatic practice sometimes," said Soviet press attache Igor Lobanov. "It's a two-way street.

"In May, two official requests from our Ministry of Foreign Affairs weren't met," said Soviet press attache Igor Lobanov. Visas were denied to a prospective employee at the embassy in Ottawa and for the consulate in Montreal, he said.

Cotler's visa difficulties have no connection to the May refusals, Lobanov said.

"Anything is possible. We could still get word tonight or even on Saturday. It doesn't have to do with us here," Lobanov said.

GRAPHIC: Photo Irwin Cotler

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: CLOSE-UP; Irwin Cotler; Pg. 12a

LENGTH: 994 words

HEADLINE: Counsel to the oppressed

BYLINE: ALYCIA AMBROZIAK in Montreal

BODY:
For Montreal-based human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler, it was a typically hectic workday. At 9:54 a.m. he stepped off an overnight flight to Montreal from Los Angeles, where he had addressed a coalition of human rights lawyers. The McGill University law professor hurried to the campus to teach an early class on constitutional law. Then, he rushed upstairs to his cramped campus office, where he spent the next 10 hours working on human rights cases. First, he telephoned a Moscow source on the matter of a Soviet peace activist, Dr. Vladimir Brodsky, who had recently been imprisoned for alleged dissident activities. Then, Cotler agreed to an anti-apartheid activist group's request that he join their organization. Next, a former leader of the French resistance movement dropped by to offer his help in the cause of Soviet Jewry. Another caller was Rose Ndayahoze, a reformer from the African country of Burundi who was seeking advice on how to get international attention for human rights violations in her nation. By that time, it was still only 3 p.m.

In Cotler's office, boxes of documents compete for space on the floor and on the couch. The piles of papers represent Cotler's varied work as one of Canada's most effective human rights activists. His international counterparts have credited the 46-year-old McGill graduate with playing a pivotal role in securing the release of Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky from prison. Cotler was one of the few people whom Shcharansky chose to see immediately after he flew to Israel last February, following his release after nine years in prison. As well, Cotler has lobbied Western and Eastern Bloc governments on behalf of other Soviet Jews who have been refused exit visas -- the so-called "refuseniks" -- as well as other dissidents.

In Canada, Cotler has acted as counsel for native Canadian women married to whites seeking to maintain their Indian status. He is counsel before the Deschenes inquiry into alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada, and he serves on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Panel. In addition, he is a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation. Said one friend, Quebec Justice Minister Herbert Marx: "I have never met anyone so dedicated and committed to what he believes in."

Cotler's critical role in securing Shcharansky's freedom involved an eight-year campaign in conjunction with other human rights activists. Under the direction of Shcharansky's wife, Avital, who emigrated to the West in 1974, Cotler acted as the dissident's legal counsel during manay frustrating years of appeals, both to Soviet courts as well as to Western governments. The Soviets finally released Shcharansky for Eastern Bloc citizens being held in the West on charges of espionage. Still, Cotler insisted that he is unaffected by the public praise for his work on the lengthy Shcharansky case. "If you let that get to you," he said, "you lose sight of what you should be doing."

Despite Cotler's efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry he has, on occasion, clashed with Canadian Jewish community leaders when he has taken unpopular stands. While serving as the president of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) in 1982, Cotler angered the organization's officers by sending an unauthorized telegram to then-Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin calling for an independent inquiry into the massacre of Palestinian civilians by Christian Lebanese in Beirut refugee camps. At the time, Israeli occupation forces in Beirut were criticized for not having tried to stop the Christians. Now, Cotler dismisses the controversy surrounding his criticisms of the Israeli government, describing the furore as "a phase in my life."

He attributes his passion for human rights causes to this parents. His father, Nathan, was a lawyer, while his mother, Fay, was a community worker. An only child, Cotler remembered, "My mother brought me up not only in the spirit of tolerance but also taught us to celebrate the uniqueness of life." His father, a Russian immigrant, had a deep respect for the legal process, and a close family friendship with poet and lawyer A. M. Klein "gave me a humanistic view of the law anchored in the Talmudic tradition," he said.

He first became actively involved in human rights issues in 1964 when he organized one of the first public demonstrations in North America in support of Soviet Jewry. He rapidly earned the respect of influential leaders in Canada's Jewish community and that has made him a valuable source of support for reformist social programs. In 1976 fellow McGill professor James Torczyner organized a Montreal community project designed to assist the city's poor. At the time, many Jewish organizations, unfamiliar with both the program and the problems of working-class Montreal, were reportedly reluctant to offer financial support. But said Torczyner: "Irwin was one of the few people accepted by the establishment who sided with me." As a result, the program has become an important community project that continues to thrive.

Cotler's career has left him little time for his own family. During a 1977 visit to Israel he met his future wife, Ariela, who was then an adviser to the Israeli parliament. Now, they live in a bungalow in Montreal's Cote St. Luc area with their three daughters, Michal, 15 (from Ariela's first marriage), Gila, 6, and Tanya, 3. Although he is frequently travelling, he makes special efforts to see his family, often between flights. That way, Cotler said, "they'll know who I am when I do finally get home."

Cotler's cramped schedule and his many causes have led some friends to worry that the energetic reformer could ultimately suffer serious exhaustion. "I don't know how he keeps up with the hectic pace," said Marx. Cotler acknowledges that his heavy work load has led to attacks of mild exhaustion. But he added, "When I sleep, I sleep well."

GRAPHIC: Picture 1, Cotler in his Montreal office: a fighter accepted by the Jewish establishment, CANAPRESS; Picture 2, Shcharansky: pivotal, SVEN SIMON

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A7

LENGTH: 62 words

HEADLINE: Dancing for freedom

BODY:
Irwin Cotler, left, a Canadian lawyer who acted for Soviet refusenik Anatoly Shcharansky, whoops it up last night at Beth Tzedec Synagogue at a celebration in honor of the release of the Jewish dissident. He is dancing with friend, Dr. Isadore Elser. Moscow released Shcharansky last week as part of an East-West prisoner exchange on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge.

GRAPHIC: Star photo (Ackerman)

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: Domestic News

LENGTH: 99 words

HEADLINE: MEDIA ADVISORY - InterAmicus - The International Human Rights Advocacy Centre at McGill Law School

DATELINE: MONTREAL, Nov. 22

BODY:
McGill Law Professor Irwin Cotler, international legal counsel to Russian political prisoner Aleksandr Nikitin, will hold a press conference on the Nikitin trial, which is opening - in secret - on Tuesday, November 23rd, 1999.

The press conference will be held Tuesday, November 23rd at 2:00 PM in the Common Room of McGill Law School (3644 Peel Street - corner Docteur Penfield).

Professor Cotler, President of InterAmicus, the McGill-based International Human Rights Advocacy Centre, will also comment upon, and connect, the Nikitin case to the Russian assault on Chechnya.

For further information: Irwin Cotler (514-398-6622) or Charmaine Lyn (514-398-5372)

LN-ORG: MCGILL LAW SCHOOL (93%); INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY CENTRE (83%);

LOAD-DATE: November 22, 1999

DISTRIBUTION: TO CITY DESK AND ASSIGNMENT/PHOTO EDITORS

LENGTH: 246 words

HEADLINE: MEDIA ADVISORY

BODY:
WHAT: ''Yom HaShoa'' (Holocaust Rememberance Day) will be commemorated through a special program which features addresses by:

Professor Irwin Cotler, of McGill University in Montreal, one of Canada's leading human rights activists. Cotler was responsible for launching the campaign leading to the release of Anatoly Shcharansky;

Professor Sender Wajsman, a Holocaust survivor, will conduct a choir of more than 100 children from area day schools and synagogues.

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

Special candle lighting ceremony in memory of the six million who perished.

WHEN: Sunday, April 26, 1987 at 7:30 p.m.

WHERE: Beth Torah Congregation
1051 North Miami Beach Blvd.
North Miami Beach

WHO: Sponsoring organizations include: The Greater Miami Jewish Federation, Central Agency for Jewish Education, Community Relations Committee of Federation, Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami, Southeastern Florida Holocaust Memorial Center; in cooperation with local Holocaust Survivor Clubs.

For further information, CONTACT -- Mark Friedman of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, 305-576-4000, ext. 286.

IRWIN COTLER (76%); ANATOLY BORISOVICH SHCHARANSKY (56%);

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 319 words

HEADLINE: WALLENBERG ALIVE IN 1968, EVIDENCE SHOWS

BYLINE: BILL HUTMAN, Jerusalem Post Reporter

HIGHLIGHT:
Raoul Wallenberg was alive in Soviet prison until at least 1968, according to the evidence obtained by the Joint Soviet-International Commission appointed last year to investigate his whereabouts and fate.

BODY:
Raoul Wallenberg was alive in Soviet prison until at least 1968, according to the evidence obtained by the Joint Soviet-International Commission appointed last year to investigate his whereabouts and fate.

In 1968, the USSR offered Wallenberg in exchange for one of its spies held by Sweden, a prominent Swedish lawyer who took part in the negotiations testified before the commission recently.

Sweden, however, turned down the deal, said Irwin Cotler, a commission member, and prominent Canadian human rights activist. He would not speculate on what motivated the Swedes not to accept, only saying that "questions have existed for some time" about the Swedish position on the Wallenberg case.

Details of the testimony, and other evidence that Wallenberg was alive through the 1960s, will be released today by the commission. With the consent of the Soviet government, the commission has been investigating Wallenberg's fate since last August.

The Soviets, however, have refused to open KGB files that the commission claims hold the key to the case. Cotler has called on Prime Minister Shamir to raise the Wallenberg case with Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh, expected here Friday.

Wallenberg, born in Sweden in 1912, helped rescue of Hungarian Jews during World War II, and disappeared after being arrested by Soviet soldiers advancing through Hungary.

The Soviets have claimed that Wallenberg died of a heart attack in Vladimir Prison, 120 km east of Moscow. But according to the Swedish lawyer's testimony, which was given on the condition of anonymity, and other evidence, the Soviet position is unfounded, Cotler said.

The commission has visited Vladimir Prison several times, going through records and speaking with prisoners. It has gathered much evidence showing that Wallenberg remained imprisoned there long after the Soviet's claim he died, Cotler said.

LOAD-DATE: June 5, 1991

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A5

LENGTH: 460 words

HEADLINE: Wallenberg inquiry gets under way in Moscow

BYLINE: By Toby Latta Special to The Star

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
The Soviet Union has for the first time acknowledged that Raoul Wallenberg may not have died in 1947 in a Moscow prison as the Soviets have always claimed, a group of scholars say.

And 45 years after the Swedish diplomat disappeared into a Soviet labor camp, the KGB is opening its archives to an international delegation investigating his fate.

The scholars, headed by the Wallenberg's half-brother, arrived in Moscow Monday.

"This represents a major breakthrough," said Irwin Cotler, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and Canadian chairman of the international Wallenberg commission. "The Soviets are now suggesting that he did not die when they previously said he did."

Wallenberg, dubbed the "lost hero of humanity," used diplomatic status as Swedish attache in Nazi-occupied Hungary to help about 100,000 Jews escape to the safe haven of the West. He vanished mysteriously in January, 1945, accompanied by Soviet military officers.

Many of those he saved went to Canada, where investigators have been active in trying to trace his whereabouts in co-operation with the Swedish government. Wallenberg himself was made an honorary Canadian citizen.

Soviet authorities have always maintained he died of an heart attack in 1947 while in prison, but his family and the Wallenberg commission have eyewitness evidence to the contrary.

Prison archives

Cotler said Soviet authorities have agreed not only to participate in the investigation, but also to open up prison archives and other materials kept secret by the KGB and the interior ministry.

"We were told that we would be given access to all the files on the Wallenberg case, and this includes KGB files," Cotler said.

The group will visit the prison in Vladimir, two hours north of Moscow, where Wallenberg was most often rumored to have been seen. There they will be able to examine prison archives and interview prison staff and prisoners.

"We have reports of him being spotted there in the '80s," said Guy von Dardel, Wallenberg's half-brother. "But we have not been able to cross-check this information yet."

Last October, Moscow apologized to Wallenberg's family for his arrest. Soviet officials told his relatives, visiting Moscow for the first time, that Wallenberg is now considered a hero in the Soviet Union, and that authorities had lied about his fate in the past.

They also returned Wallenberg's passport, driving licence and notebooks, which they said were the only items of his which remained.

Cotler and his colleagues have never been so hopeful that the mystery may be cleared up.

"The new Soviet attitude is in their own self-interest," he said. "And it is in line with their general approach to open the dark pages of Soviet history."

SECTION: (562) N 6'00 pg 16-17; ISSN: 0848-0427

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4986726

LENGTH: 2815 words

HEADLINE: Shoo-ins Cotler, Sgro, Lee, Boudria highly likely to get re-elected: the Hill Times' list of safe seats and shoo-ins in Ontario and Quebec in run for November 27, Campaign 2000

BYLINE: Curry, Bill

BODY:
QUEBEC

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler Mount Royal, Que.

It was 91.4%! That's how much of the vote Liberal Irwin Cotler won in the 1999 byelection. This is clearly the safest Liberal seat in the country. This riding in the centre of the Island of Montreal has the lowest proportion of francophones in the province, which means you won't find Gilles Duceppe spending much time campaigning in Mont Royal. From 1965 to 1984 it was the constituency of none other than former Liberal PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Following Mr. Trudeau was Liberal Sheila Finestone who has since moved on to the Senate. The Bloc doesn't put in much of an effort here, usually sending university students as sacrificial lambs. This year's offering is Jean-Sebastien Houle, 24, who is still plugging away at his political science degree at the Universite du Quebec in Montreal.

The riding has a large Jewish population, which could have posed a problem for Mr. Cotler, given the uproar in the Jewish community over the government's support of a controversial UN resolution that Jewish groups saw as favouring the Palestinians over Israel in the Middle East dispute. But Mr. Cotler's scathing denouncement of his own government will likely keep him in the community's good graces.

The Tory candidate in 1999 came in second, securing a whopping 3.7% of the vote.

Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephane Dion Saint-Laurent- Cartierville, Que.

The Liberal riding association in Saint-Laurent-Cartierville should rename itself the Parachute Club, because to this day, they have never been allowed to pick a single candidate themselves.

Ever since the Montreal riding was first created as Saint-Laurent in 1987, it has been considered a Liberal safe seat. In 1988, the party delayed nomination races here to leave room for a ''star'' candidate, causing much frustration among local Liberals who already had someone in mind and publicly protested what the national party was doing. Regardless, the Liberals hand-picked insurance broker Shirley Maheu, after the party's first two choices declined the free ticket to Ottawa. Ms. Maheu went on to hold the riding until her appointment to the Senate in 1996 to open up a safe seat for Stephane Dion to run in a 1996 byelection.

Demographically, the riding has a large ethnic community, which tends not to vote for separatist parties. (Just ask Jacques Parizeau.) In the 1997 election, Mr. Dion won the riding with 70.1%, a full 56.2% ahead of Bloc candidate Jean-Martin Masse. This election's brave Bloc candidate is Yves Beauregard.

Public Works Minister Alfonso Gagliano Saint-Leonard-Saint Michel, Que.

This riding on the East side of the Island of Montreal is consistently one of the Liberals safest. Mr. Gagliano has won the support of the riding's large Italian community and as the Liberals' Quebec strategist, Mr. Gagliano knows how to win elections. In 1997, he won 69.8% of the vote, a full 53% ahead of his nearest challenger, the Bloc Quebecois. Marcel Ferlatte is running for the Bloc this time around.

Liberal MP Clifford Lincoln Lac St. Louis, Que.

Political strategists say if a Liberal stronghold were to go down this election, it could happen here on the West Island of Montreal. The western part of the Island has a strong business sector, including several high-tech companies. It also has a lot of anglophones who make a lot of money. Strategists say if the Alliance gets into two-digit support, then anything could happen and it would depend on how the vote splits.

The area does have a Conservative past. It was blue during the Mulroney years, as well as during the Diefenbaker sweep of 1958. Liberal MP Clifford Lincoln is seen as somewhat of a political maverick, having resigned from his cabinet post in the Quebec government of the late 1980s when premier Robert Bourassa enacted Bill 178 banning English on commercial signs.

Mr. Lincoln won the seat easily in 1997, capturing 69% of the vote, a full 31,320 votes ahead of the second-place Tories. The Bloc, who came in third in 1997, are running retired real estate manager Guy Amyot this time around. Mr. Amyot has been active in the party since its inception.

Liberal MP Bernard Patry Pierrefonds-Dollard, Que.

Bernard Patry won big in 1997 with 66.4% of the vote, way ahead of the second-place Tories with 18.2%. Mr. Patry is a former physician and mayor of Ile Bizard and was first elected when he ousted the sitting Tory MP in 1993. The riding has 52 different ethnic groups and is only about 40% francophone. Other than the Mulroney years, this riding has been Liberal since it was created as Dollard in 1952.

ONTARIO

Liberal MP Judy Sgro York West, Ont.

If you can remember what music was like before the Beatles, then maybe you'll remember a time when York West didn't vote Liberal. The riding has been sending a steady stream of Liberals to Ottawa since 1962. Judy Sgro's 1999 byelection victory, which followed the 17-year reign of junior Rat Packer Sergio Marchi, shows no signs of reversing itself. Ms. Sgro, a former Toronto municipal politician, captured 74.2% of the vote in the byelection and considering the Reform party only managed a grand total of 377 votes in 1999, York West won't be seeing much of Mr. Day this election.

Tory Elio Di Iorio was second in the 1999 byelection with 12.7% of the vote, but at press time on Friday, none of the opposition parties had nominated their candidates.

One humorous but unlikely rumour floating around is that in the Paul Martin friendly ''416'' region, some of the Toronto Grits feel a visit from the boss might actually hurt them in the polls, so one of Jean Chretien's few down-town stops last week was in York West, where the party could most afford a dip in support.

Liberals, however, argue the main reason the PM won't be visiting many downtown Toronto ridings is that it doesn't generate the local coverage that a stop in a smaller centre would receive.

Liberal MP Derek Lee Scarborough-Rouge River, Ont.

Derek Lee has personally turned Scarborough-Rouge River into his own Liberal fiefdom. Even though his work in Ottawa as chairman of the House Affairs Committee will never make headlines in The Toronto Star, the lawyer and former policy adviser to the Ontario housing minister during the 1980s is known as a strong political organizer.

Brian O'Riordan, vice-president of Toronto-based G.P. Research, has recently compiled a riding-by-riding analysis of voting patterns in Ontario, using statistical, demographic and historical information. He said Scarborough-Rouge River is the ideal demographic for the Liberals, mainly middle class and culturally diverse. Also, the fact that Mr. Lee, who was first elected in 1988, has steadily increased his margin of victory with each election, shows that he's going in the right direction and will win this one again easily.

In 1997, Mr. Lee won 74.8% of the vote. A full 63.4% cushion between himself and the second place Tory candidate.

Local businessman Kaiser Suleman is the Alliance candidate this time around. The party's riding president Clifford McKee said the Liberals are in for a shock, however, because the people he has spoken to are upset about the government's failure to pass young offenders legislation and don't like the new gun laws.

Defence Minister Art Eggleton York Centre, Ont.

Canada's defence minister knows York Centre is one battle he can always count on winning. Former Toronto mayor Art Eggleton won big time in 1997, capturing 72.1% of the vote, with a full 24,246 votes between himself and the second place NDP candidate. So far, only the Canadian Alliance's Jeff Dorfman is nominated to run against him.

Government House Leader Don Boudria Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Ont.

Don Boudria is likely a lot more relaxed on the campaign trail than he was during the last week of Parliament. The former Rat Packer was scrambling to ram through whatever bill he could before his party went to the polls, but now he can rest easy, knowing that his riding is already in the bag. Mr. Boudria has been winning this Ottawa Valley riding since 1984 and shows no sign of slowing down. This riding holds the double title of being both the most Catholic and the most French riding in Ontario, two traditional signs of Liberal turf. In 1997, he won 72% of the vote, with the nearest challenge coming from the Tories, with 11.6%.

Last week, the Alliance picked self-employed Cumberland construction and renovation worker Sabastien Anders as their candidate. The Alliance has done some private polling here and have come up with a strategy. They won't campaign against Mr. Boudria, because he's too well-liked in the riding. They will, however, campaign against Liberal policies, which they say are much less popular, especially among business people.

Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish Mississauga Centre, Ont.

Mississauga Centre didn't exist before the last election, but it quickly established itself as a Liberal power house in 1997. Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, who first won in 1993 as the MP for Mississauga West captured 65% of the vote in 1997, way ahead of the second place Tories who had 15%.

The Mississauga area is growing and changing so fast that its history is a poor judge of voter behaviour. Mississauga West was Tory during the Mulroney years, so its Liberal roots aren't deep. There is a large immigrant population here, however, riding researcher Brian O'Riordan says the fact that both the Tories and the CA are running Sikh candidates will likely cancel out the voting power of that community, allowing Ms. Parrish to cruise to a third victory. The Tory candidate is Nina Tangri and the Canadian Alliance candidate is Harjit Dhaliwal.

Liberal MP Mauril Belanger Ottawa-Vanier, Ont.

Liberal MP Mauril Belanger has built up a reputation as a strong, local politician, a reputation that allowed him to win 61.9% of the vote, 48.3% ahead of the second place Tory candidate. This time around the Tory candidate is Stephen Woollcombe and the CA is running Nester Gayowsky, a retired civil servant who has worked for Foreign Affairs and the Auditor General.

Liberal MP Maurizio Bevilacqua Vaughan-King-Aurora, Ont.

Much like Derek Lee in Scarborough-Rough River, Liberal MP Maurizio Bevilacqua has personally turned his riding into a Grit fortress.

Many people in the riding associate him with the popular finance minister, Paul Martin, and expect him to be promoted to cabinet in a Martin government. In 1997, he won 64.3% of the vote with a 47.8% cushion between himself and the second place Tories.

Liberal MP Charles Caccia Davenport, Ont.

Charles Caccia has been the MP for Davenport since 1968 and the Liberals don't expect the voters here would have any reason to dump him now. He won 65.9% of the vote in 1997, 47.4% ahead of the second place NDP. The riding has a large number of recent immigrants and is one of Toronto's lower income ridings.

The Reform party didn't even run a candidate in 1997, because they just missed the deadline for filing their papers. This time around they have young University of Toronto grad Anthony Montenegrino. Charles Van, the CA riding president confirmed that a meeting was held to acclaim Mr. Montenegrino's candidacy, but as far as how many people were in attendance? ''I'd rather not say,'' he said.

He says the riding is 20% Italian and 30% Portuguese, two groups that tend to vote Liberal. However, Mr. Van says the Alliance will try and sell the party in these communities as a party that supports family values. While Davenport may look like a lost cause for the Alliance, Mr. Van says there is always a ''faint glimmer of hope'' and the main thing is to get the word out and build foundations for the next election.

Jordan Berger, who has worked for the Ontario Public Service Union, will be running for the NDP.

Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis Scarborough-Agincourt, Ont.

Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis barely crept into power in 1988, but he has been expanding his hold on the riding ever since. In 1997, he won with 65.1% of the vote, 47.3% ahead of the second place Tories. The Alliance candidate in this election is Andrew Faust.

Liberal MP Roy Cullen Etobicoke North, Ont.

Since his byelection victory in 1996, Liberal MP Roy Cullen hasn't had much difficulty holding on to this traditionally Grit riding. Strategists say his ability to align himself with Paul Martin without ruffling the feathers of the Prime Minister has increased his popularity.

In 1997, Mr. Cullen won 61.8% of the vote, 46.3% ahead of the second place Reform candidate. Family doctor Mahmood Elahi is running for the Alliance in this election but the party isn't overly confident of his chances.

''We will get more numbers, but it will probably be another four years [before the Alliance will win Etobicoke North],'' says CA riding president Grace Harlund.

Liberal MP Ben Serre Timiskaming-Cochrane, Ont.

Ben Serre has kept this massive riding Liberal following the Mulroney years, but it hasn't been easy. Mr. Serre, who is from Verner, a small Northern Ontario town between North Bay and Sudbury, represents a riding that can take eight hours to drive from one end to the other. This mostly rural riding includes the towns of Kirkland Lake in the North and the ''tritowns'' of Cobalt, New Liskeard and Haileybury in the middle. People in this area were deeply divided over the Adams Mine issue over whether the City of Toronto should bring its garbage to Kirkland Lake. Many of the people in the northern part of the riding who might have benefited from the new jobs were in favour of the idea, while the Southern parts of the riding were opposed due to environmental concerns.

Alliance candidate Dan Louie, who is from Kirkland Lake, is criticizing Mr. Serre for his lack of leadership on the issue. Mr. Louie ran for the Reform party in 1993, but not in the last election. He says Mr. Serre tried to sit the fence during most of the nearly decade-long Adams Mine debate, yet in the last three months, under pressure from his Liberal supporters, he came out strongly against the idea, saying that he would even support blockades if it went through.

Mr. Louie says this makes Mr. Serre a hypocrite because he is saying he would break provincial laws while at the same time encouraging everyone to support the unpopular federal gun laws. If the mine vote is in fact the main election issue, Mr. Louie says he could do well because he was in favour of the idea while the Liberals, NDP and Green party were against it. Mr. Louie admits winning is a long-shot, but he tells voters that while the Alliance might not form the government this time, it likely will the next time, and the riding would have a stronger voice than if they had an MP who was there from the start.

In 1997, Mr. Serre won 59.4% of the vote with the Tories, Reform and NDP all between 10-15%.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley Ottawa South, Ont.

Canada's newest Foreign Affairs minister should have no problem with this seat. He won with 59% in 1997, 43.3% ahead of second place Reform. The Canadian Alliance candidate in this election is Bradley Darbyson and Kevin Lister is running for the Tories.

Liberal MP Albina Guarnieri Mississauga East, Ont.

While Albina Guarnieri may not always be popular with the Prime Minister for her confrontational approach to justice issues, she's well- liked by the voters of Mississauga East and is known as one of the best Liberal organizers and a good constituency MP. Ms. Guarnieri was a management consultant and an aide to then Toronto mayor Art Eggleton before winning the riding for the Liberals in 1988. In 1997, the Liberals won 59.9% of the vote. The Tories were second at 19.7%. The Tory candidate for this election is Riina De Faria, who is the wife of the current Tory MPP for the riding, Carl De Faria. The Alliance candidate is Jamie Dookie.

Liberal MP Diane Marleau Sudbury, Ont.

This riding has always gone Liberal, except for one NDP blip. The NDP has had success here provincially, and the ongoing labour strike at the Falconbridge mine could boost support in the labour ranks.

Ms. Marleau has also fallen pretty far in Ottawa. The former minister of high-profile portfolios like Health and Public Works was demoted to the backbenches and subsequently attacked her Prime Minister and her government's track record on health care. The NDP candidate in this election is Paul Chislett.

The Canadian Alliance is running Michael Smith, who is the sales manager for a bearings company. He ran for the Reform party in 1993 and came in second, but didn't run in 1997.

In the 1997 election, Ms. Marleau won 55.4% of the riding, 34.3% ahead of the second place NDP.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1075

LOAD-DATE: January 8, 2001

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A4

LENGTH: 230 words

HEADLINE: Canadian lawyer granted Soviet visa for Moscow meeting

BYLINE: By Nomi Morris Toronto Star

BODY:
Soviet authorities have reversed an earlier decision and granted an entry visa to Canadian human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler for an international conference beginning tonight in Moscow.

Cotler is a McGill University law professor who acted for dissidents Natan Sharansky and Ida Nudel.

He was told 10 days ago that he could not attend a two-day conference sponsored by an international bar association.

But a protest from External Affairs Minister Joe Clark was delivered by a Canadian diplomat in Moscow on Friday. Word came through yesterday morning that Cotler could go, said an External Affairs department source.

Another seven jurists, including four Britons and a Tel Aviv University law professor, had also been refused visas until Friday when these decisions were reversed after diplomatic pressure was applied.

More than 500 foreign delegates, including 40 Israelis and a number of South Koreans, are attending the Moscow conference along with 400 Soviet lawyers.

A spokesman at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa said there was "no explanation" given for Cotler's initial visa refusal.

"The decision was made in Moscow," said press attache Igor Lobanov.

Cotler had visited the Soviet Union three times. In February, top Soviet officials agreed to let him set up a Canadian-Soviet legal project that would take up the cases of Jewish refuseniks.

GRAPHIC: photo Irwin Cotler

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A11

LENGTH: 484 words

HEADLINE: Jewish groups hail ruling on hate law

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
The Supreme Court of Canada decision upholding Canada's anti-hate law will have international ramifications, a Montreal human rights lawyer predicts.

Irwin Cotler says in recent years there has been an explosion of hate propaganda and prosecutions are occurring in Israel, Sweden, France, Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States.

"Hate propaganda is not just a growing Canadian phenomenon but a growing international one," said Cotler, who is on leave from McGill University doing a global study on racial incitement and the law in six different countries.

"Countries are increasingly resorting to legal remedies to combat racial incitement and these legal remedies are being challenged under the banner of free speech."

The Supreme Court ruling, Cotler said in an interview, is important because it is the most comprehensive ever rendered by a high court in any country on the issues of free speech and hate propaganda.

"It will certainly be invoked by the parties in other countries and will almost certainly be cited by the courts in their decisions," said Cotler, who is conducting his research at universities in Israel.

Andrew Cardozo of the Canadian Ethnocultural Council called the decision a victory for people from ethnic and visible minorities who find themselves being targeted by hate mongers.

"Minorities can feel a bit reassured after such a decision against hate mongering," he said in an interview.

But not everyone was pleased with the ruling.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association had urged the court to declare the anti-hate law unconstitutional because it violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.

"Freedom of speech is sometimes most important when it expresses strong disapproval," said Alan Borovoy, the association's general counsel.

"The problem is how are we to know the divide between hatred and strong disapproval. It's an unfortunate decision."

Calling the court decision "regrettable," he said it supported legislation that could be used to attack the very groups it is designed to defend.

Borovoy cited the "ultimate irony": Customs officials held up a film about Nelson Mandela, deputy leader of the African National Congress, because it "promoted hatred against white South Africans."

But the main danger, Borovoy said, is confusing unpopular opinions with hate mongering: "It is worth risking some garbage in order to avoid casting a chill over the free speech of a wide variety of dissenters."

Les Scheininger, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, hailed yesterday's "historic and hallmark decision.

"We live in a democratic society and the essence of democracy is that there are limitations on people's behavior," he said.

"Pleased and relieved," B'nai Brith's League for Human Rights said it will push for even tougher laws making it a crime to deny that the Holocaust occurred.

GRAPHIC: Drawing Supreme Court of Canada

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 1334 words

HEADLINE: Diaspora in brief

BYLINE: Yehuda Poch, Ap, Compiled And Edited By Elli Wohlgelernter

BODY:
Cotler runs in federal by-election in Montreal

MONTREAL - McGill University law professor Irwin Cotler, a leading Jewish advocate of human rights, is on the ballot for today's election to federal parliament in Montreal. The by-election was made possible by the September appointment of incumbent MP Sheila Finestone to the Canadian Senate.

Cotler is the candidate for the Liberal Party in the district of Mount Royal, which has been held by the Liberals for the entire 59-year existence of the seat. The district is one of the most predominantly Jewish areas in the country, and he is considered a cinch to win the seat.

Cotler's announcement in mid-September that he would seek the nomination was hailed by many residents of the Cote St. Luc area riding, who had been pushing him to run. Within 36 hours of his official announcement, all three of the other Liberal candidates withdrew their candidacies. Yehuda Poch Essex County, N.J.-Rishon Lezion set partnership

PASSAIC - New Jersey's Essex County and Rishon Lezion signed a partnership agreement, taking an already existing partnership between the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest and its twinned Israeli community to new levels, according to the New Jersey Jewish News. A signing ceremony between Essex County Executive James Treffinger and Rishon Lezion Mayor Meir Nitzan last month established a "sister county" relationship between the NJ county, the Israeli municipality and their respective residents.

The ceremony, attended by Jewish community and area political leaders as well as a delegation of visiting Israeli elected officials, was held at B'nai Shalom Congregation in West Orange. The agreement, written in both Hebrew and English, provides for promoting cooperation and support "in the areas of education, cultural exchanges, trade, and economic development."

"It is my hope," said Treffinger, who represents a county of 765,000 residents, "that today will mark the beginning of a new era for both our peoples." He called for "mutual understanding" and "increasing the level of trust and responsibility between our two communities." The impetus for the agreement is the culmination of the 22-year relationship between the MetroWest federation and Rishon Lezion.

Holocaust revisionist convicted

MANNHEIM, Germany - Australian Holocaust revisionist Frederick Toben was sentenced to 10 months in prison after being convicted by a German judge of denying that the Nazis murdered millions of Jews during World War II - a crime under German law.

German-born Toben, 55, was found guilty last week of incitement, slander, and insulting the memory of the dead for spreading his theories on the Internet and in pamphlets.

Calling Toben an antisemite and neo-Nazi in his closing argument, state prosecutor Hans-Heiko Klein asked for a sentence of two years and four months with parole. The maximum sentence for the charges is five years. Toben's defense lawyer gave no closing argument.

Toben, director of the Adelaide Institute, an Australian organization devoted to questioning the Holocaust, was arrested in April after trying to discuss his ideas with a Mannheim state prosecutor.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Anti-Defamation League have accused Toben of trying to intimidate Australian Jews through his Holocaust denial. AP

Archbishop: Church played role in antisemitism

MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland said centuries of antisemitic Catholic preaching helped make the Holocaust possible and apologized for any role Catholics have played in denigrating or threatening Jews.

"I acknowledge that we Catholics - by preaching a doctrine that the Jewish people were unfaithful, hypocritical, and God-killers - reduced the human dignity of our Jewish brothers and sisters, and created attitudes that made reprisals against them seem like acts of conformity to God's will," Weakland said last week.

"By doing so, I confess that we Catholics contributed to the attitudes that made the Holocaust possible."

Religious scholars say Weakland's remarks are in line with the Vatican's recent efforts to begin improving Jewish-Catholic relations. But the address was particularly notable for its bluntness and breadth, scholars said.

"It was the most thorough repudiation of the teaching of contempt (of the Jews) I've ever seen," said Richard Lux, a professor at Sacred Heart School of Theology. "It was really overwhelming."

Weakland's statements were made at Congregation Shalom during the 25th anniversary celebration of the Catholic-Jewish Conference.

Jews at the anniversary celebration admitted to being stunned by the remarks. "I thought it was startling," said Daniel Lehrman, an assistant rabbi at Shalom who co-presided with Weakland. "I was completely unprepared for it and it was really astounding. It moved every Jewish person I've spoken to immeasurably." AP

Wiesel: Buchanan is an antisemite

CINCINNATI - Nobel Peace Prize winner and author Elie Wiesel lashed out at presidential hopeful Patrick Buchanan last week, saying the Reform Party contender's past behavior and latest book display racism and antisemitism, according to a report in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"He is a racist and an antisemite," Wiesel said at a news conference preceding a fund-raising dinner for Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's new Center for Holocaust Studies. "For him even to think he should run or has a chance is beyond me. (His candidacy) is either ridiculous or offensive."

Buchanan, a conservative commentator who has previously sought the Republican Party nomination, said last month he will run as a Reform Party candidate in next year's election.

Wiesel said he based his opinions on dealings he had with Mr. Buchanan in the 1980s and on Buchanan's recently published book, A Republic, Not An Empire, in which the candidate questions the necessity of America's intervention against Hitler's Germany.

Wiesel had criticized President Reagan in 1985 for visiting a German war cemetery on the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. Buchanan, Reagan's director of communications at the time, pushed the president to make the visit.

YU student translates Beatles song into Latin

NEW YORK - All together now: "Erat abhinc viginti annis hodie, Centurio Piper catervam canere docebat."

What's that? Don't know the words?

There's hardly a baby boomer alive who wouldn't recognize the first line of the 1967 Beatles song "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" -"It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play" - if only it weren't in Latin.

Benjamin Joffe, 23, a Cleveland native and senior at Yeshiva University, managed to combine his two loves - Latin and the Beatles - by translating the 12 Sgt. Pepper songs into Latin.

Why? To get into the National Classics Fraternity. The annual initiation rite, which dates to the 1950s, requires fraternity pledges to translate something from contemporary culture into Latin. Past inductees' works include dialogue from Peanuts cartoons and testimony from the O.J. Simpson trial.

"I'm a huge, huge Beatles fan," Joffe said. "If I could, I would have majored in Beatles in college."

He performed "A Day in the Life" at his induction last month, complete with a keyboard.

It took him a few weeks to translate the album. The hardest song, Joffe said, was "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," because "so many words don't exist in Latin ... like there are a number of references to cars, trains, buses, and taxis."

For "car," he used a term that means a self-propelled vehicle. A "train" became a vehicle that runs on rails.

But besides getting him into the fraternity, what good is it? "I don't plan to go down to the Village and start my own band or anything. It was really just an academic exercise," Joffe said. Then he added, "But if I could get to meet Paul McCartney out of this deal, now that would be great." AP

LOAD-DATE: November 15, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A14

LENGTH: 232 words

HEADLINE: Canadian joins probe into Wallenberg case

BYLINE: by Tim Harper Toronto Star

BODY:
Soviet authorities have agreed to an international inquiry into the fate and whereabouts of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Irwin Cotler, the McGill University professor and human rights activist who will sit on the 10-person inquiry, called the Soviet decision an "historic breakthrough."

Until the decision this week to convene a full inquiry, the Soviet Union had always maintained that Wallenberg died of a heart attack in a Soviet prison in 1947.

But Cotler chaired an international inquiry which produced "undeniable evidence" that he did not die in 1947 and may still be alive.

"They have clearly decided to rethink their official position," said Cotler, who has been pressing Soviet officials for an inquiry for more than 18 months.

The commission will probe "the fate and whereabouts" of Wallenberg, review all witness and documentary evidence pertaining to his case and visit the prison in which he is alleged to have died, Cotler said. It will have full access to KGB agents they wish to interview.

Other commission members are Wallenberg's brother, Konrid Lubarsky, a former Soviet dissident living in West Germany, a Swedish representative, Marla Mackinen, who was imprisoned with Wallenberg, and five Soviets.

Members will seek a consensus, Cotler said, but the non-Soviets will be allowed to release their own report if none can be reached.

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A21

LENGTH: 371 words

HEADLINE: New Soviet policy on emigration called 'cosmetic'

BYLINE: By Paul Moloney Toronto Star

BODY:
The Soviet Union's apparent willingness to permit more Jews to leave the country is little more than a cosmetic gesture, Jewish student leaders were told yesterday.

Irwin Cotler, former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said no one should be impressed by hints that 10,000 Jews will be allowed to emigrate this year.

"Is this simply an exercise, as some have called it, of charm diplomacy?" he asked. "Will there be an end, once and for all, to state-sponsored anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union?"

The McGill University law professor, who fought for the release of Soviet dissident Anatoly Scharansky, said he won't be satisfied the Soviets are sincere until Jewish emigration doubles or triples. When Scharansky arrived in Israel last year, he changed his first name and the spelling of his last to Naton Sharansky.

Open question

Cotler said it's still an open question whether the new Soviet attitude will include release of prisoners of conscience and abatement of religious and cultural repression.

"While it's clear something is happening in the Soviet Union, it is not clear what it is," he told about 70 convention delegates of the Jewish Students Network. "We are still trying to figure out what is going on.

"We should acknowledge what they have done, acknowledge that things have changed, but we still have a long way to go," Cotler told The Star.

Be persistent

Rabbi Abe Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Weisenthal Centre in Los Angeles, warned the students, in the closing session of their four-day convention at a Mississauga hotel, that they should not let up on the issue now that the Soviets appear more flexible.

"The Soviets want to destroy international public opinion, which has been in our favor," he said. "We have our work cut out for us. We also can be sweet but we better be hard-nosed."

The convention, which drew about 350 Jewish student leaders from across North America, resolved to emphasize a campaign of writing letters to Soviets who have been refused permission to leave.

Cotler told the students that letter writing plays an important role by showing "refuseniks" that they are not alone and putting pressure on the Soviet government to relent.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A25

LENGTH: 262 words

HEADLINE: Let 'unwanted' also immigrate to Canada professor urges

BYLINE: (CP)

DATELINE: QUEBEC CITY

BODY:
QUEBEC CITY (CP) - Canada's immigration policy should be improved to aid "the unwanted of the 20th century," says a leading authority on human rights and immigration.

Law professor Irwin Cotler of McGill University yesterday told an international conference on constitutional law and human rights that the definition of "refugee status" in Canada is too narrow.

He suggested expanding the interpretation to include those who have fled areas of civil strife or general persecution.

"As the Supreme Court of Canada has noted, a mistaken judgment on someone who has applied for refugee status may not only result in a loss of freedom, but the loss of their life," Cotler told the 350 delegates to the four-day conference.

"Immigration policy should not be just a matter of intake or reaction to situations, either," he said.

"It should be a matter of outreach. Although Canada has gone into refugee camps and sought immigrants, perhaps the selection criteria have been too limited.

"There should be more use of humanitarian and compassionate grounds for those refugees."

Cotler also criticized new federal policy designed to process a backlog of about 23,000 people who have applied for refugee status in Canada.

"It may wind up being too long, cumbersome, and in my view, inappropriate," he said. "Some of the applicants could be approved en bloc if we establish special categories for those who have fled civil strife or general persecution."

Cotler called on the Canadian government to convene a world conference on the refugee problem.

GRAPHIC: Photo Cotler

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A19

LENGTH: 591 words

HEADLINE: New laws would allow all Soviets to emigrate, Kremlin officials say

BYLINE: By Stephen Handelman Toronto Star

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
MOSCOW - Every Soviet citizen will have the right to emigrate under law reform proposals being considered this year, officials have told a prominent Canadian law professor.

Irwin Cotler of McGill University's law faculty said he was briefed on Soviet plans to shake up the country's criminal and constitutional law by senior justice officials and legal advisers in Moscow this week.

One of the officials, from the Soviet Institute of the State and Law, admitted that the country had been suffering too long from "judicial lawlessness," Cotler said in an interview yesterday.

"My impression from earlier visits that a legal revolution is going on in the Soviet Union was reinforced," he said. "It is quite astonishing that some of the issues addressed in the Soviet Union are similar to ones that are being addressed in Canada."

Flawed credibility

But Cotler admitted that the Soviet Union still has a long way to go to prove its credibility.

An hour after he met with the Soviet minister of justice, Cotler learned that Tanya and Yuri Zieman, one of the refusenik couples whose case he was working on, had been abruptly refused an exit visa without explanation.

"It's hard to take what they say about human rights seriously, when this goes on," Cotler said.

Cotler, a well-known human rights activist now acting as lawyer for 22 Jewish "refusenik" families, said he plans to propose a Canadian-Soviet forum on law reform and human rights when he meets with senior justice ministry officials in Ottawa later this month.

Cotler said such a forum could make a dramatic difference to the lives of many Soviet people.

"Law is the engine of 'perestroika' (the country's reconstruction program)," he said. "In a way it's easier for us to co-operate since the Canadian-Soviet relationship is somewhat unfettered by the vicissitudes of superpower politics."

A suggestion for a similar forum with the United States was made by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during this month's superpower summit as a way of easing the "propaganda war" on human rights.

The Americans, however, have so far brushed off the idea.

"I know some people believe such a forum would raise the issue of making a moral equivalence between human rights in the Soviet Union and the West," Cutler said. "But there is also the possibility of using it to encourage some of the reforms we all want to encourage, and perhaps better the lives for some of the people we are concerned about.

"We can always terminate it if we feel it's being used for propaganda purposes."

Cotler said his talks with leading officials in charge of drafting human rights legislation and revisions to the criminal code convinced him the country was serious.

"When I advocated making the right to leave the country a fundamental right (in the law books), the minister of justice said 'agreed,' and he said this is their proposal too," Cotler said.

Cotler said he was told that officials were also considering radical changes to regulations prohibiting people with access to "state secrets" from leaving the country.

But Cotler went on to say that the officials were reluctant to predict when the new laws would be drafted. Several pointed out there was powerful opposition from other ministries such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Among the senior Soviet officials who met with Cotler were Professor Alexander Yakovlev, in charge of the country's legal review, and Professor Vladimir Kartashkin, who is responsible for examining human rights legislation.

GRAPHIC: photo Irwin Cotler

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A8

LENGTH: 255 words

HEADLINE: Church, labor leaders join apartheid protest

BYLINE: (CP)

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
OTTAWA (CP) - The "demonic" system of apartheid should be abolished immediately, church leader Lois Wilson said yesterday as prominent Canadians joined Amnesty International's campaign to eliminate South Africa's system of apartheid.

In a symbolic gesture at a news conference, Canadian politicians, rights activists and church and labor leaders "turned in" facsimiles of passbooks that all black South Africans must carry.

The protesters included Wilson, president of the World Council of Churches; Shirley Carr, vice-president of the Canadian Labor Congress; civil rights lawyer Irwin Cotler; and New Democrat MP Howard McCurdy.

Brandishing a mock passbook, Cotler called it "a badge of infamy - this degrading, dehumanizing, criminalizing instrument of apartheid."

During the next four months, Amnesty spokesman Roger Clark said, hundreds of other mock passbooks will be sent to Canadian opponents of apartheid and then gathered up for delivery to South African Ambassador Glenn Babb.

The passbooks list the areas where blacks may work or travel in white-designated areas of South Africa.

The Amnesty supporters noted that blacks without proper authorization, or without their passbooks, are subject to arbitrary arrest, unfair trials and mistreatment while in detention.

Wilson, former moderator of the United Church of Canada, labelled apartheid "particularly demonic, partly because it is supported by some parts of (South Africa's) Christian community . . . and blessed by God in their view."

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A17

LENGTH: 656 words

HEADLINE: Soviets undergoing revolution in law, Montreal lawyer says

BYLINE: By Stephen Handelman Toronto Star

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
MOSCOW - Canada should set up a special government body to monitor the progress of a Soviet "revolution" in human rights law, says Montreal lawyer and human rights activist Irwin Cotler.

Recent Soviet legislation has broken new ground in protecting the rights of prisoners and ordinary citizens, said Cotler, who played a key role in the release of Jewish political prisoner Natan Sharansky in 1986.

"We're basically seeing a legal revolution here, and it's one of the most exciting things that has happened in the Soviet Union," Cotler said in an interview yesterday.

"But at the same time, it's also clear that glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reconstruction) have yet to happen for key groups, such as the emigration and refusenik movement."

Cotler said a "Canada-U.S.S.R. round-table" on human rights would play a key role in international efforts aimed at persuading the Kremlin to live up to commitments on the free movement of citizens and ideas made in the 1975 Helsinki Agreement.

Unprecedented meeting

"Soviet human rights violations are not just violations of the commitments made by the Soviet Union at Helsinki to its own citizens, but they contradict the obligations made to Canada as a signatory, like other countries, to the Helsinki final act," he said.

"We need to set up co-operative efforts in both countries, both at the official level and the unofficial level, to resolve these issues."

Cotler made his comments at the end of a week of unprecedented meetings between senior officials and a 13-member delegation from the international Helsinki Watch monitoring group.

The only Canadian member of the delegation, Cotler said he also met openly with more than 1,000 refuseniks and unofficial human rights campaigners from around the country.

"When I was last here in 1979, you could never have imagined it would be possible," he said. "I've been able to meet with whomever I wished, I can speak freely on the telephone, and nobody has been picked up and put into prison for talking with me."

'Exciting to see'

Cotler said the Soviets themselves had described their legal reform campaign as "the greatest revolution in Soviet law since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution."

Recent reforms to the Soviet criminal code include regulations limiting capital punishment, a decree guaranteeing legal council to an accused person from the start of detention, and a new law allowing individual citizens to sue officials in court for violations of human rights.

"As a law professor and a lawyer, it's exciting to see law being used as an agent of revolution," said Cotler during a two-hour interview in his hotel near the foreign ministry building in central Moscow.

"If you want to understand some of what is happening here, the law is a looking glass."

Cotler, who was to return today to Canada, said he hoped to present some of his conclusions and recommendations at meetings in Ottawa with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and External Affairs Minister Joe Clark.

Last week's visit represented the first time Soviet authorities have allowed some of their most outspoken critics from abroad to challenge them on their own ground.

Rare presentation

The group met with a wide range of officials previously off-limits to human rights activists, including the ministers of justice and internal affairs and senior KGB officers.

During their stay, Soviet dissidents made a rare public presentation to authorities and were able to hold one of the largest human rights demonstrations ever held in Moscow without police interference.

Cotler also won agreement from Soviet authorities to accept representations from Canadian lawyers who will be individually sponsoring some 300 refusenik cases.

The Helsinki Watch delegation received scant coverage in the official media, but Cotler said their visit represented an important breakthrough in the East-West human rights dialogue.

GRAPHIC: Photo Irwin Cotler

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 379 words

HEADLINE: Dissident championed by Clark is given exit visa by the Soviets

BYLINE: AP-Reuter

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
MOSCOW (AP-Reuter) - Soviet authorities granted an exit visa yesterday to Ida Nudel, a leading Jewish dissident whose case was championed by External Affairs Minister Joe Clark.

"I was so excited that at first I can't believe it," Nudel, 56, said in a telephone interview after she returned from Yom Kippur services at a Moscow synogogue.

Nudel's battle to emigrate cost her four years in Siberia.

Her Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler - who formerly worked on behalf of Natan Sharansky - said Canada's plea for her release may have been the deciding factor in Nudel's release.

Moscow granted the exit permit to Nudel a week after Clark took up her case directly with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, The Star's Olivia Ward reports.

"An official appeal had been sent to (Soviet leader Mikhail) Gorbachev. And I understand that Shevardnadze was somewhat hopeful when Clark discussed the case. It was all done very quickly - but it worked," Cotler said.

Nudel, known as the "Guardian Angel of the Refuseniks" for her many years of work on behalf of Jewish prisoners of conscience, became a symbol of the struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union when she herself was jailed.

Yesterday, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish days, Nudel, 56, perhaps the most prominent of Jews denied permission to emigrate, was told by a government official that her application had been approved.

Joining sister

She passed the news to the United States in a call to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and the U.S. State Department issued a confirmation.

Conference spokesman Jerry Strober said Nudel planned to stay in Moscow to observe Yom Kippur and eventually would depart for Rehoveth, Israel, to join a sister, Elana Friedman.

"I take personal satisfaction in another human rights case positively resolved," Clark said yesterday. He added that the release was "in the wake of a passionate campaign all over the world."

For many years Nudel sent letters and gifts to dozens of jailed Soviet Jews and provided moral and financial help for their families.

She was charged with "malicious hooliganism" and jailed in 1978.

Nudel was exiled to a labor camp for violent criminals in Krivosheino, Siberia for four years.

GRAPHIC: Photo Ida Nudel

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 101 words

HEADLINE: SOVIETS FOR WALLENBERG

BYLINE: Ernie Meyer

HIGHLIGHT:
The Soviets are expected to help determine what happened to Raoul Wallenberg, Canadian human rights activist Irwin Cotler says. An international committee to determine Wallenberg's fate will include Soviet Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov and his wife Yelena Bonner and the distinguished Soviet historian Mikhail Chlenov. The committee will hold hearings in Paris in June at the Conference on Humanitarian Affairs. "The Soviets have stated that they want to open up the 'blank spaces of history.' Well, this is the blank space that awaits being opened in accordance with glasnost," Cotler said.

BODY:
The Soviets are expected to help determine what happened to Raoul Wallenberg, Canadian human rights activist Irwin Cotler says. An international committee to determine Wallenberg's fate will include Soviet Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov and his wife Yelena Bonner and the distinguished Soviet historian Mikhail Chlenov. The committee will hold hearings in Paris in June at the Conference on Humanitarian Affairs. "The Soviets have stated that they want to open up the 'blank spaces of history.' Well, this is the blank space that awaits being opened in accordance with glasnost," Cotler said.

LOAD-DATE: May 6, 1991

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

LENGTH: 694 words

HEADLINE: Waldheim's past no secret to Canada lawyer says

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: MONTREAL

BODY:
MONTREAL - Canada knew of the war crimes' allegations against Austrian president-elect Kurt Waldheim when it accepted him as Austria's first Canadian ambassador in 1960, a prominent Montreal lawyer charged today.

Irwin Cotler released documents which he says show Canada was aware of a 1948 finding by the United Nations War Crimes Commission that there was sufficient evidence to try Waldheim on charges of murder and "putting hostages to death."

The UN finding was based on a Yugoslavian war crimes investigation which branded Waldheim a war criminal and said his extradition to stand trial for murder was mandatory.

"On the basis of this evaluation material submitted by the Yugoslav authorities, the UN commission gave Waldheim its most serious suspect rating, the 'A' classification," Cotler says in a report to be released here.

'Sufficient evidence'

Cotler, a McGill University law professor and human rights activist, said Canada was a member of the UN commission that made those findings.

"Canada joined in a decision holding that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Waldheim as a war criminal in 1948," he said.

Waldheim, who is to be sworn in as Austria's president next month, has repeatedly denied he was guilty of any war crimes.

A former secretary-general of the United Nations, Waldheim was Austrian envoy to Canada from 1958 to 1960 and then served as ambassador until 1962.

"Canada was not only in receipt of the Yugoslav file in 1948, but as a member of the UN commission made an independent appraisal and evaluation of the Waldheim file," Cotler said.

The UN dossier, dated Feb. 19, 1948, says that between April, 1944 and May, 1945 Waldheim was responsible for putting hostages to death.

Clerk's testimony

The details of the alleged crimes are blanked out, but the dossier cites testimony from two fellow soldiers that Waldheim was responsible for murdering Yugoslav partisans.

Johann Mayer, a clerk who served under Waldheim, swore that Waldheim was responsible for "reprisal actions, treatment of prisoners of war and civilian internees.

"I remember certain persons having been murdered at Sarajevo in November, 1944," Mayer said. "They were executed according to the order given by Waldheim in retaliation for desertion from the German army of some other persons."

The commission put Waldheim on its list of the most serious war crimes suspects because it believed he had "committed or been responsible for the commission of war crimes, and is satisfied there is, or will be at the time of trial, sufficient evidence to justify (his) prosecution."

Cotler, who represents the Canadian Jewish Congress before a federal inquiry investigating Nazi war criminals in Canada, compiled his report after a lengthy review of UN, Yugoslavian, Greek, American and captured Nazi war documents.

'Serious defect'

Cotler said reference to Waldheim's war record was also made in the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects transmitted to Canada in 1948.

He said he finds it "inconceivable" that Canada could accredit as a foreign diplomat a person it had determined, on the basis of documentary evidence, to be an accused war criminal.

"The Canadian failure to reject Waldheim's credentials is not just a matter of history," he said, "for what it discloses is a serious defect in the procedures of accreditation."

In view of its laxity in accepting Waldheim as an ambassador, Canada now has a particular duty to decide whether he should be barred from again entering this country, Cotler said.

External Affairs Minsiter Joe Clark has said Canada won't consider barring Waldheim "until all the facts are in."

Cotler's charges came a day after the World Jewish Congress released a document in New York saying that Waldheim initialled a 1944 report stating that German troops killed more than 1,000 Greek civilians, including women, children, teachers and priests.

The congress, which is spearheading a probe into the Austrian president-elect's past, said the document "shatters any assertion that Waldheim did not know of the most brutal Nazi atrocities in the Balkans."

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A6

LENGTH: 117 words

HEADLINE: U of T withdraws debate invitation to S. African

BODY:
University of Toronto law students have withdrawn their invitation to South Africa's ambassador to take part in a debate Friday.

Faced with mounting pressure, the International Law Society yesterday said Glenn Babb should not have been invited in the first place.

In a letter to Babb, the society said he would be an "inappropriate participant" in the debate with Irwin Cotler, a constitutional law professor at McGill University, on whether international law applies to South African apartheid policies.

Earlier, four U of T professors said they will ask a court tomorrow for a permanent injunction to prevent any South African advocate of apartheid from speaking on campus.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A14

LENGTH: 232 words

HEADLINE: Canada's rights charter touted as model for Israelis to emulate

BYLINE: (CP)

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
JERUSALEM (CP) - Israel should adopt Canada's model for a bill of rights, a Montreal legal scholar said in a lecture yesterday.

"In the 1950s the United States played a significant role in regard to lawmaking in Israel," said Irwin Cotler, a law professor at Montreal's McGill University.

"Canada can play in the 1990s the role the U.S. played in the '50s to the building of a law culture and a rights structure here."

The Canadian and American rights bills differ markedly in several ways, Cotler said in an interview before speaking at Hebrew University.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, with its emphasis on group rights and limits on free speech, is better suited to an ethnically and religiously diverse country like Israel than an American-style bill of rights, he said.

For example, the U.S. Bill of Rights mandates a clear and total separation between church and state, a provision not in the Canadian rights charter and not appropriate in Israel, Cotler said. Both Canada and Israel permit public funding for private religious institutions.

"Both Canada and Israel have taken the view that racist speech is not acceptable, and I support that view," he said.

Specific examples of free speech that should not be allowed in Israel are Holocaust denial and incitement against the Arab minority, he suggested.

Israel; foreign; relations; Canada

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A14

LENGTH: 256 words

HEADLINE: Shcharansky in 'another universe' now lawyer says

BYLINE: By Olivia Ward Toronto Star

BODY:
"It was as though Anatoly had moved from one universe to another," says a Montreal lawyer who represented Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky during his treason trial.

In a telephone interview yesterday from Jerusalem, lawyer Irwin Cotler said Shcharansky appeared fatigued at a celebration dinner 24 hours after he was freed from a prison cell, but "looking better than any of us expected."

"We could hardly believe it was possible. It was amazing that he seemed to take it in his stride," Cotler said.

"He was radiating energy. He made an impassioned speech to remind us that the struggle for rights in the Soviet Union can never be relaxed until the last person held against his will is allowed to leave."

Shcharansky, 38, was told nothing of the impending "spy exchange" during his recent imprisonment, although his diet was improved suddenly and he was allowed exercise, Cotler said.

"It's not surprising that Anatoly was skeptical about release. Six times in the past there were negotiations that came to nothing. You can never be sure anything will materialize."

Cotler says there were indications of the release last fall, when Cotler met with the Soviet justice minister during the Geneva summit.

"He seemed to be exploring a pretext for letting Shcharansky go. Clearly he had become a liability, and the Russians appeared to see him as a symbol of what was blocking negotiations with the U.S."

Rumors that the Soviets had demanded $2 million for Shcharansky's release were untrue, he said.

GRAPHIC: photo Cotler

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 391 words

HEADLINE: Rights abuses on rise: Report Signs reminiscent of pre-Holocaust warning flags

BYLINE: CP

DATELINE: Ottawa

BODY:
OTTAWA (CP) - There are ominous patterns in human rights abuses these days, grimly reminiscent of the dark days of the 1930s when similar activities foreshadowed the Holocaust, says a leading Canadian activist.

A report by the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights contains clear danger signals, says Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor.

The group examined situations in 41 countries, including Canada, the U.S.and most European nations.

Persecution of minorities, higher walls against refugees and rising choruses of hate-mongers are all alarm signals, he said.

"Regrettably, we haven't learned," said Cotler, co-chairman of the Canadian Helsinki Watch Group. "We're repeating some of the same tragedies."

Cotler said xenophobia - the hatred of strangers - is growing, manifested in tightened laws against immigrants and refugees.

McGill University law professor The report was presented to an international conference of non-governmental organizations looking at human rights progress in the five years since a groundbreaking United Nations conference on the matter.

The Helsinki group chided Canada for imposing tougher rules on refugees, although Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy defended the country's record saying Canada probably takes in more refugees per capita than any other country.

"What's happened, as we've found in the last year or two, is that we have to re-impose visas because people take advantage of the (refugee) determination system and come to Canada simply for economic reasons or are not the traditional definition of a refugee. Tragically, sometimes you have to toughen up on it not to have those abuses."

There is also strong growth in hate speech aimed at minorities in many countries, Cotler said. It could take the form of official hate-mongering by state publications and broadcasters, leading to persecution of minorities such as Kurds in Turkey or Gypsies in eastern Europe.

"This is a lesson of the Second World War that we have not learned," Cotler said.

Another lesson has been forgotten, he said - "what I call the crime of indifference, the conspiracy of silence."

He cited Elie Weisel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize-winning writer:
"Neutrality always means coming down on the side of the victimizer and not on the side of the victim."

LOAD-DATE: March 25, 1999

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 234 words

HEADLINE: FORMER INTELLIGENCE CHIEF CONFIRMS: SWEDEN REFUSED TO TRADE SOVIET SPY FOR WALLENBERG.

BYLINE: BILL HUTMAN, Jerusalem Post Reporter

HIGHLIGHT:
A former head of Swedish intelligence has confirmed that in 1968 the USSR offered to swap Sweden Raoul Wallenberg for a Soviet spy it held, the international committee investigating Wallenberg's fate announced yesterday.

BODY:
A former head of Swedish intelligence has confirmed that in 1968 the USSR offered to swap Sweden Raoul Wallenberg for a Soviet spy it held, the international committee investigating Wallenberg's fate announced yesterday.

Irwin Cotler, a leading human rights activist and committee member, said the testimony of Karl Persson, who headed the intelligence service in the late 1960s, backed up an earlier report received by the committee about the proposed deal from a prominent Swedish lawyer.

Cotler told a Jerusalem press conference that this testimony and other evidence uncovered by the committee in the Soviet Union totally discounts the Soviet claim that Wallenberg died of a heart attack in a Soviet prison in 1947.

The Swedish government has been approached by the committee, the Soviet-International Joint Commission on the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg, for information on the alleged spy deal, but refused to comment, Cotler said.

Wallenberg was born in Sweden in 1912, and helped rescue Hungarian Jews from the Nazis during World War II. He disappeared after being arrested by Soviet soldiers advancing through Hungary.

Senior Israeli officials have assured Cotler that the Wallenberg case would be part of future talks with the USSR, but added that there would be no time to raise the subject with visiting Soviet Foreign Minister Aleander Bessmertnykh today.

LOAD-DATE: June 5, 1991

DISTRIBUTION: To City Desk; Copy To Photo Assignment Editor

LENGTH: 130 words

HEADLINE: FYI

BODY:
The attorney leading the international effort to win the release from a Soviet Labor camp of prominent Jewish dissident Anatoly Shcharansky, professor Irwin Cotler of Canada, will speak tomorrow evening (Tuesday, Sept. 16), 8:30 P.M., at the overnight leadership conference of the Women's Campaign for the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, now in progress at Tappan Zee Towne House, Nyack, N.Y. Some 150 leaders of the largest local Jewish women's fundraising effort in the world are formulating plans for the 1981 drive in New York City, Westchester and Long Island.

For further information and coverage arrangements Contact --Gene Jennings of UJA-Federation at 212-980-1000, ext. 872 or Barbara Walden at the Tappan Zee Town House at 914-358-8400.

ANATOLY BORISOVICH SHCHARANSKY (72%); BARBARA WALDEN (63%); GENE JENNINGS (63%); IRWIN COTLER (63%);

SECTION: FRONT; Pg. A4

LENGTH: 274 words

HEADLINE: Demjanjuk's departure put off again

SOURCE: AP

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
(AP) - Israel's top judge on Friday held up John Demjanjuk's departure for the fourth time in three weeks, reflecting Israel's reluctance to free a suspected Nazi war criminal even as legal recourses crumble.

Holocaust survivors have been seeking to try Demjanjuk, 73, on new war crimes charges after the Supreme Court on July 29 ruled he was not Ivan the Terrible, a sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp.

The high court cited reasonable doubt in overturning his death sentence, but added there was evidence Demjanjuk belonged to a Nazi death camp guard unit and served at the Sobibor death camp.

Two different Supreme Court panels and the attorney general have come out against a new trial, citing the danger of double jeopardy, weak evidence and already lengthy legal proceedings against the retired Ohio auto worker.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, stripped of U.S. citizenship and extradited to Israel in 1986 to stand trial as Ivan the Terrible, has denied all involvement in war crimes. He has said he spent most of the Second World War in German PoW camps after being captured as a Soviet soldier in May 1942.

On Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice Meir Shamgar granted the petitioners another two weeks to try to convince the high court it should look at the case again.

Legal experts have said chances of a new trial are remote, but that because of the sensitivity of the case the court was permitting the petitioners to exhaust all legal avenues.

"It is clear that it is going to be a very uphill battle," acknowledged Irwin Cotler, a Montreal law professor.

Demjanjuk's son, John Jr., said he was disappointed

LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2002

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A13

LENGTH: 363 words

HEADLINE: Wallenberg swap rejected by Sweden, Canadian says

BYLINE: AP

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
An investigator into the fate of Raoul Wallenberg said yesterday he has new information on Sweden's rejection of an apparent offer by the Soviets to produce the long-missing diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during World War II.

Canadian lawyer Irwin Cotler said the Soviets, who had reported Wallenberg died in 1947, told the go-between in a proposed prisoner swap that almost certainly involved the Swedish diplomat: "We don't trade corpses," indicating Wallenberg was still alive.

"It is shocking to think that Wallenberg might have been released and returned to humanity in 1966, and it is dramatically revealing - by the Soviet Union's own evidentiary hand - that Wallenberg had not died in 1947," Cotler said.

The Soviets arrested Wallenberg in Budapest in January, 1945, and his whereabouts were never disclosed until 1957, when the Soviets reported he died of a heart attack in a Moscow prison in 1947.

The claim has been disputed by Soviet witnesses who reported seeing Wallenberg alive in prisons as late as the 1980s.

Cotler is chairman of the Soviet International Commission on the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg, which is meeting with officials in Moscow. Swedish-Soviet working group also investigating Wallenberg's fate met separately with the Soviet group on Thursday.

Wallenberg, who would be 79 if he's alive, rescued tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi gas chambers by sheltering them in protective houses. He also forged Swedish work papers for condemned Jews and pulled Jewish prisoners from trains heading for concentration camps.

Cotler said yesterday that earlier this year Swedish lawyer KarlGustav Svingel said he was approached by the Soviets in 1966. Svingel said the Soviets offered to trade an unidentified Swede for the Swedish Soviet spy Stig Wennerstrom, according to Cotler.

During the past few days, Cotler said he spoke to Carl Persson, the former chief of the Swedish secret police, who also was in Moscow for Thursday's meeting.

"Persson confirmed to me that indeed the offer was made . . . He said the Swedish foreign ministry at the time viewed the offer as a provocation," Cotler said.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A2

LENGTH: 242 words

HEADLINE: SOVIETS OPEN WALLENBERG FILES TO PANEL

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
The Soviet Union has acknowledged that Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat credited with saving Jews in World War II, may not have died in 1947 in a Moscow prison, scholars said Monday.

''They are now entertaining the possibility that he did not die when the Soviet Union said he did,'' said Irwin Cotler, a professor who leads an international panel that is in Moscow to investigate Wallenberg's case.

The Soviet Union has agreed to open its archives about Wallenberg. The diplomat helped thousands of Jews evade the Nazis in Hungary. Wallenberg was last seen on Jan. 17, 1945, being driven off to see the commander of Soviet troops occupying Budapest after the Nazi retreat.

''Today marks a breakthrough,'' Cotler said. ''For 40 years the Soviet Union was not involved in the Wallenberg case. Finally, they have agreed to look at this in an open-ended way and agreed to let us look into the files.''

The Soviet Union had suspected Wallenberg of spying. It had maintained he died of a heart attack in Moscow's Lubyanka prison on July 17, 1947. Witnesses reported seeing Wallenberg in 1987, and Sweden has never accepted his death in 1947 as fact.

Wallenberg's many honors include having the Overton Park shell named for him.

Cotler said Soviet officials told commission members Monday that they would have access to KGB files and would be allowed to visit prisons where Wallenberg was believed to have been held since 1945.

GRAPHIC: Raoul Wallenberg

LOAD-DATE: January 25, 1996

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. F17

LENGTH: 458 words

HEADLINE: Shcharansky's lawyer urges battle for rights

BYLINE: By Janice Turner Toronto Star

BODY:
Lawyers must put the "search light" on human rights violators and expose their injustices to the world community, Anatoly Shcharansky's former attorney says.

"His release, cannot, must not, seal the fate of those who are left behind, those still struggling for their basic human rights in prisons and in labor camps," Irwin Cotler told a meeting of the International Commission of Jurists and the Canadian Bar Association last night.

Lawyers have a vital role to play in the "struggle for human rights and human dignity," he said. They can "mobilize shame" against human rights violators through their knowledge and use of international law.

10-year fight

Cotler, a Canadian lawyer, fought for 10 years to have Shcharanksy released from the Soviet Union. He took up the case after meeting Shcharansky's wife and was later accused of spying and expelled from the Soviet Union while attending an international conference there in 1979.

Shcharansky served eight years of a 13-year jail term in the Soviet Union on a charge of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. He was freed in an East-West exchange in February after a world-wide campaign for his release led by his wife Avital.

Cotler said Shcharansky's release provides an important message. "We are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of eachother's destiny," he said. "If it were up to the Soviet authorities, he (Shcharansky) would still be languishing in prison."

The work of "untold thousands" help deliver Shcharansky to freedom, the McGill University law professor said.

'Act together'

Quoting the freed dissident, Cotler said: "If we act together, if we stay the course, if we persevere, then the struggle for human rights will prevail over those who seek to repress."

He said the unrelenting global campaign made the Soviets realize it was in their interests to let Shcharansky go.

The Soviets were pushed by "a critical mass of advocacy," including letters sent by Montreal Kindergarten children to Moscow, he said.

Cotler said that Canada "has not only a connection, but a responsibility to the victims of Soviet human rights violations."

"It was Canada that was principally reponsible for including in the Helsinki Final Act provisions relating the reunification of families, freedom of emigration, freedom of ideas," he said.

In 1975, 35 nations of the East and West met in Helsinki, Finland, to sign the Final Act on security and co-operation in Europe. Generally known as the Helsinki accords, the document attempts to link trade and security with a country's respect for human rights.

"If we in Canada do not act, we end up becoming accomplices to the prosecutors rather than the defendants (of human rights)," he said.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: CANADA; Pg. 25

LENGTH: 624 words

HEADLINE: Ending the Nazi hunt

BYLINE: KEN MACQUEEN in Ottawa

BODY:
The coded telegram was dispatched by Britain's Commonwealth Relations Office to Canada and six other Commonwealth governments on July 13, 1948, just three years after the Second World War had ended. It dealt with a delicate subject: the British government had decided to quietly suspend further prosecutions in the United Kingdom of suspected Nazi war criminals -- and Westminster wanted the Commonwealth allies to adopt the same policy. When that declassified document was made public last week in Hull, Que., by a federal commission of inquiry into war criminals in Canada, it provided one of the most significant reasons why the trail of suspected Nazis living in Canada was allowed to grow cold in the postwar years. The telegram, declared Irwin Cotler, a Montreal lawyer representing the Canadian Jewish Congress, was a "scandalous indictment of the public policy prevailing at the time in the United Kingdom."

Indeed, the telegram -- tabled by Yves Fortier, a lawyer for the commission headed by Justice Jules Deschenes, former chief justice of the Quebec Superior Court -- raised some of the same issues that the commission has faced since it was set up last February to determine how many suspected war criminals may be living in Canada. The British telegram said that it was more important in the war's aftermath to improve relations with Germany in order to counter the Soviet Union than to pursue war criminals. The "punishment of war criminals," the British telegram noted, "is more a matter of discouraging future generations than of meting out retribution to every guilty individual."

The Commonwealth Relations Office issued a second document a month later. It noted that Commonwealth governments, including Canada, "have replied agreeing, or at any rate not disagreeing, with our proposals." The documents explained in part the incomplete Canadian records kept on suspected war criminals after 1947, when Canada turned over responsibility for prosecutions to Britain. According to testimony given last week by Robert Hayward, chief of the access section of Public Archives Canada, the public archives' records show that Ottawa in 1947 handed over to the British government a list of 154 people suspected of having committed war crimes against Canadians. But distribution of that list and several other lists of suspected war criminals was so strictly controlled that it was apparently not provided to the immigration department, which could have used it to screen suspected Nazis from the flood of Europeans settling in Canada after the war.

The information emerged as Deschenes considered whether or not to travel to the Soviet Union and Poland in search of evidence about war criminals in Canada.

Spokesmen for the Winnipeg-based Ukrainian-Canadian Committee, representing about 500,000 Canadians of Ukrainian descent, told an Ottawa news conference that Communist bloc officials would attempt to fabricate evidence implicating Eastern European immigrants in war crimes in order to damage the credibility of anti-Soviet dissidents in Canada. But lawyers representing Canada's Jewish community argued before the commission that it should do everything in its power to identify war criminals still alive in Canada, including taking testimony in the Soviet Union.

So far, the commission has sifted through allegations that as many as 660 war criminals may be living in Canada. Deschenes, who has until Dec. 31 to recommend ways of dealing with suspected war criminals, was expected to decide this week whether or not he will travel to the Communist bloc as well as to the United States, Britain and the Netherlands to hear evidence of "serious allegations" against eight Canadian citizens who are prime suspects.

GRAPHIC: Picture, Deschenes: a cold Nazi trail, CANAPRESS

SECTION: (608) O 8'01 pg 11; ISSN: 0848-0427

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5226915

LENGTH: 718 words

HEADLINE: ''Terrorism must be seen as a Nuremberg crime,'' says MP Cotler

BYLINE: Rana, Abbas

BODY:
Anti-terrorist expert Liberal MP Irwin Cotler says struggle against terrorism must involve multi-layered strategy

At a time when Ottawa's unelected officials are taking on major roles in constructing Canada's counter-terrorism policies, one elected government back-bencher is trying hard to be heard.

As a special adviser to Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley, Irwin Cotler (Mount-Royal, Que.) can provide a wealth of knowledge on the issue. The Montreal Liberal MP helps out the minister on International Criminal Court issues, but as an international human rights lawyer and university law professor, he is also an expert on counter-terrorism.

His resume is impressive. He has been involved in the search for peace in the Middle East, has lectured both in Arab countries and Israel for more than 20 years and he has been actively involved in rapprochement dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians.

In an interview with The Hill Times, Mr. Cotler outlined certain foundational principles that he thinks ought to be considered in the formation of Canadian counter-terrorism law and policy. He urged the Canadian government to ''undertake a multi-layered strategy of diplomatic, political, judicial, financial, informational and related strategic initiatives short of a military response.''

This is the same advice that Mr. Cotler gave to Prime Minister Jean Chretien (Saint-Maurice, Que.) during consultations with MPs. Mr. Cotler has also recently advised the Department of Justice.

''The struggle against terrorism must be part and priority of the larger struggle for human rights and human dignity, for the protection of democracy, for the peace and security of humankind. It should not be configured and conceptualized as national security versus civil liberties bust should be a cornerstone of our human security policy -- mobilizing Parliaments as well as governments and civil society as well as security forces,'' he said in the House recently.

A graduate of Yale Law School and a visiting professor at Harvard Law school, Mr. Cotler said he thinks the notion that ''one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter'' must be jettisoned in favour of ''one democracy's terrorist is another democracy's terrorist.''

The human rights lawyer knows all about how nations shift their interpretations of who the good guys are. He has twice been arrested for representing freedom fighters, as Nelson Mandela's lawyer in South Africa and as Andrei Sakharov's lawyer in the Soviet Union.

He has also provided legal counsel in Latin America to Jacobo Timmerman and in Asia for Muchtar Pakpahan. Recently, he served as an international legal counsel to Verite et justice and in the Pinochet case. Maclean's magazine once referred to him as ''the Counsel of the oppressed.''

Mr. Cotler took the case of Nelson Mandela when ''Nelson Mandela was not only in prison but a banned person so that the public mention of his name was itself prohibited,'' he said, adding that it was a time when ''Amnesty International refused to take up his case on the grounds that he had advocated violence.''

As for the anticipated military response to the terrorist attacks in the U.S., Mr. Cotler urged the allied countries to follow international law:

[Graph Not Transcribed]

''The doctrines of necessity and proportionality; the protection of civilians in armed conflict, and the like. It must be clear that this is a war against terrorism -- not against Islam or any religion -- and that Muslims or visible minorities any-where should not be profiled or prejudiced.''

Mr. Cotler is of the opinion that the international community is confronted with a ''transnational super terrorist suicide-bomber'' who is making use of the most modern means of communication to inflict maximum loss on the victims. So ''the principle of universal jurisdiction must underpin any national counter terrorism law and policy.''

Like Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Cotler advises the international community to consider terrorism as a ''Nuremberg Crime akin to a crime against humanity and terrorists must be seen for what they are -- hosts humans -- the enemies of human kind.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 1075

LOAD-DATE: December 21, 2001

SECTION: NEIGHBORS; Pg. N15

LENGTH: 380 words

HEADLINE: Children could help Soviet Jews, lawyer says

BYLINE: By Sterling Taylor Toronto Star

BODY:
Kindergarten children are an untapped resource in the struggle for human rights around the world, says the Canadian lawyer who fought for 10 years to have Anatoly Scharansky released from the Soviet Union.

Scharansky, a Jewish refusnik convicted of treason, was released six weeks ago after a Montreal kindergarten class scribbled pleas to the Soviets, Irwin Cotler told an Osgoode Hall Law School group last week.

Cotler, who said he now spends "a great deal of time talking to kindergarten classes," had encouraged his daughter's kindergarten classmates to write the Soviets.

"Maybe it touched a string. In any event, you could never convince the class that it wasn't their efforts that did it."

Kindergarten children may be the way to get Jews out of the Soviet Union, which has now virtually closed its doors to immigration, he said.

The McGill University law professor, who also represents South African prisoner of conscience Nelson Mandela, said it's impossible to tell what button to push in the fight for human rights, but it's important to keep pushing.

He urged his listeners to join in the "mobilization of shame" that has already moved South Africa on apartheid policies.

Even a single voice can raise consciousness, he told members of the Osgoode Hall Jewish Students' Association and the John White Society.

It was mainly the efforts of Scharansky's mother and wife, for instance, that actually mobilized the conscience of the world, Cotler believes.

Cotler, who took up the case after meeting Scharansky's wife, was accused of spying and expelled from the Soviet Union while attending an international conference in that country in 1979.

On his way to visit Scharansky's parents, he was detained and asked to sign a statement he had not written and later a blank sheet of paper. He refused to sign either and was expelled from the country.

Later, a Soviet newspaper described him as a spy masquerading as a lawyer.

"Speaking the truth is a defamation in the Soviet Union. Rights are committed into criminal acts. The courts are instruments of terror. An outside lawyer may be the only counsel a prisoner can have."

In the case of Scharansky, the Soviet lawyers who had agreed to represent him were disbarred, Cotler said.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A20

LENGTH: 463 words

HEADLINE: End Wallenberg mystery, inquiry urges Soviet leader

BYLINE: By Tim Harper Toronto Star

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
OTTAWA - There is undeniable evidence that Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg did not die in a Soviet prison in 1947 and may still be alive, the report of an international inquiry says.

The report's release by the inquiry, chaired by McGill University law professor and human rights activist Irwin Cotler, is timed to coincide with today's Canadian visit by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

It calls on Gorbachev to clear up the Wallenberg mystery, which it calls "the most compelling blank space of Soviet history and a litmus test of glasnost."

Cotler said yesterday he is optimistic justice may finally be served in the case of Wallenberg, who is credited with helping smuggle an estimated 100,000 Jews to safety from Nazi-occupied Hungary during World War II.

The Soviets have long contended he died of a heart attack in prison in 1947.

But the 1,200-page report for the first time releases evidence from eyewitnesses who say they saw Wallenberg, who would be 77 if alive, during the 1980s.

And the Cotler report says the Soviets have recently contradicted themselves and reported the death as a murder.

The report is only one of a number of topics which different politicians and organizations were hoping to place on the agenda when Gorbachev begins two days of meetings with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney this afternoon.

For instance, the Canadian Jewish Congress will today deliver a letter to Gorbachev through the Soviet embassy here congratulating him on the "enormous" progress made on Jewish rights in the Soviet Union.

Jack Silverstone, the congress's executive director, said his organization will meet with MPs and he hopes to deliver the letter personally to the Soviet leader.

The congress wants to make him aware of their concern with the rise of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and Moscow's failure to ratify an air agreement with Israel allowing direct flights from Moscow to Tel Aviv.

Israel has estimated 150,000 Soviet Jews will arrive this year, but Silverstone said failure to ratify the air agreement means many have to wait 6 to 12 months in order to get seats on flights.

On Wallenberg, the Cotler report reviewed thousands of pages of documentary and witness testimony relating to the case and concluded there is "compelling" evidence he was alive during the 1950s and '60s and "credible" evidence he was alive during the '70s and '80s.

It contains for the first time the evidence given by Wallenberg's family to Soviet authorities last October. It also includes testimony given Cotler by Soviet human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, who died last December, and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, during his February visit.report; Raoul; Wallenberg; Mikhail; Gorbachev; visit; Canada

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A12

LENGTH: 269 words

HEADLINE: Cracks in the curtain

BODY:
Canadians trying to get relatives out of the Soviet Union are finding it easier. In September, 1986, there were 42 names on Ottawa's list of outstanding family reunification cases. The number is now 13, including some new names.

It's one small sign that Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika (openness and reconstruction) at home have opened some cracks in Soviet society.

There are others. A 13-member delegation from the international human rights monitors, Helsinki Watch, has just returned from Moscow. The Canadian member, Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler, found it much easier to move about and talk to people - even dissidents and human rights activists - than it was in 1979.

As well, about 200 political prisoners were released last year and about 8,000 Soviet Jews were allowed to emigrate. And the Soviet government has been pushing for a full-scale international human rights conference in Moscow.

Canada and other Western nations are understandably cautious about a conference. They point out, rightly, that meetings to monitor compliance with the Helsinki accord have been going on in Vienna since November, 1986, and likely won't end until this summer.

In any event, when it comes to protecting human rights, actions speak louder than words. If the Soviet Union really wants to demonstrate its new-found respect for human rights, it will stop forcing psychiatric treatment on political opponents, release the hundreds more political prisoners, and give exit visas to everyone who wants them - Ukrainians and people from the Baltic states, as well as Jews.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. H1

LENGTH: 1278 words

HEADLINE: EXODUS: Why Soviet Jews are leaving in record numbers

BYLINE: by Gordon Barthos TORONTO STAR

JERUSALEM - Soviet Jews are panicking.

Surging, grassroots anti-Semitism, fears that Mikhail Gorbachev's social revolution will collapse in bloodshed and turmoil, and scare stories of pogroms are prompting people to flee as never before.

Their scramble to get to Israel and safety is fast becoming one of the great migrations of modern times.

"By any objective measure the situation of Soviet Jews is far better today than it was three years ago," Canadian human rights activist Irwin Cotler told The Star after flying here from Moscow.

"They can leave now, where they couldn't before. Nobody is being arrested now, where you had prisoners of conscience before. Nobody is losing their job if they apply to emigrate.

"But the Soviet Jewish community is caught in an emotional contagion, a fear, an apprehension that while glasnost (political openness) may be working, perestroika (social restructuring) is coming apart - and they will be the victims of its collapse."

Cotler, a McGill University law professor, is an acknowledged expert on Soviet Jewry. While in Moscow he was named legal adviser to the Confederation of Jewish Communities in the U.S.S.R., a newly created umbrella group that represents hundreds of Jewish communities.

Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident now living in Jerusalem, echoed Cotler's assessment at a conference this week.

But some Soviet Jews point out that many Jews are leaving for very positive reasons.

Tancred Golenpolsky, editor of the Herald of Soviet Jewish Culture magazine, told reporters here that four in five Jews are leaving in "search of the American dream, just like the mass emigration at the turn of the century."

Yet there's no disputing that the sheer number of Soviet Jews wishing to leave is at an all-time high.

At present between 3,000 and 4,000 a month are arriving, compared to fewer than 1,000 a month for most of 1989, and the number is expected to double again.

Publicly, Jewish Agency Chairman Simcha Dinitz predicts that 250,000 Soviet Jews will pour into Israel in the next three or four years, and will be absorbed easily. That would double the number of Soviet Jews already here.

Israel has faced the challenge before. After becoming a state in 1948, Israel, with a population of roughly 650,000, took in 680,000 immigrants.

Privately, however, some Israeli analysts forecast the arrival of more than 1 million Soviet Jews over five years. This is at a time when joblessness is at a record high in this country of 3.6 million Jews, where 500,000 people live in chronic poverty and where affordable housing is scarce.

As flights from Moscow carrying Soviet Jews touched down at Ben Gurion Airport this week, news reports noted that a record 71,196 Jews left the Soviet Union last year, 20,000 more than any previous year.

And Prime Minister Yitzhak

Shamir announced that he's creating a task force to cope with the flood. Deputy Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has called for a "national emergency plan" to create jobs and housing for the 100,000 to 200,000 people expected this year.

Israeli officials estimate $3 billion (U.S.) or more will be needed to help the newcomers put down roots, with as much as $500 million needed to relocate the first 40,000 to arrive.

Many Israelis were caught off guard by the abrupt, vast wave of Soviet immigrants, which threatens to change the country's basic social structure.

Assuming that the newcomers stay in Israel, rather than use this country as a jumping-off point to other destinations, the conservative, anti-socialist new arrivals will solidify the hold Shamir's right-leaning Likud party has on the electorate, analysts predict.

Moreover, Soviet immigration may tilt the social balance back in favor of Ashkenazi or European Jews, who today are outnumbered by Sephardic Jews from North Africa and the Middle East.

Yet people shouldn't have been surprised by the massive wave of Soviet immigration, said Cotler.

In four trips to the Soviet Union in the past year, Cotler found Jews have good reasons to quit the country in unprecedented numbers - ironically at a time when Soviet officialdom has never been friendlier.

Although some of the fears Cotler found may seem exaggerated to non-Jews, they must be seen in the light of European history.

While many Soviet Jews have applauded the recent, breathless changes in Eastern Europe they fear that if similar revolutionary changes sweep the Soviet Union there may be a bloodbath as the Communist party and the people struggle for control.

"And many Soviet Jews fear that they would be the first victims," caught up in a merciless civil war, Cotler said.

At the very least the current Soviet political situation is "volatile and unstable" in a way that makes people fear that the centre will not hold, and makes them anxious to leave, Cotler said.

Many Soviet Jews also have a sense of "impending economic collapse, that nothing is working," Cotler said. There's labor unrest, joblessness, inflation, a worthless ruble, the transport system is grinding to a halt, consumer goods are in short supply.

"And who's going to be blamed, many ask? Soviet Jews."

Those Jews who are prominent in the more efficient co-operative movement have a different reason to worry: That they'll be blamed for prospering, while the country as a whole suffers, he said.

A dramatic rise in nationalism in the Baltic and Asian republics has brought with it xenophobia and extremism, and anti-Semitism in the form of graffiti, leaflets, hate literature.

"Jews fear they'll get caught in the crossfire" as competing ethnic groups vie for supremacy, Cotler said.

While official state-supported anti-Semitism is fast evaporating under Gorbachev's reforms, popular anti-Semitism is on the rise, Cotler said.

The Pamyat movement is well known. But Soviet Jews also cite cases of popular TV talk shows in Moscow airing anti-Semitic opinions, of hate literature being distributed in the street.

"There are rumors, spreading like brushfire, of pogroms in different parts of the country," Cotler said. "I haven't been able to find any evidence, but I found a real apprehension about impending pogroms, and even a belief that they've occurred. This is spreading like an emotional contagion."

"Emigration has become a collective phenomenon. Whole communities, small towns, are now speaking of leaving, saying 'We've got to get out'."

With the U.S. government accepting only 30,000 to 40,000 Soviet Jews a year, starting this month, for the foreseeable future "the gates appear to be closing at the very time when larger numbers want to leave." Hence the scramble to get out, and to get to Israel.

Soviet law is being rewritten in a way that makes emigration a right, not a privilege to be doled out at the whim of bureaucrats. Many Jews intend to capitalize on this while they can.

New Soviet legislation has a provision that says the right to emigrate depends on the applicant's ability to demonstrate a country of acceptance. Jews benefit automatically because Israel has pledged to accept any Jew who wants to come here.

Israel has become a more attractive destination because Moscow is no longer describing Israel as a terrible place to live, and because Soviet Jews who have emigrated to Israel are reaching out to the Soviet Jewish community and urging them to leave.

Many Soviet Jews are adopting a "get out while you can, the borders that are open may close again" attitude, Cotler said. In 1979, 50,000 Jews were allowed to leave but that number fell to fewer than 1,000 by 1984. People worry that it could happen again.

GRAPHIC: photos Soviet Jews crowd Moscow Hungarian Airlines office; Natan Sharansky; Irwin CotlerSoviet; Union; Jew; emigration; politics

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 281 words

HEADLINE: Open up Wallenberg files, commission urges Gorbachev

BYLINE: (REUTER)

DATELINE: HELSINKI

BODY:
HELSINKI (Reuter) - An international commission yesterday urged Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to unlock police files on missing World War II Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, saying the KGB held "a smoking gun."

The commission, reporting on a visit to the Soviet Union to pursue its investigation, said the KGB, the Soviet security police and intelligence agency, had the dossiers to clear up the Wallenberg mystery but refused to co-operate.

Wallenberg, credited with saving thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi gas chambers during World War II, was seized by Soviet authorities in Budapest in 1945.

The Soviet Union said he died of a heart attack in Moscow's Lubyanka prison in 1947. But Sweden never accepted this and reports persisted over the years that he was still alive.

Canadian professor Irwin Cotler, leading the Joint Soviet-International Commission, told a news conference the group now had incontrovertible evidence that Wallenberg did not die as Moscow claimed in 1947.

"There is compelling evidence that Raoul Wallenberg was alive in the 1950s and might well have been alive thereafter," Cotler said. "All trails lead to the KGB . . . The smoking gun, as it were, seems to us to be with the KGB."

Cotler said the commission was now checking information going back to 1975 that Wallenberg was detained in a psychiatric hospital in the Kazan region.

The commission came to Helsinki to release an open letter to Gorbachev.

Wallenberg, using his Swedish diplomatic status in Nazi-held Budapest, issued Hungarian Jews special Swedish passports to save them from deportation to death camps. Soviet; Union; missing; Raoul; Wallenberg

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A12

LENGTH: 320 words

HEADLINE: Shcharansky-Mandela 'trade' rejected by Soviets, lawyer says

BYLINE: (CP)

DATELINE: MONTREAL

BODY:
MONTREAL (CP) - South Africa had pressed Moscow for four years to release Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky in a bid to "buy" international goodwill, Shcharansky's Montreal lawyer said yesterday.

But Moscow firmly rejected any attempts by South Africa to link the freeing of Soviet dissidents with the release of black activist Nelson Mandela, jailed by South Africa 22 years ago, lawyer Irwin Cotler said.

"South Africa got involved (in the Shcharansky case) four years ago because it saw a chance to make gains diplomatically and refurbish its image in the international community," said Cotler, who also acts on Mandela's behalf.

"But the Soviet government would not permit a linkage," Cotler told a news conference called one day after he returned from meetings in Jerusalem with Shcharansky.

The freeing of Shcharansky last Tuesday sparked further speculation that South Africa will soon release Mandela, a leader of the banned African National Congress.

South African President Pieter Botha has said he would free Mandela if the Soviet Union released Shcharansky and another prominent dissident, Andrei Sakharov, and if Angola released a South African army captain, Wynand du Toit, captured on a mission there.

Cotler, a long-time human-rights activist who has had direct negotiations with Moscow and Johannesburg about jailed dissidents, said the only link that should be made between Mandela and Shcharansky is that "they are both metaphors for the human rights movements."

Apply pressure

He said there are growing indications that elements of the South African government want to release Mandela, convicted of sabotage and trying to overthrow the government.

Cotler called on Canada, the United States and other Western governments to pressure South Africa to free Mandela, saying governments free political prisoners only when it is in "their selfish interests to do so."

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A9

LENGTH: 385 words

HEADLINE: Demjanjuk trial ruling put off;
Petitioners want new charges for acquitted man

SOURCE: FROM SPECTATOR WIRE SERVICES

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
Israel's Supreme Court has put off a ruling on whether John Demjanjuk, acquitted of being Nazi killer Ivan the Terrible, should face a new war crimes trial on charges of having served as a guard at other death camps.

Attorney General Yosef Harish told the court in writing yesterday that the government did not want to press new charges, but a stream of angry petitioners said Mr. Demjanjuk should stand trial again.

Mr. Harish cited a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago that lifted the death sentence passed on Mr. Demjanjuk in 1988 and cleared the way for his deportation.

Eight petitioners, including Nazi hunters, human rights advocates, far-right politicians and Israelis who survived the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews in the Second World War, argue there is enough evidence for a second trial on other charges.

Mr. Demjanjuk, 73, a Ukrainian-born former car worker, was extradited from the United States to Jerusalem in 1986.

A five-judge Supreme Court panel acquitted him July 29 because of doubts he was Ivan the Terrible, the guard who tortured and gassed Jews at Treblinka death camp.

Legal experts watching the session said they did not expect a decision before tomorrow. The postponement has the effect of extending the order that blocked Mr. Demjanjuk's deportation and flight to freedom 10 days earlier.

Mr. Demjanjuk has always denied any connection with the Second World War death camps.

But Noam Federman of the far-right Kach group, which started the flood of petitions to the court, said legalities were secondary to the need to prosecute someone accused of being a guard at Second World War death camps.

Petitioners focused on the Supreme Court decision two weeks ago that said there was evidence that, despite his acquittal, Mr. Demjanjuk was at other death camps.

By late yesterday the court had not specified when it would issue its ruling on the petitions, including one from the Montreal-based InterAmicus Human Rights Group, headed by McGill University law professor Irwin Cotler. He is concerned that freeing Mr. Demjanjuk will discourage prosecution of other suspected Nazi war criminals.

Mr. Harish said a U.S. appeals court reconsidering his extradition believed Mr. Demjanjuk was sent to Israel specifically on the charge of being Ivan the Terrible.

GRAPHIC: AP Orthodox Jew shouts in protest outside Israel's Supreme Court yesterday.

LOAD-DATE: October 4, 2002

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. C20

LENGTH: 272 words

HEADLINE: MDs efforts credited with release of Soviet

BYLINE: By Olivia Ward Toronto Star

DATELINE: COLOGNE, WEST GERMANY

BODY:
COLOGNE, West Germany - Quiet diplomacy by Soviet and American doctors has brought about the release from prison of Soviet dissident Alex Shatravka, and a second prisoner may be freed soon, a spokesman for an international doctors' group says.

Dr. John Pastore made the announcement at a news conference opening the 6th annual congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

Shatravka, a founding member of the unofficial Moscow Group to Establish Trust between the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A., was released yesterday and given permission to leave the Soviet Union, Pastore said.

Eugueni Chazov, co-chairman of the physicians' group, said Dr. Vladimir Brodsky, a Moscow physician and Trust Group founder imprisoned for the past year, may also be freed "in the near future."

Brodsky is serving a three-year sentence in a Siberian labor camp for "malicious hooliganism." He had earlier been refused permission to emigrate to Israel.

In Ottawa, Brodsky's Canadian lawyer disputed the report that the 41-year-old Jewish physician was about to be freed.

Irwin Cotler said friends of Brodsky in the United States were told by his wife, Dina Zisserman, that he had been put in solitary confinement.

That "doesn't exactly dovetail with reports that he is about to be released," Cotler said.

Dr. Bernard Lown, a friend and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner with Chazov, has channelled questions about imprisoned doctors through Soviet colleagues. Chazov, formerly physician to the late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, is known to enjoy the confidence of current leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: Opinion

LENGTH: 500 words

HEADLINE: HOLOCAUST DENIAL IN CANADA

BYLINE: Irwin Cotler

HIGHLIGHT:
Sir, - Your article of December 22, "Canada called world center of Holocaust denial litigation," and lead paragraph in that article attributing to me a statement to the effect that "one third of my first-year law students believes the Holocaust did not take place," is both misleading and misrepresentative. The problem is not only that these statements were not made as reported, but that they were abstracted from the context in which they were made, and therefore both misrepresent and mislead.

BODY:
Sir, - Your article of December 22, "Canada called world center of Holocaust denial litigation," and lead paragraph in that article attributing to me a statement to the effect that "one third of my first-year law students believes the Holocaust did not take place," is both misleading and misrepresentative. The problem is not only that these statements were not made as reported, but that they were abstracted from the context in which they were made, and therefore both misrepresent and mislead.

Yes, I said - and this is the full statement - that "it is an example of the Orwellian character of our times that a country like Canada - a medina yafat nefesh - an innocent, well-meaning country - should emerge as one of the centers for Holocaust denial litigation." But as I added, and as my paper bears out, this is due to the fact that Canada has one of the most comprehensive sets of legal remedies to combat Holocaust denial; and that the Canadian case-law in the matter of freedom of expression and hate speech is the most comprehensive and authoritative there is - an exemplary model of judicial review for all democracies confronting the growing phenomenon of hate speech. This last statement - and the 10 principles of judicial interpretation arising from this litigation - became the theme of my talk. You substituted a misleading headline in its place.

Your statement quoting me as saying that one third of my first-year law students "believe (emphasis added) the Holocaust did not take place" is a clear misrepresentation. I did not make, and would not make, that statement. What I said was, "that at a certain moment in the Zundel trial in 1985, when the media was reporting the testimony of Holocaust deniers as the testimony of expert witnesses ("Women dined and danced at Auschwitz, says expert witness," was one of the headlines in the Toronto Star at the time), part of the Canadian public, including one third of my students, taking their cue from the media, doubted, or were unsure, as to what really happened. In a word, there was a period in February 1985 when, as the cover story of Canada's Maclean's magazine reported, "the Holocaust was on trial, not the Holocaust denier Zundel."

But ignored in your report was my statement that the moment of doubt and uncertainty passed, and the views of my students, as that of the Canadian public generally, changed in the course of the trial. Indeed, as public opinion polls showed, they actually became more understanding of the Holocaust, and more sympathetic to Jews, at the conclusion of the trials than they were at the outset.

In a word, it would have been as incorrect to attribute a Holocaust denier attitude to my students then in 1985, as it would be certainly incorrect and misleading to attribute it to my students of today (which the article does). It may make for a nice "man bites dog" lead paragraph, but it's not true.

IRWIN COTLER, Professor of Law, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

LOAD-DATE: January 21, 1993

SECTION: NATIONAL NOTES; Pg. 18

LENGTH: 208 words

HEADLINE: The Nazi hunters

With the 15-month-old federal commission on suspected Nazi war criminals in Canada approaching its June 30 reporting deadline, the campaign to influence its recommendations is gathering momentum. Last week in Ottawa representatives of Canada's Ukrainian and Jewish communities made separate appeals to the inquiry's commissioner, Mr. Justice Jules Deschenes. Lawyer John Sopinka, representating the Ukrainian Canadian Committee, argued that, although the Soviet Union has now agreed to let the commission take testimony on alleged wartime atrocities from 34 witnesses behind the Iron Curtain, such evidence might be fabricated. The Kremlin is specifically seeking the extradition of two Canadians of Ukrainian descent charged under Soviet law with "the extermination of Soviet citizens" during the Second World War. In turn, Jewish organizations urged Deschenes, whose commission has investigated charges against some 800 Canadians, to bring suspected Nazi war criminals living in Canada to justice. The nation's 40-year failure on this score, charged Irwin Cotler, lawyer for the Canadian Jewish Congress, had "reduced the Holocaust to a footnote -- a bureaucratization of evil that emerges as a blueprint for government inaction."

LENGTH: 484 words

HEADLINE: Chretiens stirs controversy in Lebanon.

GUEST: NEIL MacDONALD, CBC Reporter; PRIME MINISTER JEANCHRETIEN; NISAN SAMAN, Lebanese Communications Minister;FRANK DIMANT, B'nai B'rith Canada; ELIAS BEJJANI, Cdn.Lebanese Human Rights Fed'n; SEN. MARCEL PRUD'HOMME,Canadian Senator

ANCHORS: ALISON SMITH

BODY:
ALISON SMITH: Well it appears Jean Chretien has done it again. The prime minister stirring up even more controversy as he continues his tour of the Middle East. This time he's raising eyebrows with some comments on just who is -- and isn't -- occupying Lebanon. Our Middle East correspondent Neil MacDonald explains.

NEIL MacDONALD: Canada has been perfectly clear during this tour about Israel's presence in Lebanon -- it's an occupation and Israel should leave now. About Syria's heavy military presence here, though, Canada's position is different.

PRIME MINISTER JEAN CHRETIEN: Uh it is not an occupation.

MacDONALD: Chretien says he raised the matter with the Lebanese president today and he was satisfied with the reply.

CHRETIEN: The government here is a legitimate government, and they said to me that they have invited and that the soldiers from Syria are welcome here. And when they will not be needed; when they will have sufficient internal peace, they will ask them to go back.

MacDONALD: And this Lebanese minister says the Canadian position is perfectly in line with Lebanon's.

NISAN SAMAN / LEBANESE COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER: Of course we are happy with the Syrian army here, because it's strengthening us against Israeli invasion.

MacDONALD: Real politik here though is somewhat different. Many Lebanese don't want the Syrians in Lebanon at all. Syria crushes Lebanese dissidence and controls the Lebanese government. Israel and its allies say the world's treatment of Syria is hypocritical.

FRANK DIMANT / B'NAI B'RITH CANADA: It would seem that there is some sort of effort to appease the Syrians on this point, but regrettably our prime minister is in error on the subject matter. The fact of the matter is that Syria is occupying Lebanon.

MacDONALD: And some Lebanese Canadians aren't too happy about it either.

ELIAS BEJJANI / CDN. LEBANESE HUMAN RIGHTS FED'N: We ask Mr. Chretien to review his statement and we expect an apology from him.

MacDONALD: Canadian MPs travelling with Chretien, some of whom are known to have strong views on the matter, had no comment today as they arrived with him in Jordan. Montreal MP Irwin Cotler is a renowned human rights advocate.

MacDONALD: It's hard for me to believe that Irwin Cotler will not pronounce himself on whether Syria is occupying Lebanon.

MacDONALD: That's not a silence we're used to hearing.

SEN. MARCEL PRUD'HOMME / CANADIAN SENATOR: You think that because we do not talk that we're afraid?

MacDONALD: Chretien's officials have seen the MPs talking to reporters and are clearly imposing some caucus discipline. The controversy surrounding this trip so far has unsettled the Canadian delegation. And now, with three days ahead of them in the relative tranquillity of Jordan, they're hoping for a breather. Tomorrow, Jean Chretien spends the day as a tourist. Neil MacDonald, CBC News, Amman.

LOAD-DATE: April 15, 2000

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A7

LENGTH: 219 words

HEADLINE: Liberals, NDP on top in federal byelections

SOURCE: CP

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
The governing Liberals cruised to victory in three federal byelections in Montreal, Toronto and Hull, Que., on Monday night while the NDP took a fourth seat up for grabs in Saskatchewan.

The results left the parties exactly where they had been before the campaigns began.

Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor and human rights activist, had the biggest cushion for the Liberals as he took the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, a constituency the party has won in every election since 1940.

"I feel humbled by this overwhelming majority," said Cotler, who crushed his nearest rival, Conservative Noel Alexander, head of the Jamaican Association of Montreal.

Judy Sgro, a Toronto city councillor, celebrated another Grit victory in the riding of York West, a stronghold for the party for more than three decades.

In Hull-Aylmer, which has been Liberal since 1921, Liberal Marcel Proulx took his win Monday as a vote of confidence not just in the party but also in the prime minister.

"People have been very satisfied with the program of Jean Chretien."

Dennis Gruending of the NDP retained the riding of Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar for his party, besting Reformer Jim McAllister.

Liberal Henry Dayday, the mayor of Saskatoon, ran third barely ahead of Conservative novice Richard Gabruch.

GRAPHIC: CP; Fire Station Burns - Firefighters fight a blaze at their own fire station in Montreal Monday. The firefighters were away from their station putting out another fire at a nearby abandoned commercial building when they got the call about their workplace. Officials could not say how the fire started.

LOAD-DATE: December 2, 2002

SECTION: Part A; Page 1; Column 5; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 843 words

HEADLINE: ISRAEL'S ATTY. GEN. REJECTS NEW TRIAL FOR DEMJANJUK

BYLINE: By MICHAEL PARKS, TIMES STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
Israel's attorney general announced Wednesday that, despite pleas from Holocaust survivors and Nazi hunters, the government will not prosecute retired Ohio auto worker John Demjanjuk a second time for war crimes, but the country's Supreme Court deferred a final decision on a new trial.

"With a heavy heart," Atty. Gen. Yosef Harish recommended that all proceedings against Demjanjuk be dropped, saying that another trial was not in the public interest after his acquittal on charges that he had been "Ivan the Terrible," the guard who ran the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp.

Harish said a second trial would likely violate the legal principle of not trying a person twice for the same crime, unless totally new charges were brought based on Demjanjuk's alleged service at a second Nazi camp, Sobibor.

But such new charges, Harish continued, would in turn violate Israeli and international laws requiring that Demjanjuk be tried only as "Ivan the Terrible," the basis on which he was extradited from the United States in 1986.

A final consideration, Harish said, was practical but crucial: Could credible witnesses and evidence be found to place Demjanjuk, now 73, at Sobibor during World War II?

"With heartfelt grief, I have reached the conclusion that we are no longer able to go back and charge Demjanjuk with an offense in new criminal proceedings," Harish told the court.

"I say 'with a heavy heart' because what moves me and my legal colleagues is the same spirit that moves the whole House of Israel concerning the need to do justice and to bring the annihilators of our people to a final reckoning, in whatever place and whatever time our hand can reach them, even to the last days and the ends of the Earth."

Outside the court, there were angry scenes as protesters shouted "Nazi, Nazi!" at Demjanjuk's Israeli attorney, Yoram Sheftel, and police struggled to contain the demonstration demanding a new trial. One elderly spectator was ejected from the courtroom after shouting at Sheftel: "You're contemptible! You defend murderers of Jews."

Seven petitioners, arguing against the government decision, called for Demjanjuk to be tried on the Sobibor charges. In emotional appeals to the three judges, they insisted that not only was there sufficient evidence against Demjanjuk but that Israel as a Jewish state had a duty to try him again.

Noam Federman, a leader of the ultra-rightist movement Kach, said all the legal principles cited by government lawyers were secondary to the need to prosecute someone accused of being a guard at the death camps.

"I am not looking for justice -- I am looking for revenge," Federman declared.

Yisrael Yehezkeli, 75, who survived the Sobibor death camp, beat his chest and demanded, "How can it be that in Israel they want to free a murderer of our people?"

Irwin Cotler, a leading human rights lawyer from Montreal, argued that the Supreme Court's own findings in acquitting Demjanjuk of the Treblinka charges effectively required Israel to try him on the Sobibor charges.

"Israel is obligated by international law to put all Nazi criminals on trial," Cotler told the court; otherwise, it would be weakening the use of international law against others suspected of war crimes, he said.

And Yehuda Raveh, representing the World Jewish Congress, warned that if Demjanjuk is not tried again, "other courts and prosecutors all over the world will see this as a message that the Holocaust is over." Demjanjuk's acquittal, Raveh said, will become the criterion by which other countries decide whether to prosecute suspected war criminals.

"As a Jew and as an Israeli, I am outraged," said Avi Becker, director of the World Jewish Congress' Israel office. "To say there's no public interest in putting Nazis on trial is like trying to rewrite the history of Israel."

Two weeks ago, a separate five-judge panel of the Supreme Court cleared the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk of charges that he had been "Ivan the Terrible" at Treblinka, where 850,000 Jews were killed. It quashed a 1988 lower court conviction and death sentence.

Demjanjuk, who has insisted from the outset that he was never a guard at any Nazi camp but a German prisoner himself through most of the war, did not attend the four-hour hearing, but his son, John Jr., 28, praised the government for resisting the heavy public pressure to try his father again.

If the Israeli court rules against further prosecution, Demjanjuk would be free to leave Israel, though whether he would return to his home in Cleveland or his native Ukraine is still a question.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled last week that he may return to the United States for an inquiry into whether the U.S. government withheld information that might have aided him in fighting extradition. But the Justice Department has asked the court to reconsider on grounds that he was proven to be a concentration camp guard, even if not at Treblinka.

Researcher Dianna M. Cahn in The Times' Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.

SECTION: v.28(45) N 19'98 pg 34; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4375892

LENGTH: 794 words

HEADLINE: Aussie-Israel relations suffer rupture: Cotler [Collapse of footbridge over Yarkon River during opening ceremonies of Maccabiah Games]

BYLINE: Lungen, Paul

BODY:
TORONTO -- Irwin Cotler remembers the last Maccabiah Games well. Invited to join the Canadian delegation, Cotler was close by when the footbridge over the Yarkon River collapsed during the Games' opening ceremonies.

Four Australians who plunged into the toxically polluted Yarkon River were killed, and about 70 others were injured.

More than a year later, the wounds from that tragic event have not yet healed. On the contrary. In Australia, youth athlete Sasha Elterman, who has undergone 26 surgical procedures, has again been hospitalized due to the fungal meningitis she contracted after falling into the Yarkon.

And for the loyally Zionistic Jewish community, relations with Israel have cooled considerably. In fact, said Cotler, ''what was an inspirational component of the Israel-Diaspora relations has turned into a rupture of Israel-Diaspora relations.''

Cotler, a law professor at McGill University and a human rights activist, visited Australia recently.

Cotler said he found ''the close knit Australian community, with its almost mythic view of Israel, has been disappointed. Their pain is due to a tragedy that was caused by criminal negligence, and they feel that since then, Israel and has been dragging its feet'' in getting to the bottom of it.

The question of responsibility for the collapse is ''not a matter limited to the families of the victims. I saw it as pervasive. It's an important issue in Australia-Israel relations.

''There was a palpable anger to Israel among some of the people in the audience'' at a UJA event, not just towards the Maccabi World Union (MWU), which organized the games, he noted.

In the aftermath of the collapse, criminal charges were laid against five individuals, including the bridge's engineers and contractors, and the former chair of the Maccabiah organizing committee, Yoram Eyal.

After intense lobbying from Australia, the Knesset set up an independent committee to study the bridge collapse. The criminal trials and the committee's deliberations are ongoing.

For Australian Jews, the bridge collapse is especially painful because it was preventable, Cotler said. Australians he met asked, ''How could this negligence have been allowed to occur?'' They also asked, ''Why is it taking so long for justice to be done and why are there no MWU resignations?''

In Australia, Colin Elterman, Sasha's father, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the MWU. Responding via e-mail to written questions from The CJN, Elterman stated he believes the Australian and Canadian Maccabi organizations should ''not attend the next Maccabiah unless issues concerning MWU are properly resolved.''

He called on MWU president Ronaldo Bakalarz and chair Uzi Netanel to resign. He also called on Maccabi Canada to pressure MWU officials to resign and to try ''to ensure that the Pan-American Games to be held in Mexico next year will be MWU-free.''

Elterman's lawyer, Derrick Zabow, said the victims are seeking the support of North American and Israeli delegates to the General Assembly, hosted by UJA Federations of North America, when they meet in Israel this week. He's asking the delegates to call upon local Maccabi movements ''to press for a thorough overhaul of the MWU'' as well as to ''galvanize Diaspora support for the Australian Jewish community, who have been sorely unsupported by world Jewry.''

Meanwhile, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia have entered the fray. They recently asked the Olympic Committee of Israel (OCI), which is planning to send a delegation to Sydney to prepare for the 2000 Olympics, to ''not include in any of its delegations to Australia members who are associated with the MWU leadership.''

Maccabi Canada president Roy Salomon, who participated in the MWU reconciliation effort in Australia last February, said, ''We're aware of the feelings in Australia.''

But he said they are a result of misplaced anger brought on by ''misinformation.'' Contrary to the perception in Australia, the MWU has always been intensely concerned over their loss, Salomon said.

''I understand the emotions of the people in Australia. This was a major tragedy ... There are inquiries being held and I think judgment should be reserved until the facts are finally out,'' Salomon said.

''We've sent thousands upon thousands of kids to Israel. We've been involved in the Pan Am Maccabi Games, involved in the Youth Games. There have been so many wonderful experiences without incident, injuries or death. This was a tragedy and we're trying to get to the bottom of what happened.

''Nobody's interested in hiding anything. It's just a matter of letting the facts come out.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: July 01, 1999

SECTION: Page 4, Column 2

LENGTH: 134 words

BYLINE: BY IRWIN COTLER and HENRY GINIGER

JOURNAL-CODE: NYT

ABSTRACT:
Irwin Cotler, prominent Montreal lawyer and law professor, is evicted from Soviet Union and put on Japan Air Lines flight to London a few hours after end of International Political Science Assn meeting in Moscow on August 19. Cotler did not plan to leave Soviet Union because he had meetings with some of highest Soviet judicial authorities to plead on behalf of Anatoly B Shcharansky and other Soviet dissidents. Cotler, pondering his ouster, concludes that Soviet political and legal systems are not as monolithic as they might appear, noting certain measure of independence and integrity by judiciary. Cotler had obtained appointments with Justice Aleksandr K Orlov, chairman of Supreme Court, Justice Georgi V Kaznin, Chief Justice Lev N Smirnov and Interior Affairs Min Nikolai A Shchelokov (M).

SECTION: Section 1; Part 1, Page 10, Column 4; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 77 words

HEADLINE: Chemistry Professor Granted Permission to Leave Soviet

BYLINE: Reuters

DATELINE: MONTREAL, Jan. 2

BODY:
Irwin Cotler, a local lawyer, said today that Yuri Tarnopolsky, a Soviet chemistry professor and poet, hade been given permission to emigrate.

Mr. Tarnopolsky was told Friday that he could leave with his wife and daughter, Mr. Cotler said. Mr. Tarnopolsky spent three years in a Siberian labor camp on charges of anti-Soviet agitation.

He was released in March and allowed to return to his home in Kharkov. He originally applied for emigration in 1979.

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A16

LENGTH: 515 words

HEADLINE: Human rights expert defends security bill

BYLINE: Sonia Verma, Toronto Star

HIGHLIGHT:
Liberal MP Cotler tells conference proposal needs clarification

BODY:
As an human rights lawyer, Irwin Cotler rose to the defence of freedom fighters around the world: Nelson Mandela in his anti-apartheid struggle, Wole Soyinka during his exile from Nigeria and Andrei Sakharov in the Cold War.

Now as a Liberal MP (Mount Royal), Cotler is rising to the defence of his government's proposed anti-terrorism law which some worry will curb civil liberties.

"Terrorism is the ultimate assault on human rights, and this legislation should be seen as the ultimate pursuit of human rights," Cotler said, fending off criticism of Bill C-36. "National security versus civil liberties is an inappropriate characterization because it sets one off against the other. This is not a zero-sum game."

Cotler was speaking to an academic audience at the University of Toronto yesterday during a weekend conference where more than a dozen legal experts are debating the controversial legislation.

Many voiced concerns that the proposed law would lead to arbitrary arrest, racial profiling and the branding of any type of dissent as terrorism. They also criticized clauses that aim to stem the flow of funding to terrorist groups.

Lorne Sossin, a law professor at Osgoode Hall, said the legislation would have a chilling effect on legitimate charitable causes.

"It's not hard to imagine a situation where fundraising for food and money for Afghan refugees in Pakistan will be labelled as terrorism, if those resources are seen as indirectly going towards terrorist organizations."

Other critics zeroed in on the legislation's loose definition of terrorism.

"Their definition of a terrorist is so stunningly broad that it would potentially include a very broad range of political activity, so it's going to have an enormous chilling effect on political protest and dissent in this country," said U of T law professor Brenda Cossman.

She argued that under the proposed legislation, labour protests such as an illegal nurses strike could fall under the definition of terrorism: "Why? Because it's politically motivated, it's seeking to make the government do something and could be seen as presenting a threat to the safety of the public health and disrupting an essential service."

Cotler, who has served as director of McGill University's human rights program, objected to such "loose talk."

"They are using these terms too loosely," he says. "That argument makes it seem like the legislation is engaged in that kind of blurring which is not true," he said.

Cotler conceded the legislation needs to be clarified. He called for a tighter definition of terrorism and a sunset clause that would kill certain elements of the legislation on a set date unless Parliament voted to extend them.

"We should refine and clarify the language, so that we don't end up with a law of unintended consequences because it's going to be with us for a long while," he said.

The conference continues today.'Their definition of a terrorist is so stunningly broad that it (could) include a broad range of political activity.'

Brenda Cossman
U of T law professor

LOAD-DATE: November 10, 2001

LENGTH: 275 words

HEADLINE: PWGSC: Government of Canada Establishes Standing Offer With Quebec Company: 35 Jobs Created and 65 Maintained

BODY:
COTE-SAINT-LUC, QUEBEC--A competitive standing offer worth $450,000 has been awarded to Retirement Residences Inc. (operating as Services de Sante Central) of Cote-Saint-Luc to supply services to clients under a Veterans Affairs Canada program. The standing offer could create 35 jobs and maintain an additional 65 until it expires at the end of May 2003.

The announcement was made today by Irwin Cotler, MP for Mount-Royal, on behalf of the Honourable Alfonso Gagliano, Minister of Public Works and Government Services. "I am very happy to announce this standing offer," said Mr. Cotler. "Not only will it have a positive impact on employment, but it will also help maintain an important home support program."

Under the terms of the standing offer, which was awarded on behalf of Veterans Affairs Canada, the company will supply housekeeping, day care and companion services on an as-and-when-requested basis to clients of the Veterans Independence Program throughout Quebec.

A standing offer is an arrangement that allows government departments and agencies to deal with suppliers under set prices and conditions. A contract will exist with a supplier only when a department or agency orders goods or services from the standing offer agreement.

Funding for this standing offer was provided for in the February 2000 federal budget and in the October 2000 economic statement and budget update and is therefore built into the existing fiscal framework.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Jocelyne Limoges (819) 956-2310 or Office of Minister Gagliano Eric Tetrault Press Director (819) 953-1098

NOTES:
This news release is also available on our Internet site http://www.pwgsc.gc.ca/comm/min/index.html

LOAD-DATE: September 18, 2001

SECTION: F 17'01

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5049952

LENGTH: 347 words

HEADLINE: Liberal MP backs imprisoned Falun Gong follower who's married to Montrealer

(Record in progress)

BODY:
MONTREAL (CP) Liberal MP Irwin Cotler says a campaign is afoot to help a Montrealer's husband who is a Falung Gong practitioner and is held in a labour camp in China.

ShenLi Lin has been in custody since December 1999 for believing in the outlawed exercise and spiritual movement, he said.

''We've made the appropriate representations and the hope of securing his release as well is alive,'' Cotler said Friday.

Cotler said he met with Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley in Ottawa to discuss the case after the departure of the China trade mission led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

''I think the window remains open,'' said Cotler, a human-rights lawyer.

Cotler had given Chretien a 3,000-signature petition calling for Lin's release, his own letter urging a prominent place for human rights on the trip's agenda and a desperate letter from Lin's wife, Canadian citizen JinYu Li.

This week has been torture for Li, waiting to hear of any results from her tireless campaign to get her husband freed.

''I just don't know what to do,'' said Li, who took strong exception to Chretien's observation that human rights have ''greatly improved'' in China since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.

''I just don't know how to make him understand,'' said Li, her voice quivering. ''It's not better in China, it's worse now.''

Yumin Yang, a volunteer at Montreal's Falun Gong Centre, agreed.

He said Chretien's compliments will undoubtedly be flogged by the Chinese government at home and abroad to mask the intensifying crackdown on Falun Gong members.

Cotler said he's happy at the return to Canada of ShuMei Zhang, whose husband KunLun, a sculptor and former Montrealer, was released in January from a Chinese labour camp.

But the Zhang family's reunion in Canada should not obscure the fact that thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are harassed, arrested, imprisoned and tortured in China, he said.

''The Falun Gong is a case study of the plight of spiritual groups and other minorities in China,'' said Cotler.

(Montreal Gazette)

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: January 13, 2003

SECTION: O 4'99

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4685770

LENGTH: 244 words

HEADLINE: Cotler wins Liberal nomination [Mount Royal by-election]

BODY:
MONTREAL (CP) Irwin Cotler got a noisy welcome into politics Monday night.

The internationally known human rights activist won the nomination to represent the federal Liberals in a byelection for the Mont Royal riding.

But a group of about 50 protesters, demanding that the federal government do its bit for social housing in Quebec, stole some of Cotler's thunder.

The group beat on buckets and metal cookers on the sidewalk as well-heeled Liberals made their way into the meeting.
''We want to know where he stands and whether he's ready to fight for us in the budget,'' said group spokesman Francois Saillant.

Inside the meeting Colter was declared the Liberal candidate. Cotler said he is more than willing to talk about those issues in the House of Commons.

''I have written and sought to act on social housing as far back as 32 years,'' he said.

''I am committed to addressing and redressing the concerns of the homeless. Their concerns are my concerns and we share a common commitment as part of what I call the larger agenda for human rights.''

Prime Minister Jean Chretien has not set a date for the byelection but local officials are planning around Nov. 15. That is the limit for another byelection Chretien has to call in Western Canada.

A byelection has to be held six months after a seat becomes vacant. Mount Royal became vacant after Chretien named its MP, Sheila Finestone, to the Senate.

(Montreal Gazette)

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: December 16, 1999

SECTION: International news

LENGTH: 390 words

HEADLINE: Chretien to make "representations" on human rights in China: MP

BYLINE: Howard Williams

DATELINE: OTTAWA, Feb 8

BODY:
Prime Minister Jean Chretien said he was prepared to "make representations to the Chinese authorities" about human rights abuses in China, a member of parliament in Chretien's governing Liberal Party said Thursday.

Chretien leaves for China and Hong Kong on Friday with the biggest-ever foreign trade mission -- Team Canada -- in Canada's history.

The prime minister will be accompanied by more than 600 business leaders and most of the country's provincial premiers on his swing through Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler told a press conference here Thursday that he had met with Chretien Wednesday to discuss a wide range of human rights questions in China, including treatment of the Falungong sect, Tibet, alleged torture of prisoners in China and violations of internationally accepted labour standards.

"The prime minister was responsive and said he was prepared to make representations to the Chinese authorities," said Cotler.

Chretien has been accused in the past, both by political opponents and some of his own backbench members of parliament, of being too soft on China's human rights questions for fear of damaging trade.

But senior Canadian officials told reporters this week that Chretien would not shy away from dealing with human rights issues in China during his Team Canada mission.

The mission will be Chretien's second trade mission to China -- the first time he will have led such a mission to the same country twice.

Cotler said he believed Chretien would put human rights as a serious issue on his agenda during the China tour.

He said he had given Chretien a list of alleged human rights abuses in China and "I sensed that the prime minister was taken aback by the degree of the systematic abuse of human rights in that country."

Alex Neve, of Amnesty International, appearing at the same news conference with Cotler, claimed that the time had come for "no more rhetoric, no more empty gestures" by Canada toward China over its human rights situation.

Warren Allmand, a civil rights lawyer and a former Solicitor General in the Canadian cabinet, said if Chretien failed to win demonstrable improvements from China on the human rights front, Canada should co-sponsor a resolution at the upcoming meeting of the United Nations commission on human rights.

hfw/jlp

LOAD-DATE: February 8, 2001

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A15

LENGTH: 297 words

HEADLINE: Soviets agree to reopen book on heroic Swede

BYLINE: By Stephen Handelman Toronto Star

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
MOSCOW - Soviet authorities have agreed to check into new evidence that missing Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is alive, The Star has learned.

The pledge represents the first crack in the official Soviet position that Wallenberg, who was responsible for rescuing thousands of European Jews from the Nazis during World War II, died in a prison near Moscow in 1947.

Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler said yesterday that Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Adamshin promised to investigate evidence obtained in Canada about Wallenberg's fate.

"He accepted the information from me, and promised to look into it, which was a significant change on their (the Soviets') part," said Cotler, who came to Moscow as part of an international human rights delegation last week.

"We agreed that we had a common responsibility to leave no stone unturned."

Saw Wallenberg

Cotler said a source living in Canada told him recently Wallenberg had been seen alive in a prison camp in the Soviet Union after 1947.

During his Moscow visit, Cotler also met with a dissident from Tallinn, in Soviet Estonia, who claimed to have been with Wallenberg in prison.

Cotler disclosed that prominent Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov had also become involved in the case.

"I met with Dr. Sakharov last week and we had similar information," said Cotler.

According to Cotler, the Soviet Foreign Ministry promised to inform him as soon as the new inquiries were finished.

"It may turn out that Wallenberg is really dead," Cotler said. "But I've made a close study of the evidence, and I would stake my reputation on the fact that Wallenberg did not die in 1947."

Wallenberg, who was serving as a Swedish diplomat in Hungary when war broke out, disappeared in Budapest in 1945.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: N 9'01

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5244447

LENGTH: 276 words

HEADLINE: Human rights expert defends Canada's security bill to academic critics

BODY:
TORONTO (CP) As a human rights lawyer, Irwin Cotler rose to the defence of freedom fighters around the world: Nelson Mandela in his anti-apartheid struggle, Wole Soyinka during his exile from Nigeria and Andrei Sakharov in the Cold War.

Now as a Liberal MP, Cotler is rising to the defence of his government's proposed anti-terrorism law which some worry will curb civil liberties.

''Terrorism is the ultimate assault on human rights, and this legislation should be seen as the ultimate pursuit of human rights,'' Cotler said Friday.

''National security versus civil liberties is an inappropriate characterization because it sets one off against the other. This is not a zero-sum game,'' Cotler told an academic audience at the University of Toronto.

Lorne Sossin, a law professor at Osgoode Hall, said the legislation would have a chilling effect on legitimate charitable causes.

''It's not hard to imagine a situation where fundraising for food and money for Afghan refugees in Pakistan will be labelled as terrorism, if those resources are seen as indirectly going towards terrorist organizations,'' Sossin said.

Other critics zeroed in on the legislation's loose definition of terrorism.

''Their definition of a terrorist is so stunningly broad that it would potentially include a very broad range of political activity,'' said law professor Brenda Cossman.

Cotler conceded the legislation needs to be clarified. He called for a tighter definition of terrorism and a sunset clause that would kill certain elements of the legislation on a set date unless Parliament voted to extend them.

(Toronto Star)

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2002

SECTION: v.29(46) N 25'99 pg 39; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4719275

LENGTH: 579 words

HEADLINE: MP Cotler calls for increased social spending

BYLINE: Arnold, Janice

BODY:
MONTREAL -- Newly elected MP Irwin Cotler wants Ottawa to put half of the $100-billion surplus projected by Finance Minister Paul Martin into social spending, such as health care, education and social security.

Cotler wants another 25 percent to go toward retiring the debt, and the amount saved in interest payments should also be used for social spending. Only the remaining quarter should provide tax relief, and then only to low and middle-income earners.

Cotler firmly positioned himself on the left wing of the Liberal party during the by election in Mount Royal, which saw him capture 92.3 percent of the vote, possibly setting a Canadian record in federal politics. The major theme of his campaign was replenishing what he calls the ''social rights basket.''

He said a child poverty rate in Canada of 20 percent is a ''disgrace'' and the fact that the rate is double among blacks is a ''scandal.'' He wants the government to put more effort into eliminating discrimination against minorities, especially in employment, and he says addressing the grievances of aboriginals must be a ''national responsibility,'' and not left to the First Nations themselves.

He also is pushing for more protection of the environment.

The 59-year-old longtime McGill University law professor was expected to win. Mount Royal has been Liberal since it was created in 1940 but he said he was stunned that he received 16,408 of the 17,778 of the ballots cast.

Moreover, the magnitude of his victory was virtually uniform at all 186 polls, and not just in the heavily Jewish areas of Cote St. Luc and Hampstead, where he was expected to get overwhelming support. The riding also includes Town of Mount Royal and parts of Snowdon and Cote des Neiges, whose populations are multi-ethnic.

At 11 polls, he shut out the other three candidates, and at least six others, there was just a single vote not for Cotler. His closest rival was Jamaican Association president Noel Alexander.

The turnout was low at 28.5 percent, even for a byelection, and especially surprising in Mount Royal, where voter turnout is traditionally around 80 percent, even though a Liberal win is a foregone conclusion.

Although there has been speculation Cotler will be appointed to the cabinet, he emphasized that was never a condition of his running.

''My nomination came from the grassroots...There was never any discussion with the prime minister or any one else in the government, nor any understanding, before or since my nomination, about a cabinet post,'' Cotler stated.

Nevertheless, he said he has received ''very encouraging support'' from Jean Chretien after his nomination and election. The prime minister phoned him from Turkey after the election.

He knows the Jewish community will expect him to defend Israel, when necessary. he may not go as far as some would like though, he said.

Cotler said he supports an independent state for the Palestinians, as long as Israel can ''live in peace and security, free of any acts or threats of force.''

Although officially on a leave of absence from McGill, he will continue to teach there, he said. He will be giving one two-hour seminar per week each semester.

''There's no conflict of interest. On the contrary, I believe it dovetails with what I hope to accomplish in Parliament. I teach human rights. I need the interaction with students and faculty to keep up to date with what's going on.''

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LENGTH: 620 words

HEADLINE: Israeli Supreme Court rules on Falash Mura

BODY:
JERUSALEM -- In a groundbreaking judgment, Israel's Supreme Court has affirmed the right of 26,000 Falash Mura to have their aliyah eligibility determined according to law.

The Falash Mura are viewed as Jews who converted to Christianity. They have thus met much opposition to their requests for immigration.

Montreal Liberal member of Parliament and human rights advocate Irwin Cotler, who has acted as counsel on behalf of the Falash Mura for many years, and who argued the case before the Supreme Court, called the judgment a ''significant breakthrough'' in resolving the status of the Falash Mura, still languishing in Ethiopian compounds and villages.

''The Supreme Court has ordered the Israeli government -- specifically the ministry of the interior -- to put the necessary mechanism in place in Ethiopia so as to process the aliyah applications of the Falash Mura with all deliberate speed,'' Cotler said in a statement.

The court also declared that it would ''supervise'' the process, and instructed the government to report back, within 90 days, on its compliance with the court's decision.

Cotler told the court that the ''right to procedural due process'' is tantamount to ''the right to life itself.''

He submitted evidence that 450 Falash Mura in the Ethiopian town of Gondar died between June, 1998 and November, 1999, about 85 percent of them children. Most of them were arguably eligible to immigrate to Israel either under the Law of Return or the Law of Entry.

''Both the halachic and legal interpretations support the aliyah of the Falash Mura under the Law of Return,'' Cotler stated. ''In particular, the Falash Mura have undergone a 'return to Judaism'; have demonstrated their intent to live as Jews; and have had their Jewish ancestry and identification as Jews supported and sanctioned by their own religious leadership.''

Cotler told the court that many of the Falash Mura would also qualify for aliyah under the family reunification provisions of the Law of Entry, as 65 percent of them have a first-degree relative in Israel.

Last week, the daily newspaper Ha'aretz reported there has been a 600 percent increase in the number of Falash Mura from Gondar requesting to immigrate to Israel. The monthly average for the last two years has stood at around 100. In July, 700 applied to immigrate.

Interior Ministry sources say that the rise in the number of applications does not mean there has been a change in Israel's immigration policy toward the Falash Mura. They say that policy remains as was: the applicant must meet the requirements laid out under the right of return.

Sources in the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa say that along with an increase in the number of would-be immigrants, there will be a rise in the number of Falash Mura turned down.

Following the Falash Mura's initial application to the Supreme Court, and Interior Minister Natan Sharansky's visit to Ethiopia four months ago, the application process was sped up. But bureaucratic red tape remains: applications cannot be filed in the capital city, increasing the tension among the tens of thousands waiting.

In addition, 600 Falash Mura who received interior ministry approval months ago are not being allowed to immigrate because the absorption ministry is not ready to receive them.

Cotler noted that an irony of the court victory was that the action was initiated against Sharansky, whom Cotler had represented during Sharansky's years in the Soviet gulag.

Cotler said he and others will be watching the government's compliance with the ruling. ''We will not relent until the Falash Mura will be able to join their brothers and sisters in Israel.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2000

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LENGTH: 435 words

HEADLINE: New human rights group formed

BODY:
MONTREAL -- Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler has teamed up with Senator Lois Wilson to found the Parliamentary Human Rights Group (PHRG).

Cotler and Wilson, who serve as co-chairs, describe the PHRG as the first all-party, joint House-Senate group of its kind.

''It is inspired by the view that the involvement of Canadian parliamentarians in the struggle for human rights is an expression and example of our Canadian legacy and our commitment to a culture of human rights,'' they said in a joint statement.

''It is particularly concerned with the distinguishable - if not distinguished - role that Canadian parliamentarians can exercise, linking domestic and international concerns.''

Developed as a means for humanitarian intervention in situations that threaten world peace and security, the PHRG will insist that Canada implements domestically the international human rights treaties to which it is a party. According to its mission statement, the PHRG will also promote the ratification by Canada of recognized international human rights treaties such as the American Covention on Human Rights.

The PHRG is intended to give parliamentarians and representatives of civil society organizations the opportunity to ''effectively input into the periodic reports presented by Canada to the United Nations treaty bodies and assess recommendations made by Canadian and international human rights bodies on Canada.''

It is expected the PHRG will work with counterpart parliamentary groups and non-governmental organizations, both nationally and internationally, through such activities as public forums, expert briefings, joint letters and meetings with government officials.

Cotler and Wilson say the PHRG will not duplicate the work of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and International Trade, or any other committee of the House of Commons or Senate.

Other executive members of PHRG are: MPs Bill Blaikie (New Democratic Party), Francine Lalonde (Bloc Quebecois) and Monte Solberg (Canadian Alliance), and Senators Raynell Andreychuk and Noel Kinsella, both Progressive Conservatives. The treasurer is Montreal-area Liberal MP Raymonde Folco.

At its inaugural meeting, professor Guy Goodwin-Gill discussed the plight of refugees in Canada. A witness testimony was given by Saado Abdi, who was recognized by Canada as a convention refugee in 1991, but has yet to receive any identity or travel documents.

Cotler, a law professor on leave from McGill University, had a 25-year career as a human rights lawyer before being elected to Parliament in November 1999.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: May 5, 2001

SECTION: (530) Mr 27'00 pg 2; ISSN: 0848-0427

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4826187

LENGTH: 181 words

HEADLINE: Montreal MP Cotler joins Liberal Women's caucus

BYLINE: Babych, Art; McDonald, Terry; Scandiffio, Mike

BODY:
Just one of the gang ... Recently elected MP Irwin Cotler is popping up everywhere on the Hill.

The Montreal MP who was elected in last fall's byelection, has manoeuvered to get himself a seat on the highly-sought-after House Foreign Affairs Committee and he also won a spot on the short-lived Legislative Clarity Bill Committee.

His latest gig? He has also taken his seat in the Liberal Women's Caucus.

Mr. Cotler's entrance into the women's caucus came soon after he first arrived on the Hill last fall. Caucus chair Carolyn Bennett extended an invitation at national caucus to a luncheon. Mr. Cotler, who thought it was an open invitation, went and was the only male MP to show up. He's stayed ever since.

''It's a great place to discuss rights-based issues,'' said Mr. Cotler who is a human rights lawyer.

He received praise from caucus chair Ms. Bennett for his support of the caucus initiative to amend the Liberal Party constitution to cap nomination expenses.

The Liberal party adopted the amendment at the party's biennial convention on March 16.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1075

LOAD-DATE: July 21, 2000

SECTION: N 15'99

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LENGTH: 79 words

HEADLINE: [A sketch of Irwin Cotler, winner of the federal byelection in Mount Royal]

BODY:
By The Canadian Press

PARTY: Liberal.

AGE: 59.

OCCUPATION: Lawyer and McGill University law professor.

KNOWN AS: A human-rights activist who has defended dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela.

POLITICAL GOAL: To defend the rights of poor children, minorities, women and the elderly.

AWARDS: Order of Canada.

QUOTE: ''When you don't seek something, it can come at you more intensely.'' (On being drafted to run in the Montreal riding.)

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: August 5, 2000

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A11, CANADA DIGEST

LENGTH: 187 words

HEADLINE: ACTIVIST AIMS AT COMMONS

BYLINE: FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES

DATELINE: MONTREAL

BODY:
After more than 30 years of defending political prisoners abroad, Irwin Cotler wants to bring his fight for human rights home. Cotler, who has advised dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela, 59, says he wants to represent the rights of vulnerable Canadians, poor children, minorities, women and the elderly He's running for the Liberals in Mount-Royal, one of four byelections called during the weekend for Nov. 15. Cotler says he was drafted by voters in one of the safest Liberal riding in the country and where he was born and still lives. "It wasn't an easy decision, but it ws at grassroots urging," he said at McGill University's law faculty, where he teaches and heads a human-rights centre. "Human rights has been Cotler's claim to fame since he took on and won the case of Soviet refusenik Anatoly Sharansky, who was refused an exit visa from the then-Soviet Union. He has criticized the Liberals on human rights issues, such as the ineffective prosecution of war criminals living in Canada and Ottawa's refusal to stop trading with countries where serious rights violations are a problem.

LOAD-DATE: October 12, 1999

SECTION: ECONOMICS; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 460 words

HEADLINE: The Conference Circuit

BYLINE: Greer Fay Cashman

BODY:
28.12 Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein together with Irwin Cotler, professor of human rights at McGill University in Montreal, will discuss "The Future of Law and Democracy" at the Yakar Center for Social Concern at 10 Halamed Heh Street, Jerusalem, at 7:30 p.m.

29.12 The Faculty of Humanities at Haifa University is hosting a seminar on "Human Rights Violations in an Era of Globalization" in conjunction with the inauguration of the archive to perpetuate the memories of people who disappeared in Argentina between the years 1976-1983. Papers will be presented by political scientists, scholars in Latin American studies, and historians from various Israeli institutions of higher learning. The seminar, which begins at 4 p.m., will be held in the auditorium of the Hecht Museum on the Haifa University campus.

30.12 Before he goes abroad yet again, Prime Minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to participate in the Israel Hi- Tech Industries Association's annual conference, the theme of which is "The Future of Hi-Tech Industries in Israel - Strategies on the Road to Change." Barak's closing address at the Tel Aviv Hilton at 4 p.m. will focus on hi-tech as an economic priority for the country. Finance Minister Avraham Shohat will speak at the close of the morning session, and Industry and Trade Minister Ran Cohen will speak at the luncheon session.

For full details and registration call 03-5632383 or 03-5632184.

9.1 Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, Haim Ramon, minister for Jerusalem affairs, and various MKs will participate in a symposium at Bar-Ilan University on "Referenda and Peace Accords." The symposium will be held in conjunction with the Avi Chai Foundation and the Sarah and Simcha Leiner chair for Democracy and Civility. Venue is the Feldman Conference Hall on the Bar-Ilan campus. Starting time is 1 p.m.

10.1 "The Golan: Vital to Secu-rity, Vital to Peace" is the subject of the annual Yitzhak Tabenkin Memorial Conference to be held at Ramat Efal by the Yad Tabenkin Research and Documentation Center of the United Kibbutz Movement. Speakers will include Yehuda Harel, one of the key figures in the now defunct Third Way party, General (Res.) Yitzhak Hofi, Professor Moshe Maoz of the Hebrew University, and General (Res.) Meir Pa'il. For further details call 03-5344458.

13.1Y2K is almost behind us. What comes next? This is question posed by Focus Ha'aretz, which will attempt to get some answers in the fields of finance, communications, medicine and e-commerce at Kfar Hamaccabbiah, Ramat Gan. For full details and registration call 03-5121111.

18.1 The Israel Management Center is holding a workshop on "Dealing with Difficult Customers" at Kfar Hamaccabbiah, Ramat Gan. For details call 03-6957202.

LOAD-DATE: December 28, 1999

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HEADLINE: Cotler to meet Swedish PM on Wallenberg

BYLINE: Csillag, Ron

BODY:
Toronto -- Montreal Liberal member of Parliament Irwin Cotler will hold talks next week with Sweden's prime minister on the fate of Swedish World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg.

Cotler, who headed an international commission of inquiry into the fate of Wallenberg in the early 1990s, will meet with Goran Persson in Stockholm Jan. 29, 2001.

Cotler, a recognized authority on human rights, is invited to address the Stockholm Forum on Intolerance, but will also exchange ideas with the prime minister on recent developments in the Wallenberg dossier.

Among them are the results of the joint Swedish-Russian commission into Wallenberg's fate. Earlier this month, the commission issued conflicting reports, after 10 years of investigations.

The Swedish report cited evidence that Wallenberg may have died as late as 1989 in a psychiatric clinic near Moscow. Sweden added that absent any hard evidence that Wallenberg is dead, he must be considered a missing person, and thus, possibly alive.

''As long as there is no unequivocal evidence of what happened to Wallenberg -- and this is still the case -- it cannot be said that Raoul Wallenberg is dead,'' Persson was quoted by Reuters last week. If still alive, Wallenberg would be 88.

In the Russian version of the joint report, issued separately from the Swedish one, Wallenberg died in Soviet custody in 1947. Russian officials also advanced the theory that he was killed in a turf war between rival factions of the Soviet secret police.

A non-Jew and member of a wealthy industrialist family, Wallenberg was dispatched as a Swedish diplomat to Budapest in 1944. He issued thousands of fake Swedish passports to Jews, placed many of them in neutral safe houses and persuaded the Nazis to call off the razing of Budapest's Jewish ghetto.

In all, Wallenberg is credited with rescuing up to 100,000 Hungarian Jews from deportation -- more than any single government.

But in 1945 he was arrested by the invading Soviets on espionage charges and taken to Moscow, where he vanished.

In a famous 1957 memo, the Soviets stated that Wallenberg had died of heart attack in 1947 while in custody. Moscow stuck to that story.

But Cotler and other researchers have found as many as a dozen credible witnesses who claimed to have had contact with Wallenberg in prison through the next four decades, and as late as 1989.

Wallenberg was named Canada's only honorary citizen in 1985. There are streets named for the hero in Toronto and Montreal.

Late last month, Russia acknowledged, for the first time, that Wallenberg and his driver were arrested as ''socially dangerous'' individuals and imprisoned for political reasons until their death in 1947.

The Russian prosector-general's office declared Wallenberg a ''victim of Soviet repression,'' but failed to explain where, when or how he died.

As far as Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas is concerned, last month's statement was an attempt to rehabilitate Wallenberg.

''There was nothing new in that [statement]. It's simply an admission of a wrongful arrest, but not [an admission of] wrongful killing,'' said Matas, who conducted a lone investigation into Wallenberg's fate in 1996.

Sources in Moscow said the official rehabilitation of Wallenberg was initiated by President Vladimir Putin, who wants to close rifts with the west.

Cotler, too, found nothing new in the findings of the Russian commission into Wallenberg's fate.

He said statements by Russian official Alexander Yakovlev that Wallenberg was shot in Lubyanka prison in 1947 was the same thing Cotler was told, by Yakovlev, in 1991.

''I can't put all that much credence in it. The [later] statement was pre-determined.'' Cotler told The CJN.

Cotler dismissed the Russian commission's findings, saying there is ''incontrovertible'' evidence that Wallenberg did not die in 1947.

''There is compelling evidence he was alive into the 1950s and credible evidence he was alive in the '70s and '80s.''

The ''smoking gun,'' he feels, lies in old KGB archives, which remain sealed.

''The one good and important thing that has come out of this,'' Cotler stated, ''is that Sweden acknowledges this is still a mystery and that further inquiry is needed.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

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LENGTH: 731 words

HEADLINE: Palestinian Authority human rights abuses chronicled

BODY:

Last week in this space, I promised to reproduce excerpts from the testimony of Prof. Irwin Cotler on July 23, to the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the U.S. Congressional House Committee on International Relations in Washington. The committee had convened to examine the condition of human rights for the Palestinians living under the governance of Yasser Arafat.

Cotler is known and highly esteemed as one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of human rights. His testimony to the legislators is highly credible.

As I wrote last week, Cotler pulls no punches. His testimony is hard hitting and decisive. He attests to the oppression of Palestinians' human rights living under the Palestinian Authority (PA). His aim is to improve their lot. But it is something more.

The purpose of his submission, which he makes plain, and to which he returns repeatedly, is to prove that "the promotion of democracy and the protection of human rights are indispensable to international peace and security...We shall either have both peace and human rights, or neither." Cotler is one of the very few people anywhere, able to make and to prove this assertion.

His testimony to the committee places the recent bloody clashes in the West Bank and Gaza in a more detailed, more accurate context. It helps us to better understand all of the tensions, not simply the political ones with Israel, suffusing Palestinian society. These internal tensions unavoidably effect relations between Israel and the PA.

Cotler's presentation to the legislators was organized into six themes. Space limitations allow me to reproduce only very brief portions of his testimony. Like stones skipping across the surface of a deep blue lake, the excerpts cannot plumb the full depths of what was said. Nor can they convey the breadth and the sweep of the material put before the committee members. But they can touch upon certain issues and mark them for our readers as being significant and worthy of their attention.

In this column, I will reproduce portions of his testimony concerning the human rights abuses under the PA.

He chronicles 12 different kinds of human rights abuses in his report ranging from extra-judicial punishment, arbitrary arrest and detention, repression of dissent and "humiliation." His first observation sets the tone for the remaining 11.

A generic concern, and overriding theme in all my discussions with Palestinian students, journalists, NGO activists and human rights monitors, was what Dr. [Eyad] Sarraj called the "corrupt, dictatorial, repressive" Palestinian Authority, with Chairman Arafat regarded as "the Symbol" of this repression.

On the subject of extra-judicial punishment, Collet concluded: "As Palestinian witness testimony and documentary evidence reveals, and as conveyed to me in my discussions with Palestinians...the condition of human rights under the Palestinian Authority since 1995 has in fact worsened."

On the subject of the denial of rights while in detention, Coffer refers to a statement by Abigail Abrash on behalf of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Centre on Human Rights: "This pattern of arbitrary and unlawful arrests underscores the serious and immediate need for the Palestinian Authority to establish and implement appropriate lawful procedures for dealing with individuals under arrest or in detention. These practices serve only to jeopardize the establishment of stable democratic institutions in the occupied territories, structures that are essential in securing a real peace." (My emphasis)

With each stroke of his legal presentation, Cotler paints a detailed picture of a grim and grey society, whose people seek freedom from their own leaders, who do battle against a manipulative, untrustworthy Authority intent on ruling by force but not by democracy.

In next week's column, I will excerpt portions of Cotler's testimony in which he examines Palestinian compliance with the Israel-PLO Accords: A Case Study of Human Rights.

As Cotler assiduously and forcefully contends, the degree to which the Palestinians are assured of their human rights by the PA will ultimately have a bearing on the degree to which peace will be secured in the area.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: July 08, 1999

SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B2

LENGTH: 371 words

HEADLINE: Is Wallenberg dead or alive?

BODY:
Is Raoul Wallenberg dead or alive?

The question persists 43 years after the Swedish diplomat was seized by Soviet authorities in Hungary, where he was credited with saving 10,000 Jews from Nazi death camps in World War II.

The Soviets said Wallenberg was a U.S. spy, but never offered a shred of evidence. Then in 1947, they said he died of a heart attack in Moscow's dreaded Lubianka prison. Again, no evidence was forthcoming. Since, however, inmates released from Soviet prisons have claimed to have seen and talked to Wallenberg.

And now, new reports. Montreal human rights activist Irwin Cotler visited the Soviet Union last week as a member of a delegation of the international Helsinki Watch monitoring group. On the 10-point agenda with Soviet officials was the fate of Wallenberg.

Cotler had received information from what he calls an "impeccable" source that Wallenberg was seen alive in a Soviet prison last November.

Another source, Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, told Cotler that an Estonian in Tallinn told him that he had seen Wallenberg in the same prison in the mid-1950s.

Sakharov told Cotler that he tried to visit the prison, located somewhere between Moscow and Leningrad, on two occasions last year. However, entry was impossible because it is in a "restricted zone." So the mystery continues.

Is Wallenberg, who now would be 75 years old, spending the twilight of his terrible punishment in a Soviet prison? Or is he dead?

Only one document is known to exist about Wallenberg's alleged death, and it was handed to Swedish authorities in 1959 by then deputy foreign minister (now Soviet president) Andrei Gromyko. It said there "was reason to believe" that Wallenberg died in 1947.

In this day of glasnost (openness), an accounting is long overdue. What evidence was there that Wallenberg was a U.S. spy? Was he tried and sentenced? If he is now dead, where is his grave?

The name Raoul Wallenberg has become a metaphor for human rights in our time, but one that the Soviet Union understands little about.

What became of him? The world wishes to know. And if by some miracle he still lives, then he should be granted the freedom that he gave to so many others.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 336 words

HEADLINE: Begun says Soviet rehabilitation would legitimize Jewish culture there

BYLINE: JONATHAN SCHACHTER

HIGHLIGHT:
NEW YORK - Yosef Begun says he is "very glad" to learn that Soviet officials will consider rehabilitating him and other former Prisoners of Zion, saying the move would represent an official restoration of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union.

BODY:
NEW YORK - Yosef Begun says he is "very glad" to learn that Soviet officials will consider rehabilitating him and other former Prisoners of Zion, saying the move would represent an official restoration of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union.

Begun, 58, spent 10 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps during the 1970s and '80s on charges of criminal parasitism and anti-Soviet agitation for having clandestinely taught Hebrew in Moscow. He was branded by the government as an "anti-Soviet element who tried to destroy the Soviet regime."

The Jerusalem Post reported Friday that Canadian human rights attorney Irwin Cotler was told that Soviet Procurator-General Nikolai Trubin had agreed to review the cases of Begun, Natan Sharansky, Vladimir Slepak and other ex-Prisoners of Zion to determine if they should be officially rehabilitated.

"By accusing me as a Hebrew teacher, as a person who tried to spread Jewish culture among Soviet Jews, they accused Jewish culture of being Zionist propaganda" and therefore "illegal," Begun said in an interview with the Post. "My rehabilitation would mean that Jewish culture is now rehabilitated."

Begun, who now lives in Jerusalem, was in the U.S. last week to promote a new Russian-language magazine, Yerushalayim, devoted to showing Soviet Jews the richness of Jewish life and culture in Israel.

Since his release from the Soviet Union four years ago, Begun repeatedly demanded rehabilitation from the Soviet government, stressing that "the government's case was clearly illegal and a violation of human rights."

However, Soviet authorities on each occasion refused to consider Begun's request.

But Trubin reportedly told Cotler that the Soviet government had rehabilitated Alexander Solzhenitsyn and numerous other exiled dissidents after deciding "their conduct at the time would have been legal under today's laws," and expressed optimism that rehabilitating Soviet Jews imprisoned on charges of slander and agitation "would be no problem."

LOAD-DATE: October 7, 1991

SECTION: v.29(24) Je 17'99 pg 30; ISSN: 0008-3941

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LENGTH: 445 words

HEADLINE: Media awards presented at BBC convention [Media Human Rights Awards]

BYLINE: Lazarus, David

BODY:
Montreal -- B'nai Brith Canada's (BBC) 24th annual Media Human Rights Awards were presented during the recent BBC convention here.

Singled out for tribute at the gala dinner was the late John Humphrey, who in 1946 wrote the draft for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, described as serving as the ''magna carta'' for human rights around the world.

Humphrey's widow Margaret, attended the dinner, and called for more education of youth to stem the worldwide tide of intolerance and bigotry.

Humphrey's remarks followed a speech by McGill law professor and human rights advocate Irwin Cotler.

Cotler said that while there is a welcomed human rights revolution and ''explosion'' transpiring worldwide, there appears to be a counter-revolution, marked by continuing genocides and human rights violations, in countries ranging from Rwanda to the Balkans.

Cotler, whose speech was met with a standing ovation, said the Holocaust ''did not begin with the gas chambers, it' began with words,'' and he pleaded for an end to indifference and for a culture of respect.

He said the crimes of Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic vic could have been dealt with a decade ago had ''the wall of silence'' following the ethnic purges in Bosnia not been erected.

That silence, he said, ''opened the door'' to the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

''You must speak on behalf of those who cannot be heard,'' he said.

The media was described by BBC president Lawrence Hart and by Quebec region vice-president Steve Slimovitch as playing a pivotal role in that regard.

In a speech during the dinner, Montreal Mayor Pierre Bourque spoke of the need for its citizenry to ''stay open to the other, in a spirit of tolerance and mutual good will. I call on you to support this vision which is so close to yours,'' he said.

The BBC convention, presided over by Hart and convention chair Herb Brownstein, included a panel discussion on anti-Israel bias in the media and the passage of 11 resolutions.

The most noteworthy called for the admission of Israel into the Asia regional group; urged Canada to refrain from ''statements or actions in international forums that prejudge the outcome of bilateral negotiations'' between Israel and the Palestinians; and called on Ottawa to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

BBC also pledged to work with the Canadian government on an acceptable Holocaust museum; seek ways to give humanitarian aid to civilians in the Balkans; establish a committee to negotiate with the Ontario government on the issue of public financing of Jewish day schools; and enhance Holocaust education across the country.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: October 11, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A4

LENGTH: 318 words

HEADLINE: War criminals not just "Jewish issue,' lawyer says

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
OTTAWA - The federal government was wrong in 1962 to label the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in Canada as a "Jewish issue" and treat the victims and the perpetrators of the Holocaust as equals, say officials with two Jewish groups.

They were referring to a story in yesterday's Star. It revealed that former prime minister John Diefenbaker's cabinet was advised in 1962 not to prosecute alleged war criminals because doing so would appear to be pandering to Jewish groups intent on revenge.

"The bringing of suspected Nazi war criminals to justice is not a Jewish issue," an outraged Irwin Cotler said.

Cotler, a lawyer, is representing the Canadian Jewish Congress before a federal inquiry investigating war criminals in Canada.

"Universal justice"

"What was being sought then and what is being sought now is justice - not revenge," he said. "There can be no statute of limitations on murder."

Sol Littman, Canadian representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said the quest to find the murderers of millions of Jews and others during the war is a question of "universal justice."

"Genocide on the largest scale possible was committed during the war and if it is allowed to go unpunished, it is merely an invitation to future genocide," Littman said.

Top-secret documents obtained by The Star quoted federal officials as saying that to launch investigations of two alleged Nazis "smacks very strongly of a witch-hunt".

"Both cases have been brought to light in what looks like a spirt of revenge instigated by Jews: And in my view, anti-Jew-baiting by the Jews is just as reprehensible as Jew-baiting by the Nazis," John A. Donald of the external affairs department said in a memo dated May 25, 1962.

Just one

Other documents said such investigations might antagonize West Germany and many Third World countries that were not overly concerned about Nazi atrocities.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A19

LENGTH: 251 words

HEADLINE: Hnatyshyn urged to speed up action on 'war criminals'

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
OTTAWA - Justice Minister Ray Hnatyshyn has been told his officials are not moving fast enough in prosecuting alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada.

A delegation from the Canadian Jewish Congress met Hnatyshyn yesterday to complain that in the 16 months since a federal inquiry identified 20 key suspects, the government has acted against only two.

"There appears to have been an unreasonable delay in the bringing of (alleged) Nazi war criminals to justice," Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler told a news conference. Cotler represented the congress at the Deschenes inquiry into Nazi war criminals in Canada.

"In matters of this kind, suspects can flee the jurisdiction, witnesses may die, memories dim. So we sought to convey to the minister a sense of urgency before time overtakes us."

Other suspects

In recommending urgent action by Ottawa against the 20 suspects, Mr. Justice Jules Deschenes also urged that investigations of 218 others be continued, Cotler said.

The government has charged Imre Finta, a former Metro restaurateur, with committing war crimes and has moved to take away the citizenship of alleged Nazi collaborator Jacob Luitjens so he can be deported to the Netherlands.

Cotler said Hnatyshyn assured them the issue was a priority of the government and that it would proceed when it had the necessary evidence to do so.

"He left us with the impression of being someone prepared to proceed on all the cases if the evidence was available," Cotler said.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 22

LENGTH: 240 words

HEADLINE: TORTURED IN CHINA, CANUCK CLAIMS

BYLINE: SARAH GREEN, TORONTO SUN

BODY:
A Canadian professor freed from a Chinese labour camp two weeks ago will speak out today against the torture he endured there.

Kunlun Zhang, 60, a former McGill University arts professor slated to speak at a Toronto press conference, is the Falun Gong follower sentenced to three years in a labour camp last November during a Chinese crackdown on the movement.

Falun Gong uses mediation and gentle exercises to teach traditional Chinese values.

Zhang's lawyer, Irwin Cotler, said his client reportedly renounced Falun Gong under mental and physical torture.

"Under that kind of pressure, he may have said or signed something which was not of his own free will," he said. "He has stated since his return that he never renounced (Falun Gong)."

Zhang returned to China in 1996 to care for his mother-in-law after seven years in Canada. His wife remains in China, while Zhang is now with family in Ottawa.

PRESSURED

Zhang was the first foreign citizen jailed by China for practising Falun Gong.

China banned Falun Gong in 1999, deeming the practice a threat to the Communist Party. It claimed the movement has up to 100 million followers.

Cotler said some 50,000 followers are being detained in prisons, psychiatric institutions and labour camps.

He said "ongoing embarrassment" and mounting pressure on the Canadian government from groups such as Amnesty International likely led to Zhang's release on Jan. 10.

GRAPHIC: photo of KUNLUN ZHANG Sect follower

LOAD-DATE: January 22, 2001

SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A34

LENGTH: 579 words

HEADLINE: Lawyers Fault Soviets on Emigration

BYLINE: David Remnick, Washington Post Foreign Service

DATELINE: MOSCOW, June 8

BODY: Lawyers from the United States, Israel and other western countries said today they are deeply disappointed after meeting with Soviet lawyers on human rights issues.

About 250 lawyers from the International Bar Association met here this week with Soviet colleagues. The western attorneys, at a press conference today, used such phrases as "empty words" and "charm offensive" to describe what they saw as the current Soviet attitude toward emigration and human rights.

"There is a legal revolution going on in this country, but it does not embrace the human rights of refuseniks," said Irwin Cotler, a law professor at McGill University in Montreal.

"All we heard were the old excuses, the old justifications of the status quo," said Jonathan Arkush, a British barrister.

At the press conference, several Soviet Jews who have been refused permission to leave the country spoke out against the unwillingness to allow free emigration.

"For years, we were told that the solution to our problems was a warmer relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union," said Igor Uspensky, a longtime refusenik. "And now that the relationship is warmer, what?"

Not one of the more than 100 dissidents and refuseniks who attended a meeting with President Reagan in Moscow last week has been given an exit visa. One family, the Pimelshteins, received a call from the visa office two days ago and was refused once more.

"The words of Soviet officials are like the facades of Potemkin villages. For us, there is no glasnost, no exit visas," said refusenik Yuli Kosherovsky.

The western lawyers said they were shocked when Igor Blischeno, a professor at Patrice Lumumba University here, and Rudolf Kuznetsov, head of the visa office, told them that one reason for the slow rate of issuing exit visas to Jews was a concern for their social services after moving to other countries.

The lawyers said the only hopeful moment came when a Soviet lawyer said the government was considering proposals that the possession of state secrets -- one of the most common reasons for refusal -- should no longer be a reason to prevent emigration if the applicant has been away from classified work for five years.

Ari Weiss, a former congressional aide and a practicing attorney in Tel Aviv and Boston, said that such a change would be an improvement "but not an answer." He also said that recent Soviet legislation has made it more difficult to apply for an exit visa.

"So when people say, 'Look, they're letting more go,' we should keep our eye on the ball and realize that the real question is the absolute right to emigrate if there is a country to take you," Weiss said.

Kuznetsov said recently that only about 1 percent of the people who have applied to leave the country have been denied permission.

Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union reached a seven-year high last month, with 1,145 Jews permitted to leave, the Geneva-based Intergovernmental Committee for Migration reported last week. In the first five months of this year, 4,547 Soviet Jews emigrated. But the number is still well below those allowed to leave in the 1970s. Emigration peaked in 1979 when 51,320 Soviet Jews were given exit visas. The number dropped in the early and mid-1980s to fewer than 1,000 in 1986, and rose to 8,011 in 1987.

Israeli groups say more than 300,000 Jews want to leave the Soviet Union, but many are afraid to apply for fear of harassment, including loss of their jobs.

SECTION: FIRST SECTION; PAGE A18; AROUND THE WORLD

LENGTH: 88 words

HEADLINE: Dissident May Leave

BYLINE: From News Services and Staff Reports

DATELINE: Montreal

BODY:
Soviet officials have given permission to Jewish dissident Yuri Tarnopolsky to emigrate to Israel, Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler said.

Tarnopolsky was told Thursday that his request to emigrate had been granted and that he can leave the Soviet Union Jan. 21 with his wife and daughter, Cotler said.

Tarnopolsky, 50, a chemistry professor and poet, spent three years in a Siberian labor camp on charges of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. He was released in March and allowed to return to his home in the Ukraine.

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HEADLINE: Montrealers show their support

BYLINE: Lazarus, David

BODY:
MONTREAL -- For the second time in two days, Mount Royal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler last week denounced his own government's position on the recent eruption of violence in Israel and the territories.

The first time was at FEDERATION CJA's annual meeting. The second occasion was at a community solidarity rally held at the Beth Israel Beth Aaron Synagogue last Wednesday. The rally drew more than 2,500 people, according to the rally organizers, including a large number of students outside the synagogue.

Referring to the UN Security Council resolution that referred to Israel's ''excessive'' use of force, Cotler indicated he was willing to pay the political price, if any, for veering away from government solidarity.

''As long as you know that there is a moral compass in front of you, then you know you can stand up and be counted. And don't worry about the political consequences.''

In his remarks, which were punctuated by bursts of sustained applause, Cotler reiterated the comments he had expressed at the previous meeting, saying the resolution was ''one-sided, misinformed and prejudicial to peace in the Middle East.''

It was one-sided, he said, because it made no reference to Palestinian violence, to the fact that Israelis have also died, to the Palestinian desecration of Joseph's Tomb, to any obligation on the part of the Palestinian Authority to seek to quell the violence, and because it included only the Arabic name for Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

''In a region where words are holy writ, this omission does not appear to be accidental,'' he said.

The core of the conflict, he said, remains the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize the ''legitimacy,'' as opposed to the mere ''existence,'' of a Jewish state.

He exhorted the audience to each ''sensitize'' 10 non-Jews about the current Middle East situation. If audience members don't know any non-Jews, he suggested, that may be part of the problem.

''We talk too often to ourselves,'' he said, ''and wonder why they [non-Jews] don't understand. Go and study and prepare the case.''

The remarks of the synagogue's Rabbi Reuben Poupko were also greeted with loud bursts of applause from the crowd, a few of whom brandished Israeli flags or signs that read ''Am Yisrael Chai!''

''We have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to apologize for!'' the rabbi said to a thunderous response.

''We give and we give and we give, and it's only met with violence and rejection,'' he said.

The rabbi singled out a Montreal university student, Ella Barr, who was walking downtown and came across a Palestinian rally in which an Israeli flag was being torched. Barr lunged toward the flag to grab and save it.

Barr approached the podium, and the crowd cheered her.

''I pledge to you that students will never be alone again'' in their efforts to present Israel's case, Rabbi Poupko said. ''It's the students who are in the front line.''

The speakers at the rally used different words to express similar ideas, among them that Jews would remain united in solidarity with Israel and that Palestinians have cynically used children and put them tragically in harm's way.

''Instead of sending kids [into riots], why not send them back to school?'' asked Israeli Consul General Shlomo Avital.

Yasser Arafat, he charged, ''wants all of East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, and it's only the beginning. He wants to 'liberate' all of Palestine.

''We have news for him, it's been liberated since 1948,'' he said to cheers.

Robert Libman, mayor of Cote St. Luc and director of B'nai Brith Canada, Quebec region, said people have been ''sickened'' by media reports on CBC and CNN.

B'nai Brith, he said, has fielded phone call after phone call reporting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel incidents over the last two weeks.

The calls have included reports of younger Jews being ''harassed and assaulted by members of the Palestinian community'' and of threats to synagogues.

At the Palestinian rallies held Yom Kippur weekend, Libman said, shouts of ''Die Jews'' were heard.

''It exceeds the worst we've ever heard,'' Libman said. ''Not one speaker tonight will say anything disparaging against the Palestinian people.''

Dorothy Zalcman Howard, chair of Canadian Jewish Congress, Quebec region (CJC-Q), urged members of the audience to ''seize the opportunity to speak out,'' to use every means possible to ''influence public policy'' and to counteract the ''despicable propaganda that's flooded our senses.''

The event was sponsored by B'nai Brith's Quebec region, the Canada Israel Committee's Quebec region, CIJR, CJC-Q, CZF-Quebec, CSQ, FEDERATION CJA, the Montreal Board of Rabbis and the Rabbinic Council of Montreal.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: January 8, 2001

SECTION: v.30(20) My 18'00 pg 34; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4855832

LENGTH: 799 words

HEADLINE: Latest Iranian ''confessions'' spur concerns for accused

BYLINE: Jordan, Michael J

BODY:
New York -- Six of the seven Iranian Jews who have gone before Iran's Revolutionary Court have ''confessed'' to spying for Israel.

The first plea of not guilty came on Wednesday of last week, as 31-year-old Farzad Kashi, a religion teacher, told the judge he did not pass sensitive material to the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency.

Earlier in the day Kashi's brother, Faramarz, 35, reportedly admitted he was guilty of such activities.

Western advocates, however, remain adamant that the allegations against all 13 of the Iranian Jews on trial are unfounded. They maintain that the hearings are a scripted political show trial.

In Ottawa last week, Liberal MP and international human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler condemned the trial as a ''travesty of Iranian and international justice... a prosecution and persecution of innocents that violates every canon of a right to a fair trial as guaranteed under the Iranian constitution and international law.''

In a statement released by Cotler's office, the member of Parliament for Mount Royal, who has been involved in the case for over a year, detailed what he called a number of violations of the defendants' rights to a fair trial, referring to them as a pattern of prosecutorial abuse.

That Farzad Kashi pleaded innocent was either part of the script or perhaps a small act of defiance, said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

''It means Farzad didn't bend to the pressures being applied,'' said Hoenlein, who has closely monitored the hearings.

At the same time, advocates like Hoenlein have two new concerns -- that the string of admissions may be creating strains in the global coalition that has rallied to the defence of the accused, and that within kan the admissions are provoking persecution of the entire community of 25,000 Jews.

''The concern we have is that too many well-meaning people are starting to doubt themselves,'' said Hoenlein.

''As each one confesses, people on all sides are asking, 'How can they all be confessing?' But they don't understand the circumstances under which these confessions are being made.''

At a closed hearing last week, Ramin Farzam, 36, and Nasser Levi-Haim, 46, also a part-time Hebrew teacher, allegedly confessed.

Levi-Haim's confession, in particular, startled advocates, who had been led to believe by their sources within the Iranian judiciary that religious leaders in the community would not be lumped into the group of so-called conspirators.

After the hearing, Levi-Haim reportedly told reporters: ''I swear on the Torah, in whose service I have been for 40 years, that I was under no duress in court to confess. I got religiously involved, and I was tricked by Israeli agents.''

There appears ample reason to be skeptical about his confession. As Cotler pointed out last week, ''The Iranian Revolutionary Court is notorious for its violations of human rights. In this court, the judge leads the investigation, conducts the prosecution, determines the verdict and hands down the sentence. Indeed, the court spokesman [was] already discussing the defendants 'right to appeal' after only the first day of the thai. The guilty verdict [had] apparently been determined.

''Some of the accused have been in prison for almost 16 months, where their only contact with the outside was five minutes a week of supervised time with their families, through thick glass and monitored telephone. The other 10,075 minutes of the week, they were under the influence of the authorities,'' said Sam Kermanian, secretary general of the American Iranian Jewish Federation in Los Angeles.

The Iran 13 would also be well aware of the fate that has befallen other Iranian Jews accused of spying.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, 17 Iranian Jews have been executed, most of them having been convicted of espionage.

There are signs that many in the Iranian public are reacting negatively to the aired confessions. Media reports from Iran state that Jews -- even Jewish children -- are now experiencing harassment on the street, at work and in school. There are reports of anti-Jewish graffiti and fears of an economic boycott of Jewish-owned shops.

One Jewish woman, the wife of one of the spy suspects, reportedly pleaded with photographers outside the courtroom to not take her photograph.

''I work at a health clinic, and I don't want any problems,'' she was quoted as saying. ''I don't want people pointing fingers at me.''

That some outside observers are now wondering if the 13 are in fact guilty of the charges is prompting worry among activists in the West for the ultimate fates of the accused.

With files from CJN staff

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: August 5, 2000

SECTION: (534) Ap 24'00 pg 2; ISSN: 0848-0427

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4837322

LENGTH: 315 words

HEADLINE: Rookie MP Limoges tops spenders in five byelections

BYLINE: Babych, Art; McDonald, Terry; Scandiffio, Mike

BODY:
How much did it cost to win? ... Last year's byelections brought in five new MPs. But the new, Liberal Windsor MP Rick Limoges took first-prize as the top money-raiser of the new crop of MPs, according to financial returns recently filed with Elections Canada.

Mr. Limoges ran for the seat left vacant after Liberal MP Shaughnessy Cohen died. Mr. Limoges brought in $126,550 during the 36-day campaign to lead the way as top money-getter. The Windsor riding association kicked in $31,000 from its own coffers for the cause. Mr. Limoges spent $61,642 to win the seat according to documents filed with Elections Canada -- leaving him with a tidy post-election profit of $64,908.

Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler's Liberal campaign team raised $114,966 for his race to win the Liberal-stronghold of Mont Royal, Que. Mr. Cotler spent $55,577 in his bid for a House seat and relied the least on the party chequebook, taking in $750 from the Liberal Party of Canada.

Liberal MP Judy Sgro left Toronto municipal politics to run for and win former minister Sergio Marchi's seat in York West. Ms. Sgro raised $81,970 for her campaign and spent $53,614. Ms. Sgro, who is leading a caucus committee set up to clean up nomination races, had to lean heavily on the Ontario wing of the party, taking in $66,000 from the party.

Quebec MP Marcel Proulx won his former boss Marcel Masse's Hull-Aylmer seat. Mr. Proulx raised $59,472 and spent to $57,398 to win his spot in Parliament. Mr. Proulx, who is touted as one of the most plugged-in MPs in the party in Quebec, received $55,372 from the Quebec wing of the party.

NDP MP Dennis Gruending raised $59,407 and spent $59,275 to hold onto former NDP MP Chris Axworthy's seat of Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar. Most of Mr. Gruending's warchest came from party coffers.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1075

LOAD-DATE: July 21, 2000

SECTION: NEWS

LENGTH: 806 words

HEADLINE: IS THE PM PUNISHING PETTIGREW?

BODY:
OTTAWA

NEOPHYTE MOUNT ROYAL MP Irwin Cotler emerged from his second day in the Commons on Tuesday, shaking his head at opposition tactics.

Cotler found it hard to believe that the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform party would spend half of Question Period discussing International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew's integrity with regard to alleged election spending irregularities, especially with the minister away representing Canada at the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle.

To older parliamentary hands, though, the sight of the Opposition getting titillated by the smell of ministerial blood is nothing new. More unusual has been the Prime Minister's passive reaction. Monday, Tuesday and again yesterday, Jean Chretien sat on his hands, leaving House Leader Don Boudria to fend off opposition calls for Pettigrew's resignation.

Now, when it comes to defending his ministers' integrity, Chretien is usually no shrinking violet. Indeed, on Tuesday, the very day the Opposition hammered at Pettigrew's case for 20 minutes, it only took two Reform questions about grants to Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart's riding for Chretien to jump to his feet offering a stirring defence of his Ontario minister. Since Monday, the Opposition has asked 18 questions about Pettigrew.

It could be that Chretien knows more than the rest of us about where the allegations about Pettigrew's election financing will lead, but if that is the case, one presumes he would already have asked the minister to step aside. As things stand now, Pettigrew's word stands against that of a convicted killer. Quebec businessman Louis-Philippe Rochon, who is serving time for murdering an associate, swears he donated $10,000 and various transportation services to Pettigrew's 1997 campaign, on the understanding he would secure his wife a patronage appointment in return.

Minister denies the allegation and government says it is groundless

Pettigrew has denied the allegation and the official government line is that it is groundless. The commissioner of elections has declined to reopen the file because the legal deadline to do so has passed. While the transportation services at issue were unreported in Pettigrew's election expense statement, sources close to the story say they doubt he was even aware of Rochon's involvement in his campaign. In his former posting as minister of human resources, Pettigrew once called the police when he was warned that a Quebec Liberal organizer was exacting funds in exchange for promises of future government grants.

To the trade minister, who undoubtedly is keeping abreast of events in the Commons while in Seattle, the weak defence offered on his account by his government must have been disturbing. It capped what has turned into his most difficult time in federal politics.

His work in Seattle this week should have been a high point of his political career. Last August, Pettigrew's appointment to the international trade portfolio looked like one of the better fits of the summer cabinet shuffle. Globalization issues have long been Pettigrew's forte. With sovereignists focusing on the upcoming global trade talks as proof of Quebec's need for its own voice on the international scene, he seemed perfect for the part.

But last week, when he should have been preparing for Seattle, Pettigrew was in the fight of his life in Ottawa. And he was not battling sovereignists but taking on the combination of the Prime Minister and unity minister Stephane Dion, instead.

Sources say that, of all the Quebec ministers, Pettigrew has been the most vocal in fighting Chretien's plan to bring forward referendum legislation and most perturbed by the PM's decision to do so. A former aide to Quebec Liberal leader Claude Ryan, the man who led the yes camp in the 1980 referendum, Pettigrew feels strongly that the federal priority should be to put in place the conditions of a decisive federalist win in a future referendum, rather than to sacrifice ground preparing to weather a hypothetical yes victory.

It speaks volumes about the climate of suspicion - between federalists in Quebec city and their cousins in Ottawa - that there has even been quiet speculation in the entourage of Quebec Liberal Leader Jean Charest that the recent allegations could be part of a setup to blunt Pettigrew's opposition to the PM's plans. In federalist circles in Quebec, the Prime Minister's lukewarm support of his minister has not gone unnoticed.

Pettigrew was recruited by Chretien after the last referendum to show Quebecers there was room on his team for ministers in tune with mainstream Quebec. These days, that hardly seems to be the case anymore.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears in The Star on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

LOAD-DATE: December 6, 1999

SECTION: v.24(50) D 1'99; ISSN: 0702-8210

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4778268

LENGTH: 91 words

HEADLINE: By-elections Dominated by Liberals

BODY:
Liberal candidates won three of four House of Commons seats in by-elections on November 15. Marcel Proulx won in Hull-Aylmer, Quebec, with 54.38% of ballots cast; Irwin Cotler won in Mount Royal, Quebec, with 91.39%; and Judy Sgro won in York West, Ontario, with 73.34%. In Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Dennis Gruending won for the New Democratic Party with 40.54% of ballots cast. Standings in the House of Commons now are: Liberals, 157; Reform, 58; Bloc Quebecois, 44; NDP, 20; Progressive Conservatives, 19; and Independent, 3.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1537

LOAD-DATE: June 7, 2000

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 27

LENGTH: 238 words

HEADLINE: PUSH RIGHTS, PM TOLD CHINA TRADE TRIP

BYLINE: CP

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
As Prime Minister Jean Chretien prepares to leave on the Team Canada trade mission to China this week, pressure is mounting to focus on promoting human rights as much as improving trade links.

Some of that pressure is coming from within his own party.

China's human rights record is worsening and that can't be ignored, says Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, a human rights lawyer.

"Trade and human rights have to be seen as being inextricably bound up, one with the other and not being contradictory but complementary," Cotler said.

LOBBYING PM

"Trade can assist in opening up relations between societies ... but if it's only trade, then we end up having trade used as a cover for repression, not as a form of constructive engagement."

Cotler is one of many government and opposition MPs who have urged the prime minister to emphasize human rights.

Chretien's aides say he raises such concerns whenever he meets Chinese leaders.

Cotler said he believes that, adding that Ottawa reiterated its desire to promote human rights in last week's throne speech.

Chretien and most provincial premiers will join more than 300 business and education leaders in promoting trade links with China during a 10-day trip to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong that starts Friday.

It's the second Team Canada trade mission to China and has again triggered controversy around doing business with a undemocratic, repressive regime.

LOAD-DATE: February 5, 2001

SECTION: v.31(24) My 31'01 pg 31; ISSN: 0008-3941

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LENGTH: 380 words

HEADLINE: Jewish war vets meet in Ottawa

BYLINE: Koven, Diane

BODY:
OTTAWA -- Jewish war veterans have made a tremendous sacrifice and participated in the struggle for tikkun olam, to make the world a better place said MP Irwin Cotler.

''You are the real heroes. You put your lives on the line so that we can live and so that these values can endure,'' said Cotler, speaking recently at the 11th annual dinner of the Jewish War Veterans, Ottawa Post.

Cotler spoke of the current situation in Israel and the Middle East, explaining why negotiations for peace have not been successful. ''The core of the conflict,'' he said, ''has been, since 1947, and still remains, the unwillingness of the Arab and Palestinian leaders to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.''

The conditions put forth by the Arabs and Palestinians for peace would ultimately result in the disappearance of Israel as a Jewish homeland, and nothing short of that will satisfy its enemies, he said.

Verna Bruce, assistant deputy minister for the Department of Veterans' Affairs, spoke on behalf of her department. ''Keep telling the stories. It is important,'' she said. ''We need to understand what it was like for you when you were 17, 18, 19, serving in Canada and in other parts of the world.''

Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli began his remarks with a few words in Hebrew, and then said, ''On behalf of all of the citizens of Ottawa, thank you for your contribution. It is recognized, it is acknowledged and it is very much appreciated.''

Although unable to attend the dinner, Israeli Ambassador Haim Divon and Rabbi Reuven Bulka, spiritual leader of Congregation Machzikei Hadas and chaplain for the Armed Forces, both sent greetings.

''Thousands of Jews have died in combat for their country and thousands more have been wounded,'' said Divon in a written message. ''Every Jewish community in Canada made a contribution to the war effort. Let us remember and pay tribute to those who gave their lives in the Canadian Armed Forces.''

Post Commander Mel Goldberg acted as master of ceremonies for the evening, which began with members of the head table being piped in to take their seats, followed by the colour party, including Morris Lang, Hy Hymes, Barry Cohen, Norman Beck and sergeant-at-arms Arnold Greenberg.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2001

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A18

LENGTH: 343 words

HEADLINE: Canadian lawyers asked to sponsor refuseniks

BYLINE: By Stephen Handelman Toronto Star

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
MOSCOW - Canadian lawyers could play an important role in solving more than 300 Soviet refusenik cases this year, says Montreal lawyer and human rights activist Irwin Cotler.

Cotler said he plans to ask lawyers across the country to sponsor the efforts of individuals and families who have been prevented from emigrating from the Soviet Union.

"We've accumulated so far a list of more than 300 of the most pressing cases," said Cotler, who is visiting Moscow as a member of an international human rights delegation.

The 13-member group arrived this week on an unprecedented visit to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki human rights accords.

Soviet authorities agreed to the visit after some initial reluctance. The granting of permission to the group is seen as a major step forward in the East-West dialogue over human rights.

Efforts by the group to meet Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and other senior Politburo members have so far been unsuccessful.

But the delegation, including members from the United States, Britain and Scandinavian countries, has held sessions with the officially sponsored Soviet Human Rights Commission, the Soviet justice minister and other legal authorities.

"All of us have also been able to meet on our own with members of unofficial groups here," Cotler told The Star.

Cotler was instrumental in the release of Natan Sharansky - formerly Anatoly Shcharansky - to the West almost two years ago.

"We're aware that many of the most well-known names among the refuseniks have gone, but there are still a great many people who need assistance."

According to diplomats and other Western observers, the Soviet human rights record has begun to improve slowly over the past year. Dozens of long-standing family reunification cases have been resolved and emigration has increased.

Moscow, which has been pressing the West to hold an international human rights conference in Moscow, has also stepped up a campaign against what it calls the denial of "social and economic rights" in the West.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: v.30(20) My 18'00 pg 30; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4855817

LENGTH: 375 words

HEADLINE: Cotler addresses Yom Hazikaron ceremony

BYLINE: Regenstreif, Michael

BODY:
Montreal -- ''Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people across space and time, wherever we may be and whatever our citizenship may be,'' said Mount Royal MP and international human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler.

It is imperative, he added, ''to remember those who fought and died so that Israel may prevail.''

Cotler was speaking to an overflow crowd in a small room in the Gelber Conference Centre of the Jewish Community Campus. His address followed a solemn ceremony in front of Cummings House on the eve of Yore Hazikaron, the day of memorial for the almost 20,000 soldiers who have died defending Israel since 1948.

Yom Hazikaron committee chair Allan Shelf described the gathering as ''a demonstration of solidarity with the State of Israel.''

The ceremony, conducted under a gloomy sky with some rain, included a prayer service led by Rabbi Ronald Aigen of Congregation Dorshei Emet, readings in Hebrew, English and French by high school and CEGEP students, songs from the Shaar Hashomayim Choral Society, the laying of wreaths and an address by Shlomo Avital, consul general of Israel in Montreal.

Avital said that he was ''very proud'' and ''deeply moved'' to see the large gathering of the community ''on this solemn occasion when we express our solidarity with the parents, widows and orphans'' whose loved ones ''paid the heaviest price in defence of the State of Israel.''

''Each year,'' Avital said, ''we remember all who fell. We cry and we go on, because we have no choice, no alternative.''

One of the most moving moments in the hour-long ceremony came as Sheff and Rabbi Aigen read names of some of the volunteers from Canada who have died over the years in defence of Israel, as well as the names of several Canadians who have fallen victim to Arab terrorism in Israel.

After the ceremony, many moved into the conference centre where two programs were offered, a quiet musical program and Cotler's address on the importance of Yom Hazikaron to Diaspora communities.

Cotler spoke passionately as he contrasted the observance of Yom Hazikaron in Israel and in the Diaspora. He explained that the day is a central observance to all strata of Israeli society. It is a day of mourning there.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: August 5, 2000

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 530 words

HEADLINE: Emigrants need okay from relatives Soviet law a setback for Jews, lawyer says

BYLINE: By Stephen Handelman Toronto Star

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
MOSCOW - A new Soviet law that came into effect Jan. 1 marks a severe setback for Jews seeking to emigrate, says Montreal lawyer and human rights activist Irwin Cotler.

The law requires applicants for emigration visas to obtain permission to leave from relatives remaining behind, as well as to produce a letter from a close relative living abroad.

"It amounts to a real crackdown," Cotler said. "People who don't have a 'first-degree' relative (living outside the Soviet Union) will not even be allowed to apply, so they won't even show up on statistics."

Cotler had a note written on a scrap of paper by a man living in one remote Soviet city whose wife had threatened to commit suicide.

"My wife's mother told her she would never give her permission to leave, and she would have to die here," the note said.

Cotler made his comments at the end of a week of unprecedented meetings between senior officials and a delegation from the international Helsinki Watch monitoring group.

Cotler, the only Canadian among the 13-member delegation, said he also met openly with more than 1,000 refuseniks and unofficial human rights campaigners from around the country.

Dramatic change

Some 8,000 Soviet Jews were allowed to leave in 1987, after several years when only a handful managed to get out.

In 1979, however, some 51,000 emigration visas for Jews were approved, "and that was before glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic reconstruction)," Cotler said.

According to dissidents, 400,000 Soviet Jews want to emigrate.

Other ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, including Armenians and "Volga Germans," have also experienced a dramatic change in official attitudes toward emigration.

"The new rules just turn the basic right of a person to leave his country on its head," Cotler said.

"Under international law, family reunification is an additional reason to be allowed to emigrate, but they have now made it a condition of leaving."

Soviet officials agreed that free emigration was a basic right under international law, but they defended the policy by arguing they were anxious to "protect" emigrants from the hardships of living abroad.

Seen as betrayers

"We have a concern for our citizens even after they emigrate," one official told the group. "We want to be sure there'll be somebody to take care of them."

According to Cotler, another senior official also admitted that the Kremlin was afraid of alienating public opinion in the Soviet Union by moving too fast.

"And public opinion looks on people who want to leave as betraying their country," Cotler said.

"I told him that if the Soviet media treated these cases differently, maybe people wouldn't look on those activities as anti-Soviet."

Cotler said the impact of the new policies was already taking a tragic toll on many dissidents and their families.

"Very few applications to leave are being accepted, and many are being refused," he said.

"As somebody put it to me, 'We are not prisoners of conscience, because nobody is brutalizing us in prison. But we are prisoners of conscience in the sense that we have to live every day of our lives in a trap.' "

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: Pg. 4

LENGTH: 396 words

HEADLINE: ISRAEL SHOULD CHAMPION JEWISH REFUGEE CLAIMS, URGES TOP LEGAL SCHOLAR

BYLINE: Haninah Levine

BODY:
Israel can back the compensation claims of Jewish refugees from Arab lands without fear of legitimizing Palestinian claims against Israel in the process, says international law expert and Canadian parliamentarian Irwin Cotler. Cotler - who asserts that the Palestinian claims rightly should be against Arab states, not Israel - is honorary chair of the recently founded Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), which estimates that 856,000 Jewish victims of "ethnic cleansing" at the hands of Arab governments after 1948 lost over $ 100 billion in confiscated assets.

Israel has so far pursued a split policy over restitution demands. The Ministry of Justice, along with the American Sephardi Federation, has been working since May 2002 to document claims of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. At the same time, there has been caution about setting official policy on the restitution issue, for fear of opening Israel up to claims from Palestinian refugees.

But Cotler insists that international law will find Palestinian refugees to have been "joint victims of the Arab war against Israel," and therefore not entitled to restitution from Israel. In rejecting the U.N. partition plan of 1947, the Arab states rejected the U.N.'s proposed Palestinian state as well, and thereby committed an act of "double aggression." Moreover, he argues, "the right of return (for Palestinian refugees and descendants) has no legal basis," since resettling so many millions of Palestinians from the Arab countries to Israel would constitute an illegal reward for the perpetrators of a crime - the Arab states.

Instead, Cotler is lobbying leading politicians worldwide to push for recognition of the "right of memory," involving an investigation of each side's historical narrative by all parties, rather than out-of-hand rejection by opposing sides. He suggests that this kind of mutual awareness, rather than just concentration on contemporary, pragmatic issues of territory and sovereignty, is increasingly recognized as prerequisite for reconciliation.

Israeli historian Benny Morris casts doubt on Cotler's legal argument. "At the end of a war, people who are pushed out of their homes... are allowed back," Morris says. Then he hedges a little. "I'm sure both sides have good legal arguments, and politically, certainly both sides have good arguments."

LOAD-DATE: July 28, 2003

SECTION: JEWISH WORLD; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 1225 words

HEADLINE: Diaspora in brief

BYLINE: Elli Wohlgelernter

BODY:
Holocaust compensation guide issued

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Claims Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany has issued a guide to help US Holocaust victims find out which of the often bewildering mix of agencies and institutions might owe them compensation - now or in the future.

The Claims Conference, one of the parties negotiating a new restitution fund with Germany, receives 300 to 400 phone calls a day from people asking for information about restitution programs, accrding to Executive Vice President Gideon Taylor. He said one of the biggest frustrations facing Holocaust survivors is trying to get accurate information about which settlements exist and which ones are being negotiated.

The guide also appears on the Web at www.claimscon.org . The Claims Conference said it expects to publish guides for Israeli Holocaust victims in about eight months.

Hungarian police confiscate antisemitic book

BUDAPEST (AP) - Police raided bookstores in three Hungarian towns, confiscating copies of the banned Protocols of the Elders of Zion, state-run radio reported last week. Raids were conducted at bookstores in Budapest, Bekescsaba, and Hodmezoevasarhely, both 150 miles southeast of the capital. A total of 50 copies were seized, National Police spokesman Laszlo Garamvoelgyi said.

In recent months, three different editions of the book have been published and sold openly in bookstores. The book has prompted an outcry from the Jewish community and civic organizations opposed to racism and intolerance. The Chief Prosecutor's Office has said the book is intended to incite hatred.

Berlin museum president awarded medal

BERLIN (AP) - The director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, former US Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, was awarded the Leo Baeck Medal for his work toward reconciliation between Germans and Jews, the museum said last week. Blumenthal is being honored for making the Berlin museum "one of the most important, if unofficial, points of contact between the German government and the Jewish community in the world," the museum said.

The director of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, Carol Strauss, praised Blumenthal for working "to ensure that Germans recognize Jews not just as victims, but equally as productive citizens of their country."

The museum officially opens in October 2000 with exhibitions on Jewish life in Germany over the centuries.

It is only the sixth time the prize has been awarded by the institute, founded in 1955 to support study of the history of German-speaking Jewry.

Blumenthal, a Jew who fled Nazi Germany with his parents to China, emigrated to the United States after World War II ended. He served as an advisor in the administrations of US presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter named him to head the Treasury Department. He accepted the position as museum director in 1997.

Cotler wins record-breaking landslide

McGill University Law Professor Irwin Cotler won a huge landslide victory in last week's federal by-election in Montreal. Voters in the predominantly Jewish district of Mount Royal gave Cotler an unprecedented 92 percent of the vote, eclipsing the previous federal record of 84.5% attained by his predecessor in the district, Sheila Finestone, in 1993.

Cotler will be sworn in as Member of Parliament for the district later this week, when Prime Minister Jean Chretien returns from his current trip overseas.

The Globe and Mail newspaper called Cotler's victory "the most astounding political victory of this century" in Canada.

Cotler has been a life-long advocate of human rights, and was a leading figure in the Canadian Soviet Jewry movement in the 1970s and 1980s. He hopes to continue advocating the issues of poverty and human rights in parliament.
Yehuda Poch

Aryan Nation leader testifies in JCC attack probe

SPOKANE, Washington - Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler secretly appeared earlier this month in Los Angeles before a federal grand jury investigating the August 10 shooting at a Jewish community center, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review. The focus of the grand jury probe is Buford Furrow Jr., a former Aryan Nations security guard, who is accused of wounding five people, including three children, and killing a Postal Service carrier.

Butler, 81, said he was surprised at being ordered to appear for questioning. "Apparently they just wanted me to explain my Christian beliefs," he said.

Butler said he spent less than an hour before the grand jury, and didn't have an attorney present.

Furrow has waived his right to a speedy trial, and no trial date has been set. The next significant court hearing isn't scheduled until late February.

Butler said he told the grand jury that he remembers Furrow, but had very little contact with him. "I only talked with him a few times," he said.

Immediately after Furrow's arrest, Butler denied knowing the suspect, but his memory was refreshed when a photograph of Furrow in an Aryan guard's uniform was widely published.

Boarding school caters to three Jewish branches

GREENSBORO, North Carolina - A Jewish boarding school is planned as the first in the country for high school students from all three branches of Judaism, according to the Greensboro Daily News. Organizers say they have raised $ 40 million for the first phase of construction of the American Hebrew Academy, for about 800 students. There are many Orthodox Jewish boarding schools around the country, but planners said the Greensboro academy will be the first to include Conservative and Reform branches. The school, which organizers call pluralistic or liberal, will emphasize Jewish identity.

A group of Greensboro philanthropists began planning the school in 1996, and an anonymous donor provided 100 acres for the campus. Aaron Green of San Francisco, a protege of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is designing the school, incorporating such touches as stone from Jerusalem. Eight to 10 buildings will be constructed during the first phase of building.

Jewish family fined for sukka

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut (AP) - A condominium association here has fined a Jewish family $ 675 for putting up a sukka. Directors of the Fountainwood Condominium Association say allowing the sukka would violate its ban on outdoor decorations. Rabbi Sholom Alperowitz and his wife, Susha, said the sukka is an integral part of their religious holiday. "This is not about decorations," Susha Alperowitz said. "This is about a commitment to keeping the spiritual laws we have always kept."

The fine imposed last week also includes a penalty for last year, when the family put up the sukka without knowing the association's regulation on outdoor structures.

Jim Banno, an official with Imagineers of Stratford, which manages Fountainwood, said the ruling was not religious discrimination, as the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union has contended. He said Fountainwood was a predominantly Jewish community. The condominium association has been "very consistent" in rejecting similar requests, including past applications to erect sukkot, Banno said. Alperowitz said her family has not decided what action to take or whether they will pay the fine. "The truth is we could be forced from our home because of this," she said.

LOAD-DATE: November 22, 1999

SECTION: NEWS

LENGTH: 483 words

HEADLINE: LIBERAL MP ATTACKS CHINA OVER JAILING OF CANADIAN

BODY:
'What we are seeing here is a case study of a pervasive and persistent assault on human rights in China in general.'

Human rights lawyer

Graham Fraser
NATIONAL AFFAIRS WRITER

OTTAWA - Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer, yesterday harshly criticized China for breaking its own laws as well as international treaties by detaining, imprisoning and torturing Canadian professor Kun-lun Zhang.

"What we are seeing here is a case study of a pervasive and persistent assault on human rights in China in general, and a case study in the attempt to suppress the fundamental freedoms of the Falun (Dafa) peaceful spiritual movement in particular," he said.

Cotler, who represents the riding of Mount Royal, said he had agreed to represent Zhang's family as international legal counsel on a pro bono basis in their efforts to get him released from prison.

Zhang and his wife, Shu-mei, was arrested July 27 for practising the meditation exercises of the movement in a park.

He was released a month later, and re-arrested on Nov. 15.

The 60-year-old sculpture professor was sentenced to three years in a labour camp by a court in Shandong on Nov. 15 and now is in the Liuchangshan labour camp outside Jinan.

Zhang, who came to Canada as a visiting scholar in 1989, became a Canadian citizen in 1995 while retaining his Chinese nationality. He returned to China in 1996 on his Chinese passport.

The former McGill University professor is a follower of Falun Dafa, a movement that combines meditation and exercise in a form based loosely on Buddhist and Taoist teachings.

Cotler was one of four MPs who yesterday called on Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley to intervene with the People's Republic of China.

"We're still having difficulties obtaining consular access," Jennifer Sloan, Manley's director of communications said yesterday. "China does not recognize dual citizenship; the Canadian citizen entered China using his Chinese passport."

Asked about this, Cotler said that China is breaking its own laws, and international agreements that it has signed.

The imprisonment and torture of Zhang has focused attention on Prime Minister Jean Chretien's plans to lead a Team Canada trade mission to China in February.

Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde, whose staff had alerted foreign affairs that Zhang had been re-arrested, stressed that speed is important.

"Canada should act, and Mr. Manley should act very quickly," she said.

Cotler also stressed the need for quick action.

"It needs to be emphasized that we're not dealing with an opposition political movement in the case of the Falun (Dafa); we're dealing with a peaceful, non-violent, meditative exercise movement whose spiritual values are organized around notions of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance."

LOAD-DATE: December 8, 2000

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A6

LENGTH: 324 words

HEADLINE: Holocaust denial labelled 'criminal'

BYLINE: BY PETER SMALL TORONTO STAR

BODY:
Holocaust denial is both an assault on Jewish memory and an "international criminal conspiracy" to cover up the most monstrous crime in history, a leading Canadian human rights activist says.

Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor recently named officer of the Order of Canada, was addressing a commemoration last night of a meeting at which the "final solution" for the extermination of Europe's Jews was worked out.

The Wannsee Conference, 50 years ago yesterday, saw 15 top German officials plan the liquidation of 11 million Jews, many in countries Germany hadn't yet conquered.

"Those who are prepared to deny the Jewish people their past are the same people who would deny the Jewish people their future," Cotler said.

That is why bringing war criminals to justice is a "moral imperative," because if there were no criminals, there were no crimes, he said.

"Each time we bring a war criminal to justice we strike a blow against the Holocaust denial movement," Cotler said in a passionate speech.

He was answered with a standing ovation by a crowd that packed an auditorium in the Adath Israel Congregation in North York.

Anti-Semitism, which is resurging, is a threat not only to Jews but to democracy, Cotler said. "Though it begins with Jews, it does not end with Jews."

In an interview, Cotler said 70 documents recently released by former Soviet KGB agents don't prove World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg is dead. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who singlehandedly saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust.

The papers only refer to a period between 1945 and 1947, said Cotler, and do not counter evidence Wallenberg lived much longer and even may be alive today.

Cotler is a past chairperson of the Helsinki Watch Group, and is on the board of the Canadian Human Rights Foundatrion, the International Commission of Jurists (Canadian Section) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Irwin Cotler

LOAD-DATE: January 23, 1992

SECTION: Part 1; Page 13; Column 4; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 956 words

HEADLINE: SHCHARANSKY'S WIFE, MOTHER FOUGHT FOR HIS RELEASE; 2 WOMEN NEVER LET WORLD FORGET

BYLINE: By ROBERT C. TOTH, Times Staff Writer

DATELINE: JERUSALEM

BODY:
"Those two women, in my view, are the reason the world never forgot Anatoly Shcharansky," said Prof. Irwin Cotler of McGill University as the jet bearing the former Soviet prisoner landed in Israel on Tuesday.

The professor, who is Shcharansky's Canadian lawyer, was referring to the dissident's wife, Avital, reunited with him after 12 years, and his mother, Ida Milgrom, who is still in Moscow.

They waged a battle for his freedom in their own ways in very different environments, Avital in her tireless travels through the Western capitals to enlist support and Milgrom in harassing Soviet authorities to ease her youngest son's living conditions in prison.

"Avital fought like a lioness," said Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres at the emotional reception for Anatoly on his arrival.

"No place was too far away for her . . . no opportunity too small for her . . . to continue her fight," he said.

And Cotler recalled how Shcharansky's mother, now 77, rode 500 miles in bitter Russian winters to visit her imprisoned son, and how once, when she was refused entry as punishment for him, she returned to the prison gate each morning for 10 days -- in vain -- to demand entry.

A decade ago in Moscow, Shcharansky was certain that Avital would be waiting for him in Israel when he finally left the Soviet Union.

"I know she'll be loyal, that she'll always be there," he had said as he fumed at being refused permission to emigrate.

Not long afterward, however, rather than receiving his visa, he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison. After almost 12 years of separation, when he finally reached Jerusalem on Tuesday, she was with him.

She had become a familiar international figure in her own right, a tall, thin woman with a hauntingly sad face under the cloth head covering that is traditional for an Orthodox Jewish married woman.

Gentle and soft-spoken, her classical beauty has been likened to the biblical descriptions of Miriam at the well. But beneath the exterior was a tough, intense and unremitting determination to get "Tolya" free.

Avital Shcharansky, born Natalia Stieglitz in the Ukraine 35 years ago, had left Anatoly one day after their marriage July 4, 1974, for Israel. He had insisted that she leave, expecting that he would also be granted an emigration visa. His words to her then, he recalled Tuesday night with a wry smile, were, "I'll see you in Israel very soon."

The couple met in Moscow on Oct. 13, 1973, in front of the Moscow synagogue when Anatoly and Avital's brother were members of an aggressive young Jewish group who were not satisfied to wait patiently after their emigration requests had been refused. The authorities refused to recognize their marriage because it was performed by a rabbi.

And they seldom allowed Anatoly to receive the hundreds of letters that Avital has written over the years from her small apartment in a working-class section of Jerusalem.

During their long separation, Avital has become far more religious than either had been in Moscow. Asked once how he viewed her new kosher practices, including the requirement of keeping meat and dairy dishes separate, Anatoly reportedly told his mother that he had always confused the two, and he would now have an excuse not to wash the plates at all.

She also learned English to help in her earnest and simple appeals to world leaders to aid her husband's cause.

President Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz have been particularly impressed by Avital's uncommon devotion and perseverance, and that reinforced their efforts to win his release.

Along the way, too, she increasingly surrounded herself with religious Jews here and abroad, which sometimes conveyed the impression that she lead a cloistered existence. Some of her closest associates are former "refuseniks" who, like Josef Mendelevich, also embrace right-wing politics in Israel.

Some more secular Jewish groups, and even at times Israeli officials, have expressed dismay at Avital's single-minded aggressiveness, or chutzpah, on Anatoly's behalf, and her pursuit of maximum publicity when there were hopes that quiet petitions to Moscow might have been more effective.

She nonetheless pursued his release through whatever avenues were open, sometimes devising clever approaches such as an open, woman-to-woman letter to Raisa Gorbachev, wife of the Soviet leader, during the Geneva summit in November. And sometimes she silently picketed with only his picture in front of a Soviet embassy at one of the capitals of the world.

Anatoly's mother, the other key woman in his life, is a retired schoolteacher who kept her maiden name throughout her long marriage to Boris Shcharansky. A journalist who once worked for an industrial journal, Anatoly's father died of a heart attack three years ago.

The elder Shcharanskys, who were observant but not religious Jews, moved to the Donets region after World War II where their two sons, Leonid and Anatoly, were born. Milgrom, for the past eight years, has importuned Soviet officials whenever Anatoly's letters did not arrive on time or when his health grew increasingly fragile due to solitary confinement and other punishment.

Warm, short, matronly and determined, she asked a guard during one visit if she could walk around the glass partition to hug her son. When he refused, she demanded to know why a mother could not embrace her own son.

Anatoly, perhaps to ease his mother's growing stress, turned it into a joke.

"If Carter can kiss Brezhnev, why can't my mother hug me?" he asked, referring at that time to a recent summit between the late Soviet leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev, and President Jimmy Carter. It quieted his mother, but he still didn't get the hug.

GRAPHIC: Photo, Ida Milgrom, Associated Press

SECTION: News; Pg. 4; Olympic Flashes

LENGTH: 349 words

HEADLINE: OLYMPIC FLASHES COLUMN

BODY:
CHINA'S RECORD ON RIGHTS RIPPED

OTTAWA (CP) -- A Liberal MP has made a public plea to the International Olympic Committee to turn down Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Irwin Cotler, who chairs the Commons committee on human rights, said China's assault on human rights is almost as bad now as it was before the Tiananmen Square massacre a decade ago.

"I'm referring here to the 'execution frenzy' as Amnesty International has called it," Cotler said yesterday on the eve of the IOC vote. "China has executed more people in the last three months than the rest of the world has executed in the last three years."

It's been estimated more than 1,700 people have been executed this year in China.

MEDIA ON A ROLL

Media outlets in leading contenders for the 2008 games went into overdrive on the eve of the IOC vote in Moscow.

The People's Daily and chinadaily.com both devoted special area of their Web sites to today's run-off.

In Paris, Le Monde ran a story on the Jeux Olympiques 2008 before coverage of the Tour de France.

The coverage waned in cities considered long shots.

The Osaka-based Mainichi Daily News simply ran a photo of the city's deputy mayor in Moscow. But even that is more than what appears on the Turkish Daily News Web site, which fails to mention anything about Istanbul being a candidate city.

PARTY GOES FULL BOAR

MOSCOW (CP) -- Prime Minister Jean Chretien will take a walk on Moscow's wild side tonight when he attends TO-Bid's final bash after the vote on the 2008 Games host.

The bid committee has booked the Boar House, partly owned by Canadian businessman Doug Steele, for its party.

Signs in the bar say it will be closed today for a private party, so it's difficult to say if the prime minister will get the full Boar experience.

Like a lot of watering holes in Moscow, it's a magnet for local prostitutes. But it's a tame version of Steele's previous venture, the Hungry Duck, which was closed for being a little bit too raunchy.

The bar has been repainted in Toronto's bid colours inside and out.

LOAD-DATE: July 13, 2001

SECTION: February 22, 1995

CBCA-ACC-NO: 3441338

LENGTH: 287 words

HEADLINE: Canadian in Peruvian jail on trumped-up allegations: lawyer (for Jorge Passalaqua)

BODY:

MONTREAL (CP) - A prominent human-rights activist appealed to the Peruvian government Wednesday to release a McGill University student who has been in prison for six months without being charged.

Irwin Cotler denounced the ''shocking and illegal detention'' of Jorge Passalaqua, a Canadian graduate student in Spanish studies, on ''trumped-up'' allegations of money-laundering.

Passalaqua, on the advice of his thesis supervisor, went to Peru last April to research a study. He also went to see his fiancee, whom he planned to marry.

His father, who lives in Miami and runs a travel agency and courier service, asked Jorge to take a summer job at the agency's branch in Lima.

Then one of the agency's customers who had used its courier service to ship money was charged with drug-trafficking.

Jorge Passalaqua and other employees in Lima were questioned by police and he was arrested.

''There is no proof of any involvement of Jorge Passalaqua in any crime,'' Cotler, a McGill law professor, told a news conference.

''It's a clear case of wrongful imprisonment consequent on an initial false arrest without any proof whatsoever,'' Cotler said.

He also said the case is being used for political reasons. Passalaqua's picture is shown on television in Peru as proof the government is cracking down on drug dealers and money-launderers. An election is to be held there in April.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Eduardo Del Buey suggested that all consular officials in Lima could do was make sure Passalaqua had the name of a competent lawyer and look into allegations of mistreatment.

But Del Buey insisted that ''to the best of our knowledge'' Passalaqua was not being mistreated.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: July 08, 1999

SECTION: v.31(48) N 22'01 pg 32; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5254538

LENGTH: 771 words

HEADLINE: Cotler backs anti-terror bill, suggests ammendments

BYLINE: Lungen, Paul

BODY:
TORONTO -- The federal government's counter-terrorism bill must be considered ''human security legislation'' designed to protect the most fundamental human rights of all - life, liberty and the security of the person, according to human rights lawyer and MP Irwin Cotler.

Speaking recently at a University of Toronto conference on the government's controversial Bill C-36, Cotler urged participants to ''think outside the box'' and not accept a civil liberties/national security dichotomy when considering the bill.

The bill should be examined as a proportionate response by an international criminal justice system to ''a transnational and existential threat,'' and not merely as a response to domestic criminal activity, he said.

Cotler said Canada must toughen its laws to protect against terrorist threats, while ensuring that the civil libertarian critiques of the bill are addressed. He proposed several amendments to the bill that would leave its overarching goal in place while softening its most troubling intrusions on civil rights.

The government bill has been widely criticized, with critics saying it goes too far in restricting democratic rights.

The government caucus has had ''a thoughtful debate'' on the bill with a broad range of views expressed, said Farah Mohamed, a spokesman for Justice Minister Anne McLellan. She said the minister was scheduled to appear before the House justice committee on Tuesday of this week ''and will signal when amendments could be made.'' The committee will then go through the bill on a clause-by-clause basis to discuss the proposed changes.

''Prof. Cotler is a scholar on this topic and he's someone the minister has a lot of respect for,'' Mohamed said.

In his address to the law conference, Cotler argued that ''on Sept. 11, we passed a strategic and juridical watershed. The antiterror law therefore must be appreciated and assessed in the context of the existential threat of this transnational terrorism, and the vulnerability of open and technologically advanced democratic societies to this genre of terror.''

Nevertheless, Cotler proposed several changes to the bill.

Cotler, who has defended political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela and Natan Sharansky, suggested it would be prudent to drop the section that defines ''terrorist activity'' in terms of the perpetrators' motivations. As it now stands, the definition of terrorism could be taken to include civil disobedience, unlawful activity (such as an illegal strike) or even violent conduct that is not terrorism, he stated.

Turning to the provision that would create a list of groups involved in terrorist activities, Cotler said the legislation should be amended to give an organization ''prenotice'' that it is slated for the list, along with the opportunity for an advance hearing to contest the listing. As the bill now stands, a group may contest the terrorist designation only after it has been listed.

Addressing other provisions of the bill, Cotler said suspects should be considered to have ''facilitated'' terrorist activity only if they know that such activity is going to take place. As the bill is now written, someone could be considered to facilitate a terrorist activity even if they we unaware that the activity was going to take place.

Turning to the question of access to information and the right to privacy, Cotler pointed out the bill gives the attorney general the power to issue a certificate prohibiting disclosure of certain information, on national security or defense grounds.

''Bill C-36 should at least be amended to provide for the necessary safeguards and oversight,'' he said.

On the controversial preventive arrest and investigative hearings provisions, Cotler argued, ''The untested novelty - and potential for intrusion on traditional due process rights - warrant the application of a sunset clause to these provisions.''

Other suggestions Cotler made included.

- judicial confirmation or judicial authorization for the interception of foreign communication to or from Canada.

- inclusion of a non-discrimination clause to signal that visible minorities should be protected from discriminatory treatment.

- the provision of a ''due diligence'' defense to charities to prevent legal repercussions for inadvertently aiding terror groups.

- creation of an oversight framework that includes an annual report by the Attorney General to Parliament and the appointment of a parliamentary officer to monitor and supervise the legislation.

Must be considered 'human security legislation'

LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2002

SECTION: v.30(25) Je 22'00 pg 32; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4883221

LENGTH: 814 words

HEADLINE: Jurists will address issues ''on the Jewish agenda'' [International Assn of Jewish Lawyers & Jurists meeting]

BYLINE: Lungen, Paul; Press, Viva

BODY:
Lawyers, judges and academics from around the world will gather in Toronto this summer for a watershed meeting of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IAJLJ).

For the first time since the IAJLJ was founded in 1969, the human rights organization will hold a conference in North America. As many as 1,000 delegates from 30 countries are expected to attend the meeting, which runs from Aug. 13 to 16 at the Sheraton Centre Hotel. The conference theme this year is, Pursuing Justice in the Global Village.

Canadian and international legal personalities are expected to participate in the conference's plenary and in smaller sessions. Among those scheduled to address the meetings are: Yossi Beilin, Israel's Minister of Justice; Yoram Dinstein, former president of Tel Aviv University: MP Irwin Cotler, professor of law at McGill University; Prof David Unterhalter, director of the centre for applied legal studies at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; Justice Rosalie Abella and John I. Laskin of the Ontario Court of Appeal; and Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, chair of the Knesset Law Committee.

Organizing committee chair Igor Ellyn was excited about the prospect of Toronto hosting the event. This ''signifies a desire of the association to bring it to the the attention of many more lawyers and jurists in North America who are interested in the association's work,'' he said.

Besides raising the organization's profile in Canada and the United States, the meeting will serve as a forum to discuss key issues of justice and it will provide Jewish jurists with a means of networking, he said.

The conference will provide Jewish perspectives on human rights, democracy, media and commerce. Plenary sessions will address issues of crimes against humanity, electronic anti-Semitism, and the way in which Jewish and Israeli issues are portrayed in the international media. Smaller sessions will examine such issues as secular justice and religious law, free trade in the global village and the restitution of Holocaust era assets.

Cotler, honorary chair of the conference, said the meeting should strengthen the already firm ties that bind Canada and Israel. The legal relationship is ''the crown jewel in the Canada-Israel relationship,'' he said.

During Prime Minister Chretien's recent visit to Israel, Israeli Chief Justice Aharon Barak pointed out that Canada's Charter of Rights is the source of inspiration for Israel's basic laws on human rights and that Canadian jurisprudence is cited by Israeli courts more often than the legal decisions of any other country, Cotler said.

Israeli jurist Hadassah Ben-Itto, who heads the IAJLJ, said Toronto was selected to host the conference because ''we have a very impressive committee of lawyers in Canada.''

Ben-Itto, who will address the IAJLJ's opening session, has been the president of the association for 12 years. During a legal career that spanned 36 years, she served as justice of the Supreme Court in Israel and vice-president of the Tel Aviv District Court. When she was appointed to the bench in 1960, she was the youngest judge in Israel and only the fifth woman to be named to the bench.

She served on Israel's delegation to the UN in 1965, and again 10 years later in 1975.

Today, she is one of the 17 judges -- and the only woman -- on the international tribunal in Switzerland that deals with dormant accounts of Holocaust victims.

On October 31, 1991, Ben-Itto officially presided over her last hearing. A few months earlier she shocked Israel's legal community by announcing her early retirement. Her reason: to research and write a book about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Russian secret police forgery that claims a Jewish conspiracy for world domination.

Although officially retired, Ben-Itto, 74, still presides over commercial arbitrations and she serves as president of the IAJLJ and its quarterly magazine, Justice.

''There's nothing in our world that doesn't have some legal aspect,'' she said in a telephone interview from her home in Tel Aviv. ''That's why [law] is so interesting. The law deals with real problems of people. It's very exciting. I loved every day both as a lawyer and on the bench. That's why I'm still involved in it in the association.

''When I started practising law I think I was the only woman in Israel who practised criminal law privately,'' she said. ''We were a generation that paved the way for the women who came after us.''

Today more than 50 percent of Israel's judiciary are women, she noted.

Ben-Itto, who has one daughter and two grandchildren, said she always had an interest in the private life of the Jewish people.

''You name it, the IAJLJ deals with all issues on the Jewish agenda. It's a continuation of what I did all of my life,'' she said.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

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LENGTH: 1264 words

HEADLINE: ''Confessions'' mount in Iran

BODY:
All but one of the 10 remaining Iranian Jews in custody on charges of spying for Israel have now confessed to passing sensitive information to the Jewish state, or to ''co-operating with the Zionist regime.''

According to Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who is in regular contact with Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy on the matter, nine of the 10 Jewish men still in custody in the southern city of Shiraz have to date confessed, leaving one who has pleaded not guilty, and three who have been free on bail but who must return to court this week.

None of the 13 has been formally charged with a crime since their incarceration in early 1999, Cotler said, adding that the nine confessions are inadmissible, even under Iranian law.

''They are illegal because they were secured in detention and without counsel present,'' Cotler told The CJN. ''These defendants have been held incommunicado for over a year. That constitutes deprivation of liberty and thus, the confessions secured are inadmissible under international law and under Iranian law.''

''They are illegal because they were secured in detention and without counsel present,'' Cotler told The CJN. ''These defendants have been held incommunicado for over a year. That constitutes deprivation of liberty and thus, the confessions secured are inadmissible under international law and under Iranian law.''

Besides, Cotler believes the confessions were coerced and scripted. And Iran's definition of espionage, he noted, is broad. Even sending a greeting card to a relative in Israel is a criminal offence.

However, Cotler is hopeful on two matters: A spokesperson for the court last week stated that the charges against the detainees are not punishable by death under Iranian law because none had violated the Islamic legal tenet of moharebeh -- taking up arms against God or the state.

However, Cotler believes that the nine who have confessed, and possibly the one who hasn't, face prison terms of between 10 and 15 years on reduced charges involving espionage.

He feels the verdict in those cases has been pre-determined by the closed-door Revolutionary court, which is not part of an independent judiciary.

Cotler and other international observers agree that the three Jews who have been out on bail will likely be acquitted on all charges and freed.

They have been told to return to court this Wednesday, May 24, without their lawyers, to confront those who have testified against them.

All the 13 Jews have had their rights violated under Iranian law because of ''major pre-trial violations'' and their denial to fair hearings, Cotler said.

According to one report last week, one of the defendants, Javid Beit-Yacoub, 42, told the court that religious motives drove him to collect photographs of Iranian military facilities for Israel, which he visited for 45 days in 1993. It was not immediately clear whether Beit-Yacoub's testimony amounted to a guilty plea.

Cotler and others point out that the judge in the case also acts as the prosecutor. There is no jury. Revolutionary courts try espionage, murder and economic crimes.

Israel has steadfastly denied that any of the detainees were its spies.

The nine ''confessions'' have cast a shadow over the proceedings, as well as on Iran's 25,000-member Jewish community.

''Based on the way the trial has been portrayed, and broadcasting two of the confessions on television, the entire community is now suspect,'' said Pooya Dayanim, spokesperson for the large Los Angeles-based Council of Iranian American Jewish Organizations.

''It also points to the prevailing anti-Semitism among the Iranian people, that they have been so willing to buy into this propaganda.''

Meanwhile, Dayanim and others expressed skepticism about the Iranian judiciary official's assurances that none of the 13 will face execution.

''I don't know how much we can trust these things they say,'' said Sam Kermanian, secretary-general of the Los Angeles-based American Iranian Jewish Federation.

''At the end of the day, it will depend on the political climate. The verdict will not be a judicial decision; it will be a political decision. We have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario at all times.''

Many hardline Iranian clerics have reportedly portrayed the ''Iran 13'' as traitors and called for their executions.

This month's closed-court confession of Asher Zadmehr, the senior religious leader in Shiraz, where the trial is taking place, came on the heels of a similar ''confession'' earlier by another religious leader, Nasser Levi-Haim, 46.

Zadmehr, 49, is believed to be a university English instructor and the most learned of the Shiraz Jews, a very Orthodox community.

Zadmehr, also the oldest of the 13 Jews on trial, reportedly admitted he had lived briefly in Israel before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but returned home soon after.

He was quoted as having admitted that he collected cultural information about Iran and analyzed material brought in by other accused spies.

But Zadmehr also denied he was the mastermind behind the spying, as some Iranian media reportedly asserted.

Outside the courtroom, Zadmehr burst into tears after being embraced by his distraught wife and two children, according to news reports.

Dayanim said the latest developments were prompting concerns about the community's physical safety.

''The Jewish community is shocked and scared. Many have stopped going to work and sending their children to school, because they're afraid of being taunted.''

In another sign that Iran is trying to quell international criticism, the judge in the case allowed the first two foreign observers -- two lawyers from the French-based organization Lawyers Without Borders -- to visit the courtroom last week, but only when it was empty.

They were barred from the actual hearings, according to news reports.

In what may be an effort to paint this case as not explicitly anti-Jewish, court officials, for the fast time, offered vague descriptions of the eight Muslims said to be accomplices in the spy ring.

Several work as high-level figures in the provincial military and health services, though they remain unnamed and out on bail, officials said.

According to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, verdicts and sentences could be handed down by the end of this month.

Regardless of the Iranian manoeuvres, advocates like Hoenlein are working to ensure that Iran pays a price for its handling of the case.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has warned that the outcome of the trials could have international repercussions.

While some countries have indicated they may withdraw their ambassadors from Iran and cut their diplomatic relations if the judgments are seen as excessive, Hoenlein wants to hit Iran where it hurts -- financially.

His organization was planning to press member countries of the World Bank to further delay or cancel a planned $231 million loan package to Iran at the World Bank's meeting last Thursday.

The larger of the two loans, for $145 million, would improve waste water collection and distribution for some 2.1 million people in greater Tehran. The second loan, for $86 million, would improve the quality of primary health care and family planning services in both rural and urban areas.

Canada, the United States, Austria and France are fighting against the loan, said Hoenlein, while Germany supports it.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: August 5, 2000

SECTION: Section A; Page 9; Column 1; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 152 words

HEADLINE: Lawyers Ask Trial of Hussein Before War Crimes Tribunal

BYLINE: AP

DATELINE: JERUSALEM, June 5

BODY:
A group of lawyers urged today that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq be tried for war crimes before an international tribunal.

"It's astonishing that the person who should be in prison is still in power," said Irwin Cotler, chairman of the group, called Nuremberg 2. "It makes a mockery of international law and the grounds under which the international community and the Security Council went to war."

Nuremberg 2, whose seven members include Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard University and George P. Fletcher of Columbia University, has drafted a model indictment it said could be used by the United Nations to bring Mr. Hussein to justice. The indictment charges him with crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and war crimes, including genocide against the Kurds.

Mr. Cotler is a law professor at McGill University in Montreal and a visiting professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

LOAD-DATE: June 6, 1991

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 214 words

HEADLINE: 'KGB IS LYING ON WALLENBERG'

BYLINE: By WALTER RUBY, Jerusalem Post Correspondent and Reuter

HIGHLIGHT:
MOSCOW - A former KGB general who recently broke with the organization and was subsequently elected to the Supreme Soviet said last week that the KGB is lying when it says it has no information on the fate of Raoul Wallenberg.

BODY:
MOSCOW - A former KGB general who recently broke with the organization and was subsequently elected to the Supreme Soviet said last week that the KGB is lying when it says it has no information on the fate of Raoul Wallenberg.

Canadian Prof. Irwin Cotler, leading the Joint Soviet-International Commission, said that Oleg Kalugin, a KGB general who was stripped of his medals and his pension when he broke with the organization earlier this year and denounced it in the press, told him that the KGB must have information in its archives that would help resolve the question of Wallenberg's fate once and for all.

"There is compelling evidence that Raoul Wallenberg was alive in the 1950s and might well have been alive thereafter," Cotler said.

The Soviet Union said Wallenberg died of a heart attack in Moscow's Lubyanka Prison in 1947. But Sweden never accepted this and reports persisted over the years that he was still alive.

The commission, reporting on a visit to the Soviet Union to pursue its investigation, said the KGB had the information to clear up the Wallenberg mystery but refused to cooperate.

He said the commission was now checking information going back to 1975 that Wallenberg was detained in a psychiatric hospital in the Kazan region.

LOAD-DATE: May 7, 1991

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 659 words

HEADLINE: High Court to hear petitions against Demjanjuk tomorrow

BYLINE: EVELYN GORDON and SUE FISHKOFF

HIGHLIGHT:
FAILURE to prosecute John Demjanjuk for crimes committed at concentration camps besides Treblinka would constitute a breach of international law, according to a new petition against his release filed with the High Court of Justice yesterday.

BODY:
FAILURE to prosecute John Demjanjuk for crimes committed at concentration camps besides Treblinka would constitute a breach of international law, according to a new petition against his release filed with the High Court of Justice yesterday.

All five petitions on the issue will be heard tomorrow.

The latest petition was filed jointly by the World Jewish Congress and Canadian-based InterAmicus, the International Center for Human Rights. Harvard University Professor Alan Dershowitz served as an advisor to the petitioners.

"The organization received numerous calls from community leaders and Holocaust survivors, who claimed that the verdict was seen in the world as a vindication of Demjanjuk," the congress said in a press statement. "Such an interpretation causes a devaluation of the concept of 'crimes against humanity'."

Professor Irwin Cotler, head of InterAmicus and a specialist in human rights law at McGill University in Montreal, said that international law imposes an obligation on all countries to prosecute suspected war criminals, if prima facie evidence of their guilt exists. In this case, he noted, there is not only prima facie evidence; there are also clear findings by the Israeli Supreme Court.

In addition to the international law argument, the petition reiterates several claims made in earlier petitions, such as Israel's obligation toward the survivors and the harm freeing Demjanjuk would do to other countries' efforts to bring Nazis to justice.

The petition is the first, however, to suggest trying Demjanjuk for perjury as well as war crimes, since the Supreme Court verdict clearly stated that he lied to the court regarding his whereabouts during the war years. Since this crime was committed while he was on Israeli soil, no extradition problems arise.

The petition also argues that trying Demjanjuk for crimes at Sobibor and other camps would not violate extradition law, since he was extradited from the US for murder - a charge which applies to Sobibor as well as Treblinka.

Most major American Jewish organizations, including AJCommittee, AJCongress, Anti-Defamation League and the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements, have come out strongly in opposition to permitting Demjanjuk to re-enter the United States.

Both the World Jewish Congress and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform) are publicizing documentary evidence that they insist places Demjanjuk as a guard at Nazi training and concentration camps.

The UAHC says its documents, obtained from Soviet archives closed for 45 years, are SS orders linking Demjanjuk to Nazi camps at Majdanek, Sobibor and Flossenburg, and to the Trawniki SS guard training camp.

The materials include a March 1943 SS order transferring Demjanjuk from Trawniki to Sobibor; an October 1944 order listing Demjanjuk on the daily duty assignment roster at the Flossenberg camp; and a January 1943 report from Majdanek citing a disciplinary action taken against him and three other guards.

The WJC also says that key information placing Demjanjuk at Treblinka was never presented to the Israeli Supreme Court.

Hillel Kuttler adds from Washington:

The Justice Deptarment yesterday asked for stay of a US Appeals Court's decision last week allowing Demjanjuk to return to his home near Cleveland while his original extradition case from the US is being reviewed.

If the stay is granted, the appeals court could order a rehearing of last week's decision by the full 14-member court. Attorney-General Janet Reno's decision was based on three factors, according to the department's petition.

They include the fact that Demjanjuk was barred from entering the US given his Nazi past, the view that Demjanjuk's presence is not necessary for the review, and the Justice Department's decision that immigration decisions of this nature are the responsibility of the administration and not of the judicial system.

LOAD-DATE: August 10, 1993

SECTION: Opinion

LENGTH: 510 words

HEADLINE: SYRIA'S TORTURED JEWS

HIGHLIGHT:
THE focusing of the national effort on immigration from the Soviet Union and Ethipia has deflected attention from the desperate plight of the Jews of Syria. As human rights activist Professor Irwin Cotler of McGill University has put it, that community - seen by the Syrians as surrogates of Israel - is being held hostage to the vicissitudes of the Arab-Israel dispute. Syria's excuse for preventing Jews from leaving the country - a right guaranteed by Syria's own constitution and by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, to which Syria is a signatory - is that they would "unite with the enemy." And while denying that its Jews suffer discrimination, Syria has made the grant of freedom to reunite with their families conditional on the settlement of the Palestinian problem and the Arab-Israel conflict.

BODY:
THE focusing of the national effort on immigration from the Soviet Union and Ethipia has deflected attention from the desperate plight of the Jews of Syria. As human rights activist Professor Irwin Cotler of McGill University has put it, that community - seen by the Syrians as surrogates of Israel - is being held hostage to the vicissitudes of the Arab-Israel dispute. Syria's excuse for preventing Jews from leaving the country - a right guaranteed by Syria's own constitution and by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, to which Syria is a signatory - is that they would "unite with the enemy." And while denying that its Jews suffer discrimination, Syria has made the grant of freedom to reunite with their families conditional on the settlement of the Palestinian problem and the Arab-Israel conflict.

Syrian Jews are not merely forbidden to leave the country; they are denied freedom of movement within Syria itself. Their every movement is monitored and controlled, and contacts with foreigners can result in arbitrary and severe punishment. In effect, they are deprived of any contact with their families outside Syria, whose members dare not visit them for fear of jeopardizing their safety.

The fact that Syrian Jews have risked indefinite incarceration under brutal conditions by attempting to escape the country is in itself an indication of their despair. Families of those who succeed in fleeing can expect to be imprisoned and tortured. Even departures for short visits abroad are virtually impossible. Some members of the community have been arrested on mere suspicion of intention to leave. They are imprisoned without trial, often tortured and held incommunicado.

For at least two decades now, Syrian Jews have been promised relief. The Damascus government was reported to have told the U.S. State Department in 1989 that it "was ready to permit the reunification of 25 families and the departure of 75 single Jewish women." Recently, President Hafez Assad claimed that 200 single Jewish women had been allowed to emigrate. But only two families have been united and altogether 25 women permitted to leave.

In a police state where all citizens are subject to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and torture, there is a tinge of gruesome humor in the official Syrian position that Jews are not discriminated against. But clearly, even in the repressive Syrian environment, the singling out of Jews for special tortures is blatant.

Unlike other dictators who need the West's help, Assad seems impervious to the pleas and blandishments of world statesmen. Efforts on behalf of Syrian Jewry have been made by the U.S. president, the State Department, senators, congressmen and various public figures. It might be helpful were the administration to make it clear that Syria's treatment of Jews mocks its professions of peace, and even more helpful were the West to devise a new "Jackson amendment," which would stipulate a linkage between economic aid for Syria and its adherence to human rights conventions.

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SECTION: Section A; Page 2, Column 3; Foreign Desk

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HEADLINE: Soviets Open Prisons and Records To Inquiry on Wallenberg's Fate

BYLINE: By BILL KELLER, Special to The New York Times

DATELINE: MOSCOW, Aug. 27

BODY:
The Soviet Union has agreed for the first time to open prisons and archives to an international commission investigating the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who disappeared into the Soviet prison system after saving thousands of Jews from the Nazis, members of the commission said today.

The investigators said the promise of collaboration by Soviet agencies - including the K.G.B., whose files are considered the richest potential source of information - offered the best chance to date of proving or disproving the Soviet assertion that Mr. Wallenberg died in 1947.

But some members of the commission said they were skeptical about the promise of full disclosure. The group's first request to the K.G.B., for files of the now-defunct counterintelligence agency that arrested Mr. Wallenberg in January 1945, met with a noncommittal response.

Unusual Collaboration

The new investigation is extraordinary in that the collaborators include not only Soviet law enforcement and intelligence agencies, but former political prisoners, a representative of Moscow's Jews, and a specialist from Memorial, a Soviet anti-Stalinist society.

Irwin Cotler, a Canadian lawyer long involved in Soviet human rights issues, said the new investigation had been modeled on the work of an international commission that led to the official Soviet admission of the massacre of Polish soldiers in the Katyn forest in World War II.

''The Soviets have said they will not insist on their position that Raoul Wallenberg died in 1947, but will allow for an open-ended investigation,'' Mr. Cotler said. ''And they have promised to make all the evidence available. In our discussions, they acknowledged that their own previous inquiries had been superficial.''

Visit to Prison Planned

The commission was to begin this week with a visit to Vladimir prison, where numerous inmates reported seeing Mr. Wallenberg in the decades after the date Soviet officials have long given for his death. The investigators include two former political prisoners, now emigres, who served time in that prison.

They are Cronid Lubarsky, who runs a human rights information service in Munich, West Germany, and Marvin Makinen, chairman of the biochemistry department at the University of Chicago.

As an amateur Swedish diplomat in wartime Budapest, Mr. Wallenberg rescued thousands of Hungarian Jews from the gas chambers by feats of boldness and ingenuity.

He sheltered Jews in protective houses flying the neutral Swedish flag, pulled prisoners from death trains, and forged Swedish work documents for condemned Jews.

He vanished into Stalin's prison system after the Red Army rolled into Nazi-occupied Budapest. There was no official word of his fate until 1957, when repeated queries from the Swedish Government resulted in a statement that Mr. Wallenberg had died, at the age of 35, of a heart attack in Lubyanka prison in Moscow.

Last year, after insisting for decades that all documents in the case had disappeared, Soviet authorities produced Mr. Wallenberg's passport and personal effects, but stuck to the original version of his death.

'Compelling' Evidence

An international commission of inquiry that operated with limited Soviet cooperation concluded last May that there was ''compelling'' evidence Mr. Wallenberg was alive in the 1950's and 1960's, and ''credible'' evidence that he was still alive into the 1980's.

Mr. Cotler, who was chairman of that earlier investigation, said the last reported sightings were by two independent witnesses who said they had evidence that Mr. Wallenberg was in a prison between Moscow and Leningrad in November 1987. Andrei D. Sakharov, the human rights campaigner, attempted to pursue the reports without success.

Aleksei Kartsev, who has been investigating the Wallenberg case for the Soviet daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, said that in the past year the authorities have allowed him to visit Vladimir prison and examine records there, but that many documents seemed to be missing.

Better Answers Sought

''We have been given answers to almost every one of our questions,'' said Mr. Kartsev, who is working with the new investigation. ''But the quality of the answers has not always been satisfactory.''

For example, the authorities have so far refused to make available the files of Smersh, the military counterintelligence agency that arrested Mr. Wallenberg. Mr. Cotler said the commission requested that material this morning.

''The answer was, they will pass the request to those who are responsible for those archives,'' Mr. Cotler said.

''I'm doubtful that the K.G.B. will give us the documents quickly,'' Mr. Kartsev said. ''But this is a process of water wearing away stone.''

SECTION: O 17'01

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LENGTH: 331 words

HEADLINE: Liberal backbenchers worried about police powers under anti-terrorist law

BYLINE: Brown, Jim

BODY:
OTTAWA (CP) Liberal backbenchers, wary of new investigative tools their own government is proposing for police and security forces, expressed worry Wednesday that the sweeping powers may linger on after the terrorist threat has passed.

''I think we have to look into the question of whether we can have a sunset provision,'' said Montreal MP Irwin Cotler, a former law professor and leading authority on international human rights.

Cotler zeroed in on two contentious provisions of anti-terrorist legislation introduced his week by Justice Minister Anne McLellan.

One would allow preventative arrest of people suspected of planning a terrorist act and detention without charge for up to 72 hours. The other would compel anybody who knows about a terrorist plot to testify about it before a judge as part of the investigation.

''Those are the kind of things we might want to have sunset provisions over,'' Cotler said outside a Liberal caucus meeting.

The bill already provides for parliamentary review after three years, but doesn't guarantee the new powers would be repealed if they are no longer needed.

Cotler suggested they should lapse automatically after ''two or three years'' unless Parliament specifically agrees to renew them.

Ontario MPs John Bryden, Rose-Marie Ur and Judy Sgro also expressed reservations about letting the new police powers outlast the terrorist threat that spawned them.

Andy Scott, chairman of the Commons justice committee, which could start hearings on the bill before the end of the week, noted the legislation was drafted in near-record time in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

''That means that we have to be particularly thoughtful in our deliberations,'' said Scott.

The Bloc Quebecois and New Democratic Party have voiced similar concerns. But the fact that some Liberals are now taking up the argument adds a new element to the parliamentary mix.

MORE LATER

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: December 21, 2001

SECTION: v.31(8) F 8'01 pg 4; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5049166

LENGTH: 99 words

HEADLINE: [Inner peace: achieving self-esteem through prayer]

BYLINE: Roll, Yisroel; Ben-Dat, Mordecai, REV

BODY:
WORLD
Intolerance Parley

STOCKHOLM--Several Canadians attended last week's international gathering here aimed at combating racism. The Canadian delegation to the Stockholm International Forum on Combating Intolerance was headed by Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler and included Karen Mock, director of B'nai Brith Canada's League for Human Rights; Adrian Norfolk of the Department of Foreign Affairs; and Alison LeClaire Christie, a counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in Stockholm. The conference focused on the spread of far-right hate propaganda via rock music and the Internet.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: April 5, 2001

SECTION: v.30(22) Je 1'00 pg 35; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4869068

LENGTH: 661 words

HEADLINE: Can you spare $232m? [Canada's abstention from vote for World Bank loan for Iran]

BYLINE: Csillag, Ron

BODY:
Another week, another disappointing vote by Canada on the world stage.

This time, it wasn't another dagger in Israel at the United Nations, but a little-noticed approval of a $232 million (US) loan from the World Bank to Iran for a sewage treatment project in Tehran and for improvements in health care.

No, I'm not anti-sewage treatment or opposed to better health care for women and children. But nothing talks like money, and international forums like the World Bank are afforded many opportunities to convey their disapproval of something or other in countries where human rights are an oxymoron.

Ottawa did not approve the loan, and neither did it oppose it. In an almost weaselly fashion, Canada (and France) abstained, thus squandering a golden chance to express real condemnation of the continuing farce that is the closed-door ''trial'' of 13 Iranian Jews accused of spying for Israel.

Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who's been following the proceedings as closely as anyone, comes to Canada's defence -- sort of.

He says Finance Minister Paul Martin, who is fully apprised of the ''Iran 13'' situation, has been ''superb'' on the loan issue. It was Martin, Cotler said, who instructed the Canadian representative to the Washington, D.C.-based World Bank, Terrie O'Leary, to successfully seek a postponement of the vote until more was known of the detainees' fate. But the rules say only one postponement of any vote is permitted, and the balloting took place May 19.

Cotler is quick to add that despite her noncommittal vote, O'Leary (who also represents Ireland and the Commonwealth Caribbean nations) and other board members who approved the loan, issued a strongly-worded statement saying their vote should in no way be construed as support for current events. That's not unlike saying, ''I saw you commit a crime; I'm not saying you did not commit the crime; but I'll lend you the money you want anyway.''

The rest of the 24-member executive board of the World Bank, including Britain, voted in favour of the loan. The United States opposed it because it has a law that prohibits it from taking part in international loans to countries that are on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Washington walks a fine line on this. It stuck to its principles on anti-terrorism, and has objected to the trial, while trying to mend fences with Iranian reformists and telling the Iranian people that it bears them no ill will.

In condemning the vote, the prickly and irascible Senator Jesse Helms noted the obvious. Said the long-time North Carolina Republican and chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee: ''I believe all Americans should be offended. Do voting members of the World Bank believe that as a kangaroo court in Iran continues its relentless persecution of 13 Iranian Jews, we should continue business as usual?''

Cotler sees a glimmer of hope in all this. Iran, he feels, is where the Soviet Union once was in its treatment of Jewish Refuseniks and dissidents. ''The very fact they felt compelled to engage in a trial,'' he explained, ''shows that they are not unresponsive to international pressure.''

And also like the old Soviet Union, the Iranian Jews are magically ''confessing'' to their crimes, referring to Israel, as do the Iranian media, as ''the Zionist entity.''

The World Bank explained that the loan will better the lives of ordinary citizens, while bolstering the reforms of President Mohammad Khatami. But after the vote, World Bank chair James Wolfensohn said future loans would depend on the progress of reforms in Iran. That's like saying, ''You've misbehaved. Here's your money, but watch yourselves.''

In the final analysis, Cotler thinks Canada should have voted against the loan. The loan would have been approved anyway, and Canada could have joined the United States in standing fast to principles.

Not this time. Maybe next.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2000

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A3

LENGTH: 328 words

HEADLINE: Lawyer intends to show Soviets Wallenburg is still alive

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
OTTAWA - A Montreal lawyer says he plans to present Soviet officials in Moscow with what he calls "incontrovertable evidence" that wartime hero Raoul Wallenberg is alive.

"We have 20 first-hand testimonies making it clear Raoul Wallenberg did not die when the Soviet government claims he did on July 17, 1947," Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor, said in an interview yesterday.

"They have been able to produce only one document saying he died. I'm giving them 300 pages showing that he did not die and that he is in fact alive today."

Wallenberg was the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps in World War II before he was arrested by the Soviets in 1945. He subsequently disappeared.

Honorary citizen

Wallenberg has been named an honorary Canadian citizen by Parliament.

Cotler left for the Soviet Union last night as part of the first ever international human rights delegation to visit there. The delegation has 13 representatives from such countries as West Germany, the United States and Denmark.

Among the Soviet officials they will meet to discuss Soviet political prisoners, family reunification, the Afghanistan war and human rights will be Marshal Viktor Chebrikov, head of the KGB, the Soviet secret police.

They also hope to have an audience with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Cotler, who acts as counsel to the Wallenberg family, said the evidence includes a chronological inventory dating from July, 1947, contradicting Soviet claims that Wallenberg died of a heart attack at the age of 35. This includes sightings of Wallenberg between 1945 and 1985.

Moscow party

It also includes the story of a young Soviet Jewish immigrant to Israel who tells about a party at the Moscow home of a senior KGB officer on May Day, 1978.

The KGB officer was quoted as saying he had "a Swede under my charge in Lubianka who's been inside for 30 years."

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS

LENGTH: 171 words

HEADLINE: LIBERALS TAKE THREE OUT OF FOUR

BODY:
OTTAWA (CP) - The federal Liberals cruised to victory in by-elections in Montreal and Hull last night.

The NDP, meanwhile, easily held onto the sprawling, mixed urban-rural riding of Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar in Saskatchewan.

Together with Judy Sgro's win in Toronto's York West riding, the results gave the Liberals victory in three of four by-elections on the same day.

Standings in the Commons do not change.

Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor and human rights activist, had the biggest cushion for the Liberals as he took Mount Royal. He amassed more than 14,000 votes while his nearest competitor, Tory Noel Alexander, had under 700.

In Hull-Aylmer, Marcel Proulx more than doubled the vote total of his nearest opponent, Robert Belanger of the Bloc Quebecois. Tory Richard St-Cyr was a distant third.

In Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Dennis Greunding retained the seat for the NDP, besting Reform's Jim McAllister and Liberal Henry Dayday, the mayor of Saskatoon.

LOAD-DATE: November 16, 1999

LENGTH: 589 words

HEADLINE: Scholar's search puts glasnost to the test

BYLINE: BUSHINSKY J

BODY:
JERUSALEM The Soviet Union's highly-touted glasnost policy which is supposed to let openness and frankness take precedence over secrecy and mendacity is about to be tested by a leading Canadian jurist to ascertain the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the heroic Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War 2.

Irwin Cotler, a Canadian jurist will challenge the Kremlin's highest legal authorities for conclusive proof, if it exists, which he doubts, that Wallenberg died in Soviet captivity or admit that he is still alive somewhere in the Soviet Union.

The Mcgill University professor of international law has amassed at least 20 documents, including eyewitness accounts of former inmates of Soviet prisons and labor camps indicating that: Wallenberg was alive after July, 1947, the official Soviet date of his death; that he was still alive in 1956 when then Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko issued a memorandum about his purported death; and that he is alive today.

"He was alive as recently as the early 1980s, Prof. Cotler said. "At least until 1983 and probably even now." If so, Wallenberg would be 76.

The daring Swede who defied some of Nazi Germany's most ruthless mass murderers by proferring Swedish nationality on thousands of Jews in wartime Budapest and then sheltering them in safe houses throughout the Hungarian capital, vanished just before the Red Army entered the city.

Against the advice of aides, he drove to nearby Debrecen, where the military headquarters of the advancing Soviet troops was situated, to present his plan for Budapest's rehabilitation and above all, the protection of its people from war-imposed privation and peril.

Wallenberg was turned over to the KGB, whose agents trundled him off to Moscow. He then was accused of espionage and put behind bars.

In a petition to be submitted by Prof. Cotler to the Soviet Union's Procurator-General, Alexander Rekunkov, the Canadian scholar states that Wallenberg's arrest "was in violation of Soviet and international law." Prof. Cotler requests action by Mr Rekunkov on the basis of the "documentary evidence and witness testimony" gathered by him in keeping with the Soviet prerequisite for reviewing the relevant facts of the Wallenberg case.

"The Procurator-General is responsible for remedying the abuses of Raoul Wallenberg's rights by the criminal justice system of the Soviet Union," Prof. Cotler's petition declares.

For more than a year, Prof. Cotler has been assembling and integrating information about Wallenberg's years in the USSR, his efforts inspired and encouraged by the faith of the missing diplomat's sister, Nina Lagergren.

Upon learning that Prof. Cotler had asked Israel's Bar-Ilan university to establish a Raoul Wallenberg lectureship in human rights, Mrs Lagergren wrote:
"We continue to belive that Raoul is alive, as we have recent indications of such nature. That is why I appeal to all of you - given your imagination and inventiveness - to find a way to help free Raoul."

"Now, with the new openness in the Soviet Union, what people all over the world are working for and are so ardently expecting must happen - that Raoul will be free." Prof. Cotler is scheduled to be in Moscow during the last eight days of this month as a member of a Helsinki federation for human right delegation.

Besides conferring with Mr Rekunkov, he also expects to meet the Minister of Justice of the Russian Soviet Federation Socialist Republic, Alexander Soukharov.

END OF STORY

GRAPHIC: Raoul Wallenberg . . . rescued thousands of Jews.

LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2003

SECTION: v.31(30) Jl 12'01 pg 29; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5156637

LENGTH: 679 words

HEADLINE: Groups prepare for Israel-bashing at UN conference

BYLINE: Sadeh, Sharon

BODY:
JERUSALEM -- The UN World Conference on Racism set for Durban, South Africa, in September is being billed as the most important human rights event of the year, but it is rapidly evolving into a world forum to blast Israel for racism, anti-Arabism and violating Palestinian human rights, according to Canadian parliamentarian Irwin Cotler, a leading international expert on human rights.

Cotler took part in an emergency meeting of 60 representatives from Jewish organizations and Israeli agencies -- including deputy foreign minister Rabbi Michael Melchior -- in London this week, under the auspices of the Jewish Board of Deputies. The meeting discussed how to deal with what Melchior called the ''anti-Semitism in new clothes'' the conference is expected to indulge in.

Drafts of resolutions prepared for the conference at preliminary planning sessions in Geneva and Tehran earlier this year depict Israel as a racist state that systematically discriminates against Arabs.

They call on Israel to repeal ''laws based on racial discrimination, like the Law of Return and the policy of forceful occupation that prevents uprooted Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes and property,'' Cotler said.

''The draft resolutions emphasize the illegality of the settlements and depict Israel as a country where laws are based on racial discrimination aimed at continuing control over occupied territory ... a violation of internationally recognized human rights ... a new form of apartheid, a crime against humanity and a real threat to international peace and security.''

Cotler said ''advancing and protecting human rights is the new fashion that should be perceived as a new civic-secular religion that dictates policymakers in the West. If Israel is perceived as the absolutely evil violator of human rights, as the Palestinians and Muslim states are trying to do, Israel will end up the 'anti-Christ' of our age.''

Noting that the old phraseology equating Zionism with racism failed among the anti-Israeli forces, Cotler said the new rhetoric makes use of catchwords that ''hit the target of the moral positions of decision- makers in the West... For example, the connection between the loaded term 'occupation' and the term 'illegal' is a hint that Israel takes steps similar to those taken by the Nazis.''

Cotler is particularly concerned because, he said, Israel has not done enough to counter Palestinian propaganda. ''The Palestinians have exploited Israel's silence during diplomatic negotiations, to draft and distribute a grave indictment. While the Oslo process was proceeding apace, Israel was silent in the face of Palestinian declarations in international forums about harm done to Palestinians by Israel. That silence was interpreted in the world as an Israeli admission, and some basic truths about Israel and its rights as a democracy were undermined.''

Cotler also warns that even if Israel ignores the Durban conference, the Belgian investigation into the viability of a legal proceeding against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for his role in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres of 1982 ''will be but the tip of the iceberg in the legal proceedings that could take place against Israel, let alone the harm that could be done to vital Israeli and Jewish interests.''

Melchior admitted that Israel has not been prepared for the significance of developments in international law regarding human rights. ''The government did not identify the significance of these developments and the ramifications that no government will be able to avoid.

''But that's changing, because now we understand we are in an existential struggle. They are trying to paint Israel as an enemy of human rights, as a the new apartheid state.''

World Jewish Congress director Israel Singer, who also took part in the emergency session, said Israel and the Jewish communities would work together to present a ''joint Jewish position and fight for our right to our rights. We certainly won't turn the other cheek.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: December 21, 2001

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 26

LENGTH: 321 words

HEADLINE: FALUN GONG VIGIL IN T.O. CANUCK PROF JAILED BY CHINESE

BYLINE: KEVIN MASTERMAN, TORONTO SUN

BODY:
Rows of Falun Gong supporters sat on the ground in front Toronto's Chinese consulate last night demanding the release of a Canadian professor jailed in China.

"Our message here today is to the government of China," said Jason Loftus, an organizer of the 100-person vigil and Falun Gong practitioner.

Falun Gong is believed to keep the body and mind healthy through meditation and various exercises.

"We want them to release and stop the persecution of Falun Gong, particularly Mr. Zhang," Loftus said outside the consulate on St. George St.

Kunlun Zhang, was sentenced to three years in a forced-labour camp after his July arrest for practising Falun Gong in a public park.

NATIONAL ATTENTION

The case has received national attention, prompting MP Irwin Cotler, a human-rights lawyer, to defend Zhang.

Zhang, a former McGill arts professor, returned to China in 1996 with his wife to care for his mother-in-law after living in Canada for seven years.

The practice of Falun Gong, was banned in China in 1999 and deemed a threat to the Communist Party after it was found 100 million Chinese use the methods.

'PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE'

Cotler called Zhang's plight "such a classic case of a prisoner of conscience it just leaps out at you" in a Parliament Hill news conference Thursday.

Zhang's daughter Lingdi, a student at the University of Ottawa, has also joined the charge to release her father but has only had the opportunity to speak to her mother, Shamei, who remains in China.

"They reconnected her phone two weeks ago so I can talk to her. She has people watching her and monitoring her phone line," said Lingdi.

Natalie Dube, a foreign affairs department spokesman, said the department has been rebuffed by China in its diplomatic efforts to visit Zhang in detention.

"We are requesting through consular access (to see Mr. Zhang). As of Friday there has been no positive response.

GRAPHIC: photo by Greig Reekie FREEDOM CANDLES ... Falun Gong protesters sit behind a row of candles outside Toronto's Chinese consulate on St. George St.last night.

LOAD-DATE: December 11, 2000

SECTION: v.30(38) S 28'00 pg 53; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4950640

LENGTH: 460 words

HEADLINE: Community condemns Iran appeals court verdicts

BODY:
It might appear that Iran made concessions by reducing jail time for the ''Iran 10,'' but Canadian Jewish advocates insist it's not nearly enough.

Decrying the verdict of the appeals court announced in Iran last Thursday, activists vowed that the fate of the prisoners will not be forgotten.

In Ottawa, Liberal MP and international human rights advocate Irwin Cotler rose in the House of Commons to decry the ruling of the appeals court.

Cotler, who has been involved in the case for 18 months, acknowledged that the charges of spying for Israel had been dropped and the prison terms reduced.

''But this is little solace for those who were unjustly charged to begin with, who were deprived of every canon of a right to a fair trial, and who continue to be subjected to the prosecution and persecution of the innocent,'' Cotler said.

The appeals decision reduces the jail time of the most severely punished, Hamid Tefileen, to nine years from 13, and the shortest sentence, for Ramin Nemati Zadeh, to two years from four.

Iranian judiciary officials said time served will be included in the sentences.

''We totally reject the decision of the Iranian appeals court to maintain the sentences meted out to the 10 Iranian Jews,'' stated Canadian Jewish Congress president Moshe Ronen. ''Even though the time served will be reduced, this outcome is still the product of a flawed judicial process that has remained biased and is not consistent with international norms of justice,'' Ronen added.

''The accused are innocent of the charges and have now been in detention for 18 months. Along with human rights activists around the world, we will continue to raise our voices on behalf of these prisoners.''

Ronen called for the prisoners' immediate release. As well, CJC urges ongoing advocacy, including appeals to Iran's supreme court and to the country's leaders for clemency.

Congress called on Prime Minister Jean Chretien to publicly condemn the decision and to freeze ongoing initiatives with Iran.

CJC is also urging rabbis across Canada to come together in public places and sound the ram's horn in a call for the release of the prisoners and in an expression of solidarity with them.

The 10 Iranian Jews were convicted in July of various charges, including spying for Israel, despite the fact that no official charges of any kind were made public or disclosed to the accused until after the trial.

''The effect,'' Cotler said, ''was to deny the accused the basic right to know and the right to make full answer and reply to the charges.

''Moreover, statements made by Iranian prosecutors during the trial raise concerns about religion as an improper motivation for the prosecution of the Iranian Jews.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: December 5, 2000

SECTION: v.30(33) Ag 24'00 pg 1,24; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4923859

LENGTH: 971 words

HEADLINE: Israel erred on international court: Cotler [International Assn of Jewish Lawyers & Jurists conference]

BYLINE: Lungen, Paul

BODY:
TORONTO -- Israel made a key tactical error during the multilateral negotiations in Rome that established an International Criminal Court (ICC), an international law conference was told last week. As a result, the war crimes offences covered in the Rome Treaty include a provision that appears to be directed specifically at Israel.

Canadian MP Irwin Cotler and U.S. lawyer Jerome Shestack agreed Israel erred during the Rome negotiations. ''Many in Israel thought Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) did not have the power to supersede the wishes of the United States,'' Cotler said.

''Israel made a mistake in its negotiating tactics and the United States made a monumental mistake,'' Shestack added.

Cotler and Shestack were speaking at a conference of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (IAJLJ). The meeting, which was held in Canada for the first time since the IAJLJ was founded in 1969, brought together about 200 lawyers, professors and judges from across the globe. Participants hailed from Canada, the United States, Israel, Argentina, Britain, France, Germany, Austria, South Africa, Costa Rica, Brazil, Greece, Italy and Switzerland.

The conference theme this year was, Pursuing Justice in the Global Village.

In the months leading up to the event, the conference was touted as a key development for the IAJLJ. ''It signifies a desire of the association to bring it to the attention of many more lawyers and jurists in North America who are interested in the association's work,'' said conference chair Igor Ellyn.

However, in the aftermath of the event, Ellyn's feelings were mixed. ''The conference overall was very successful. The disappointment of the organizers was that considering the potential of a niche market of Jewish jurists, lawyers and law professors, we didn't attract more than the delegates we got. The organizers are puzzled why we didn't get more people.''

Ellyn estimated there are as many as 30,000 Jewish lawyers within a two-hour radius of Toronto, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Despite the poor attendance, he felt ''the [IAJLJ's] exposure was increased even if people didn't register.''

With a break-even figure of 400, the conference will run a deficit, though it's too early to give a specific figure, Ellyn said.

One positive result from the meeting is the desire by some young Canadian lawyers to form local IAJLJ sections in Toronto, Montreal and other Canadian cities, he added. The organization's Web site is: http://www.iajljtoronto.com .

The conference addressed a broad range of topics, including human rights, democracy, commerce, crimes against humanity, electronic anti-Semitism, and the way in which Jewish and Israeli issues are portrayed in the international media. Participants also heard from Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who discussed recent legal developments in the Jewish State.

While Beilin suggested Israel may yet sign on to the ICC, Cotler and Shestack said Israel might have influenced a different wording of the treaty had it participated in pre-agreement discussions.

They were referring to an Arab proposal that Israeli critics believe enlarged the nature of the offences covered under the treaty to specifically target the transfer of Israeli civilians into West Bank settlements.

Had Israelis ''worked with the ICC process, they could change the language...[and would have] removed the extension of language that makes it look like it applies to Israel,'' Cotler suggested.

Shestack, former U.S. ambassador to the UN Commission of Human Rights, said the United States opposed creation of the ICC because it was concerned its peacekeepers could be charged as war criminals by the country's international opponents. Shestack, a past president of the American Bar Association (ABA), said the ABA is ''strongly in favour of the United States signing'' the treaty.

During a question period, Prof. Yaffa Zilbershats of Israel's Bar-Ilan University said she was concerned that by enlarging the universal jurisdiction over war crimes, ''people can be prosecuted wherever they go around the world...I fear the fact that states are getting a parallel universal jurisdiction,'' she said.

In earlier remarks, Cotler noted that on July 7, Canada became the 14th country to ratify the ICC treaty. Sixty states must ratify the treaty before the ICC can be created. Cotler predicted the ICC might be in operation by 2002.

Summing up recent developments in international human rights law, Cotler said it has become ''the new secular religion of our time.''

In addition to creation of the ICC, other recent developments include the 1998 Rwanda war crimes trials; the 1998 finding that rape constitutes a war crime; the 1999 British case against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet; and the 1999 indictment of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

''More has happened in the development of international criminal law and human rights law in the last two years than in the previous 50,'' he said.

Despite those changes, ''we are witnessing a counter-revolution in human rights, where the criminal violations of human rights have not only continued unabated, but have become the paradigmatic crimes of the 1990s,'' Cotler continued.

He pointed to gross human rights violations in Sierre Leone, the Congo and Chechnya as examples.

He called for ''a culture of human rights as an antidote to a culture of hate'' as well as efforts to ''break down walls of indifference'' to human rights violations.

In addition, he said the international community must adopt a ''doctrine of humanitarian intervention and an end to the ''culture of impunity'' which leads despots to believe they will get away with their crimes.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: October 5, 2000

SECTION: Pg. 47

LENGTH: 523 words

HEADLINE: LETTER TO THE PEACENIKS

BYLINE: Irwin Cotler

BODY:
As images of your demonstrations for peace flash across my television screen, I cannot help but be stirred by your inspired rendering of "Give Peace a Chance." It was one of the first songs my children learned and the theme of a giant peace quilt adorning the entrance to their school. Nor can I help but be moved as one who has acted as counsel to peace groups before the courts by your protests against the use of weapons of mass destruction. Your demonstrations conjure up recollections of my own anti-Vietnam war protests, which resulted in my first arrest in 1965.

But as I watch these scenes on television amid our present reality of sirens, sealed rooms and gas masks, I have some questions:

If you are concerned as one should be that "violence leads to more violence," and therefore condemn the American bombing of Iraq, why no prior, and parallel, concern with the Iraqi invasion and pillage of Kuwait?

If you are concerned about "giving peace a chance," why no condemnation of the Iraqi threat to "incinerate" Israel, even if Israel never attacked Iraq? And why the silence in the face of the contemptuous Iraqi rebuff, over the last six months, of every peace initiative from every conceivable source, including U.N. and Arab entreaties?

If you are concerned about the protection of human rights why the deafening silence these many years regarding the horrors of Iraqi war crimes and crimes against humanity including the gassing of its own Kurdish citizens?

If you are concerned about arms control and disarmament, why the long silence, let alone absence of condemnation, of the multi-billion dollar sales of weapons of death to the butcher of Baghdad, including materials for the production of chemical and biological weapons?

If you are concerned about the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people why the silence in the face of PLO identification with Saddam Hussein, the ultimate brutalizer of human rights?

If you are concerned about differing standards of international law for Iraq's occupation of Kuwait and Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, why the silence over the fact that Iraq occupied Kuwait in a war of aggression, and Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza defending itself against a war of aggression waged by, among others, Iraq?

If you are concerned that the bombing could endanger the environment, why the silence in the face of Iraqi degradation of the Persian Gulf ecosystem, or their threat to torch the Israeli eco-system?

The air raid siren has just given the "all-clear" signal. My children remove their gas masks, leave the sealed room, watch TV. In our "split screen" universe, anti-war demonstrations from San Francisco to Bonn contrast with the devastation from the latest Scud missile attack. My children ask me why you support Iraq. I tell them that you do not, that you condemn what Iraq did. But your silence condemns you even if your well-meaning demonstrations do not.

Irwin Cotler is Professor of law at McGill University and an international human rights lawyer. A contributing editor of The Jerusalem Report, he is presently on sabbatical at the Hebrew University.

LOAD-DATE: November 16, 1999

LENGTH: 274 words

HEADLINE: INT'L JURISTS TO APPEAL IRANIAN JEWS' SENTENCE

BODY:
A group of international jurists plans to appeal the conviction and sentencing of the 10 Jews who received prison terms ranging from four to 13 years after being found guilty of spying for Israel on July 1.

The appeal will be filed in accordance with the principles of Iranian law, but also cite international conventions to which Iran is a signatory, said the coordinator of the group, Prof. Irwin Cotler, a lecturer in international law and human rights at McGill University in Montreal. Cotler, who is now visiting Israel, said most of the group's members are not Jewish and that some are Muslims who are public figures in their countries. However, said Cotler, who is also a member of the Canadian parliament, their names will not be made public at this stage.

According to Cotler, the appeal can be based on Iran's violation of "the right to a just trial," which is enshrined in the International Charter of Human Rights to which Iran is a signatory. Other possible grounds for appeal are the violation of a defendant's right to choose a lawyer freely, or holding an individual in detention for more than a year without being visited by a lawyer.

Cotler, who in the past has filed similar appeals against convictions of prisoners of Zion in the former Soviet Union and other human rights violations, said that he knows from experience that even in non-democratic states, an appeal based on the laws of the state that passed the judgment is meaningful and influential.

Cotler said he intends to file the appeal in Canada next week and that the group he represents will seek to enter Iran in order to press its arguments.

JOURNAL-CODE: WHTZ

LOAD-DATE: April 12, 2001

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. NE11

LENGTH: 794 words

HEADLINE: In Parliament, commemoration is political

BODY:
OTTAWA

WHEN RAOUL Wallenberg was the Swedish ambassador in Nazi-occupied Budapest during the Second World War, he made an intriguing proposal to his secretary at a mid-winter diplomatic party.

"Want to go for a swim?" he asked.

Somewhat taken aback, Agnes Adachi accepted.

It was hardly a flirtatious or frivolous invitation.

Wallenberg had learned that Nazis were seizing Jews, tying their hands and feet, and throwing them into the freezing Danube.

By positioning themselves downstream, Wallenberg and his chilly recruits spent the night diving into the icy waters and rescuing the bound victims.

Adachi tells the story in one of the filmed accounts at the Holocaust Museum in Washington; it is one of the vivid testimonies of how directly and unpretentiously one man intervened to save lives.

It is one of the ironies of public life that, on the very day that Canadian Alliance MP Rob Anders put another scratch in the reputation of the Canadian right and confirmed the eye-narrowed nastiness of his world view by vetoing an all-party attempt led by Toronto MP John McCallum to grant honorary Canadian citizenship to Nelson Mandela, Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps announced that Canada will celebrate Raoul Wallenberg Day.

January 17, the day that Wallenberg disappeared in 1945, will be the day each year that Canada commemorates the Swedish diplomat who, virtually single-handedly, intervened to save 100,000 Jews from the Holocaust.

In 1985, Wallenberg - whose death has never been confirmed - was made an Honorary Citizen of Canada. This week, the government will be moving to correct the embarrassment caused by Anders by holding a debate and voting on granting the honour to Mandela.

Irwin Cotler, the MP for Mount Royal, was reflecting on the decision to honour Wallenberg last week.

His predecessor Sheila Finestone and his colleague Clifford Lincoln had both been working on this for years, but the proposal had bogged down in the legislative maze that faces a private member's bill.

He had got involved in discussing the idea with Copps, who embraced the idea.

A cynic could argue that the gestures are what the British call "shambolic": hollow ceremonial acts that reflect the artificial nature of Parliament.

But as Cotler talked about how he perceives the role of the member of Parliament, it became clear that the decision to celebrate Raoul Wallenberg actually struck at the core of how he defines his job as a member of Parliament.

A human rights activist, Cotler spent 30 years as a law professor at McGill - where, coincidently, he taught two key figures in Jean Chretien's Prime Minister's Office, Eddie Goldenberg and Francoise Ducros - and his office letterhead identifies him as Professor Irwin Cotler.

When Sheila Finestone was named to the Senate, he was virtually imposed on the Liberal party by his community, and he has had to make the sometimes difficult transition from the intellectual freedom of an academic to the more frantic, less reflective, more constrained life of a member of Parliament.

But in reflecting on his new life, he concluded that an MP has seven roles to play: as an ombudsman on behalf of constituents; as a representative of the constituency to the government and vice-versa; as a legislator; as an overseer of the executive branch of government; as a public advocate of causes; as an educator; as an ambassador representing the country; and as a party member.

The two roles where Cotler acknowledges that there are constraints are as legislator and as partisan.

"Parliament is being caught in a pincer movement between the growing power of the executive and the enhanced power of the judiciary," he said - but pointed out he had been heavily involved in the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Act.

As a partisan, he has had to learn the requirements of being a team player - but has also learned how to use the team. When he risked being seen as a freelance public scold on the issue of human rights in China before the Team Canada trip, Cotler went to the Quebec caucus - and it was the caucus chair who made the case to the Prime Minister, on behalf of all Quebec Liberal MPs.

Interestingly, the Wallenberg incident combined almost all of those elements, from representation (Cotler has numerous constituents who were saved from the Holocaust by Wallenberg) and advocacy to the intensely educational, since the commemoration will be a source of compelling information for students.

And the Mandela incident proved to be intensely partisan, embarrassing the Canadian Alliance once again by reminding everyone of its darker shadows.

As ever, commemoration is political. More on this next week.

LOAD-DATE: June 13, 2001

SECTION: April 6, 1995

CBCA-ACC-NO: 3395497

LENGTH: 311 words

HEADLINE: Quebec student freed after Peruvian jail nightmare (Jorge Passalacqua)

BODY:
MONTREAL (CP) - A Canadian student imprisoned without charges in a Peruvian jail for almost eight months was freed Thursday after a judge ordered his unconditional release.

Jorge Passalacqua, 30, was arrested Aug. 24, [1994?] in Lima on suspicion of money-laundering after one of the customers of his father's travel agency was charged with drug trafficking.

Peruvian officials continued to detain him even though investigators said there was no evidence implicating him in any crime.

He was released finally after supporters in Montreal convinced the Foreign Affairs department to pressure the Peruvian government.

''I'm very happy but I'm still nervous,'' said Passalacqua's mother, Mercedes Estramadoyro, Thursday evening. ''I'm still afraid because even if he is out of jail he's still in Peru.''

Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor who has been helping the family, predicted ''technical'' problems for Passalacqua actually leaving Peru.

''They'll drag it out as long as they can to get a last pound of flesh.''

A graduate student in Spanish Studies at McGill, Passalacqua was working at the Lima travel agency during the summer as he did research on his master's thesis and made arrangements to marry his Peruvian girlfriend.

The client had used the agency to make several money transfers from Miami but there was no mention in two subsequent police reports that Passalacqua knew or should have known about the source of the money.

Cotler said the Foreign Affairs department began ''ratchetting'' up the pressure two weeks ago after he met with Minister Andre Ouellet.

''They began asking not just about the conditions of his imprisonment but about the reasons for it.''

He added ''it's difficult to be appreciative of a justice system for releasing somebody they should never have imprisoned to begin with.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: July 08, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A25

LENGTH: 408 words

HEADLINE: Canadians and Soviets sign deal on rights

BYLINE: (STAFF)

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
MOSCOW (Staff) - While business officials in Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's delegation were scouring Moscow for deals yesterday, Canadian and Soviet human rights activists formed their own joint venture.

Representatives of the Canadian Helsinki Watch Group and the Moscow Legal Seminar signed a unique agreement to monitor each country's compliance with human rights principles.

"It's a concept to match what is now happening in the Soviet Union," said Irwin Cotler of McGill University in Montreal.

"The Soviet parliament has just introduced a law establishing the right to leave and return, for instance, and we will be monitoring the implementation of that law."

The agreement was signed in Moscow by Cotler and Leonid Stonov, representing the Moscow Legal Seminar and Moscow Watch 1991, two groups which are preparing for a proposed international human rights conference in Moscow in 1991.

Cotler has already had extensive experience in the Soviet Union counselling refuseniks and human rights activists.

Academic component

He was in Moscow with James MacPherson, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, and professor Marc Gold, director of the centre for research on public law and public policy at Osgoode, to set up the first Canada-Soviet exchange program.

The Osgoode Hall and McGill law faculties signed an agreement yesterday with Moscow's prestigious Institute of State and Law for joint research projects and an exchange of students and faculty.

"Co-operation between academic and legal institutions in Canada and Russia is important, because of the similarity of some of the major issues facing the legal systems of both countries," said a statement announcing the venture.

MacPherson said they asked Mulroney's office to include an "academic component" in the delegation establishing the Canada-U.S.S.R. Business Council.

Among the issues both countries will examine are federalism, criminal law reforms, the role of the judiciary and human rights.

Great curiosity

"It's fascinating to me how interested the Russian students are in Canada," MacPherson said in an interview. "We think the excitement is in this part of the world, they think that about us.

"They have a great curiosity in our legal system."

Cotler, whose connections with dissidents have often landed him in trouble with Soviet authorities, said he was introduced by Mulroney to Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov this week.

GRAPHIC: AP photo Brian Mulroney & dancer

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A13

LENGTH: 350 words

HEADLINE: Nazi probe adjourns in face-to-face row

BYLINE: CP

DATELINE: HULL, Que.

BODY:
HULL, Que. (CP) - Tempers flared as Mr. Justice Jules Deschenes adjourned what may be his final week of public hearings on suspected Nazi war criminals in Canada - a week that left Jewish representatives angry and disillusioned.

Deschenes had no sooner left the room yesterday than Irwin Cotler, lawyer of the Canadian Jewish Congress stopped Ivan Whitehall, the justice department lawyer who acted for the federal government before the commission, and suggested that his attack on Nazi hunter Sol Littman as a vigilante earlier this week may have undermined the commission's work.

Ken Narvey of the North American Jewish Students' Union joined the fray, raising his voice angrily until Whitehall, apparently tired of trying to explain his criticism of Littman, turned and left.

Discredit campaign

Cotler and Narvey are concerned that a strike against Littman could discredit the campaign to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.

The dispute began Wednesday, when Whitehall accused Littman of using "unfounded allegations" about Josef Mengele, the notorious Nazi doctor, to convince Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to order an inquiry.

Littman, armed with scanty information obtained under U.S. freedom of information laws, wrote to Mulroney in December declaring that Mengele had tried to enter Canada from Argentina in 1962. He urged the Prime Minister to investigate.

Two weeks later, in the midst of public concern that Mengele - the Angel of Death - might be in Canada, the Progressive Conservative government set up the Deschenes commission.

Entered Canada

Deschenes was ordered to determine whether Mengele or any other Nazi war criminal had ever entered Canada and how they might be brought to justice if they were still living here.

As the commission struggled to get to the root of the Mengele story, Littman admitted Thursday that he alone concluded, wrongly, last year that Mengele had tried to come to Canada.

Although Whitehall insists he is not questioning the value of the commission, Jewish groups feared that the inquiry's work might be for nothing.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: N 15'99

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4879191

LENGTH: 778 words

HEADLINE: Liberals, NDP come out on top in federal byelections [Mount Royal, York West, Hull-Aylmer & Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar]

BYLINE: Brown, Jim

BODY:
OTTAWA (CP) The governing Liberals cruised to victory in three federal byelections in Montreal, Toronto and Hull, Que., on Monday night while the NDP took a fourth seat up for grabs in Saskatchewan.

The results left the parties exactly where they had been before the campaigns began.

Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor and human rights activist, had the biggest cushion for the Liberals as he took the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, a constituency the party has won in every election since 1940.

''I feel humbled by this overwhelming majority,'' said Cotler, who crushed his nearest rival, Conservative Noel Alexander, head of the Jamaican Association of Montreal.

Judy Sgro, a Toronto city councillor, celebrated another Grit victory in the riding of York West, a stronghold for the party for more than three decades.

''It's a vote of confidence for myself and for the Liberal party of Canada,'' said Sgro.

In Hull-Aylmer, which has been Liberal since 1921, Liberal Marcel Proulx took his win Monday as a vote of confidence not just in the party but also in the prime minister.

''People have been very satisfied with the program of Jean Chretien.''

Dennis Gruending of the NDP retained the riding of Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar for his party, besting Reformer Jim McAllister. Liberal Henry Dayday, the mayor of Saskatoon, ran third just ahead of Conservative novice Richard Gabruch.

Don Boudria, the Liberal House leader in the Commons, pronounced himself satisfied with three wins in four tries.

''That's pretty well what was expected,'' he said. ''Of course we would have hoped to win the constituency in Saskatoon ... but we know, of course, that was a very strong NDP riding and it stayed that way.''

Standing in the 301-seat Commons following the byelections is: Liberal 157; Reform 58; Bloc Quebecois 44; NDP 20; Conservative 19; Independent 3.

The Saskatoon riding had been considered the hottest of the four campaigns heading into Monday night's vote.

The constituency was held by Chris Axworthy for the New Democrats before he left the Commons for provincial politics and a post as justice minister under Premier Roy Romanow.

Gruending, a former CBC broadcaster and NDP staff aide, faced a three-way struggle at the start of the campaign with McAllister and Dayday.

But the Liberal candidate's chances faded when Chretien rejected overtures from Romanow for $1.3 billion in aid to struggling farmers. The farm crisis quickly became the key issue in the riding.

McAllister, a gas station owner, faced a controversy of his own when he admitted formerly riding with a motorcycle gang and also acknowledged past convictions that included possession of stolen property and marijuana.

The other three ridings were opened by patronage appointments handed out by Chretien.

Sergio Marchi, who held York West, left his job as trade minister to become ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

Marcel Masse, former Treasury Board president, quit Hull-Aylmer to become Canadian representative to the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.

Liberal backbencher Sheila Finestone abandoned Mount Royal for a seat in the Senate.

The Liberals considered all three of those seats safe.

But Proulx, the former chief of staff to Masse, encountered embarrassing publicity in Hull-Aylmer over his personal finances. He was once $56,000 in arrears on federal and provincial income taxes and $4,000 short on municipal property taxes.

Proulx has since paid up, but lawyer Robert Belanger, the Bloc Quebecois candidate, did his best to keep the issue before the voters.

So did Richard St-Cyr, a car salesman representing the Conservatives, who joined in the criticism of Proulx despite the fact that St-Cyr himself had suffered two past bankruptcies.

The Liberals got a boost when the government settled a pay-equity dispute that brought $3.6 billion in back wages to mostly female public servants.

But another of Masse's legacies, a bill that let the government seize a $30-billion surplus in the public service pension plan, played badly with federal bureaucrats living in the riding.

In York West, Sgro had to patch things up after winning a bitter Liberal nomination fight that pitted Chretien loyalists against backers of Finance Minister Paul Martin, the leading contender to succeed the prime minister.

Sgro then had to fend off accusations by Conservative Elio Di Iorio that she was soft on crime, a charge based on her past run-ins with police brass as a councillor.

Only in Mount Royal did the Liberals avoid controversy with Cotler.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: August 5, 2000

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A12

LENGTH: 490 words

HEADLINE: LIBERALS SCORE BIG IN BYELECTIONS

BYLINE: CP

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
The federal Liberals cruised to victory in byelections in Montreal and Toronto last night and took a comfortable lead in Hull, just across the Quebec border from Ottawa.

The NDP, meanwhile, seized a substantial lead in the sprawling, mixed urban-rural riding of Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar in Saskatchewan.

Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor and human rights activist, had the biggest cushion for the Liberals as he took the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, a constituency the party has won in every election since 1940.

"I feel humbled by this overwhelming majority," said Cotler, who had amassed more than 5,000 votes within 90 minutes of the polls closing. His nearest competitor, Conservative Noel Alexander, had under 300.

Judy Sgro, a Toronto city councillor, celebrated another Grit victory in the riding of York West, a stronghold for the party for more than three decades.

"It's a vote of confidence for myself and for the Liberal party of Canada," said Sgro.

In Hull-Aylmer, Liberal Marcel Proulx had more than doubled the vote total of his nearest opponent, Robert Belanger of the Bloc Quebecois, with more than half the polls counted.

Dennis Gruending of the NDP had the edge in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar over second-place Reformer Jim McAllister, while Liberal Henry Dayday, the mayor of Saskatoon, was running third.

The constituency had been considered the hottest contest of the four byelections -- all called by Prime Minister Jean Chretien after the former incumbents moved on to new careers.

The Saskatoon seat was held by Chris Axworthy for the New Democrats before he left the Commons for provincial politics and a post as justice minister under Premier Roy Romanow.

Gruending, a former CBC broadcaster and NDP staff aide, faced a three-way struggle at the start of the campaign with McAllister and Dayday.

But the Liberal candidate's chances faded when Chretien rejected overtures from Romanow for $ 1.3 billion in aid to struggling farmers. The farm crisis quickly became the key issue in the campaign.

McAllister, a gas station owner, faced a controversy of his own when he admitted formerly riding with a motorcycle gang and also acknowledged past convictions that included possession of stolen property and marijuana.

Richard Gabruch, a young lawyer trying to revive Conservative fortunes in the riding, also threatened to eat into the Reform vote.

The other three ridings were opened by patronage appointments handed out by Chretien.

Sergio Marchi, who held York West, left his job as trade minister to become ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

Marcel Masse, former Treasury Board president, quit Hull-Aylmer to become Canadian representative to the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.

Liberal backbencher Sheila Finestone abandoned Mount Royal for a seat in the Senate.

The Liberals considered all three of those seats safe.

LOAD-DATE: November 16, 1999

SECTION: Pg. 24

LENGTH: 3116 words

HEADLINE: THE REFUGEES' CHOICE?

BYLINE: Isabel Kershner

BODY:
The Refugees' Choice?

Critics accuse UNRWA of perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem and abetting terror. Israeli officials say everyone would be much worse off without it. Has the 50-year-old mission gone right or wrong?

Isabel Kershner

THE VANISHED BUILDINGS of the now-notorious 200 square meters at the center of the Jenin refugee camp, flattened to rubble by Israeli bulldozers at the end of a tough battle in April against dozens of Palestinian gunmen of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah Tanzim, are set to rise again. Any day now Peter Hansen, the commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), will sign an agreement with the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Society for $ 30 million in emergency aid to rebuild the 100 or so destroyed homes.

Along with UNRWA's obvious obligation to help the largely hapless refugee families who lost their decades-old "temporary dwellings," there's a double irony in the fact that the agency is busy with the reconstruction in the area Israeli officials have described as a "hornet's nest" of terror. For the U.N.-mandated agency, which has provided humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees in the Near East for the past 52 years, primarily in the areas of education, health and social services, has been placed under unprecedented scrutiny of late.

Its critics in Israel, in Jewish and Zionist organizations and among an increasing number of lawmakers abroad, argue that UNRWA perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem by maintaining a "camp culture" and feeding refugees' expectation that one day they may return to their original homes. And they ask, incredulously, how civilian camps such as Jenin, which are being serviced by the agency, could have turned into nests of militancy and launching pads for terror under the nose of UNRWA's vast staff and without so much as a squeak from the U.N.

Irwin Cotler, a Canadian Jewish member of parliament and professor of international human rights law, has long had qualms about whether UNRWA hasn't become "part of the problem rather than the solution." Now, he tells The Jerusalem Report during a recent visit to Jerusalem, "the emerging allegations appear to suggest that UNRWA allows the camps to be used as a sanctuary for terror and for incitement."

Among other things, Cotler points to phenomena such as the "glorification of suicide martyrs as poster boys" in the schools and giving armed elements free rein of the camps. Those, he says, are clear violations of the U.N.'s own conventions regarding both the need to maintain the civilian nature of refugee camps and counterterrorism. The Security Council's 12-point anti-terror convention of last year, he notes, requires all U.N. parties to report back any relevant information.

UNRWA, he goes on, "has neither done anything to prevent, nor has reported any of the above. So one begins to infer that it may be complicit in incitement and terror."

Among Cotler's file of documents, Security Council resolutions and press cuttings about UNRWA is the letter sent to Secretary General Kofi Annan by U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, ranking Democratic member of the House International Relations Committee in May.

According to David Bedein, head of the Jerusalem-based Israel Resource News Agency and an anti-Olso lobbyist who has been researching UNRWA operations for the past 15 years, these letters constitute the first serious challenge to the agency's mandate since 1958. Then, Israeli ambassador Abba Eban made a statement at the U.N. on the Arab refugees in which he argued that the problem had been "artificially maintained for political motives against all the economic, social and cultural forces which, had they been allowed free play, would have brought about a solution."

Bedein and other lobbyists now hope that questions about UNRWA will be raised not only in Washington and Ottawa, but in every European capital as well.

Lantos's May 2002 letter echoes something of Eban's frustration. As well as addressing the "ongoing exploitation for terrorist purposes of Palestinian refugee camps administered by UNRWA," he also voices his "deep concern that UNRWA is perpetuating, rather than ameliorating, the situation of Palestinian refugees."

The Jenin camp alone, he notes, produced 23 suicide bombers that killed 57 Israelis. He cites a Security Council resolution that calls upon the secretary general to report to the Security Council situations where "camps are vulnerable to infiltration by armed elements." And he cites Kofi Annan's own report to the Council of April 1998 concerning violence in Africa, when the secretary general urged that refugee camps "be kept free of any military presence or equipment, including arms and ammunition."

Lantos states that he is "frankly baffled as to why, more than 50 years after the founding of the State of Israel, there continues to exist a U.N. agency focused solely on Palestinian refugees," while all other refugee situations have been adopted by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees.

The Lantos letter came in the wake of lobbying by Avi Beker, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress and by the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main Israel lobby in Washington. The battle in Jenin, and the extent of the terrorist infrastructure revealed in the camps by Israel's Operation Defensive Shield last spring, acted as the catalyst.

Although Israel has been taking a back seat in the campaign, Alan Baker, the Foreign Ministry's legal adviser, reportedly raised similar concerns to Lantos's with U.S. officials and members of Congress during a visit to Washington in June.

The Lantos letter contained a number of inaccuracies. It stated that UNRWA's mandate was up for renewal on June 30, though in fact it had been renewed last December through to June 2005. And it repeated AIPAC's figure of 23 suicide bombers from the Jenin camp. UNRWA officials counter that the 23 came from the Jenin governerate, which includes the camp, the town and the surrounding villages. The Israeli government speaks of 23 suicide bombers "from Jenin."

Nevertheless, with Lantos pressing for hearings in the House committee and with the allocation of U.S. funding to UNRWA coming up for annual approval, possibly in September, the stirrings in Congress are certainly not being dismissed. Senior UNRWA officials are concerned that funding could be cut or made conditional. UNRWA receives between a quarter and a third of its annual budget - which stood at $ 310 million in 2001 - from the U.S.

Annan's reply to Lantos explains that "the United Nations has no responsibility for security matters in refugee camps, or indeed anywhere else in the occupied territory." Rather, since the Oslo agreements, that responsibility lies with Israel or the Palestinian Authority. Of the 27 camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, 20 sit in PA-controlled areas, and 7 in areas where Israel has overall security control.

Annan says the U.N. has frequently called on the PA to do more to fight terror. Furthermore, alarmed by the human toll on both sides, he writes, he suggested in April that an armed multinational force be established in the area - something that Israel would vehemently oppose.

Hansen, in his clarifications attached to Annan's letter, stresses that UNRWA, a humanitarian organization, has no mandate to administer or police the camps, and as such has no "police force, no intelligenceapparatus and no mandate to report on political and military activities."

And he takes strong issue with charges that UNRWA creates dependency. In normal times, he writes, only 5.7 percent of the refugees receive food or other direct assistance from the agency. And UNRWA has awarded over 49,000 loans to budding refugee entrepreneurs over the past 10 years, amounting to over $ 69 million. Today, less than one-third of the 3.9 million Palestinian UNRWA-registered refugees live in the camps around the Middle East, though all are entitled to use UNRWA's facilities.

UNRWA was established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949 with a temporary mandate to provide basic humanitarian and social services to the refugees until a political solution could be found. Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestinian refugees are people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. Their descendants are also classed as refugees, and as such, the register has grown from 914,000 refugees in 1950 to close to 4 million.

There are 59 recognized refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. In Jordan, the government extended citizenship to all refugees in the country, who now number over 1.6 million. In the West Bank and Gaza, over 600,000 of the 1.5 million refugees live in camps.

The UNRWA tents of the early 1950s turned into cement-block dwellings. Some have now grown into rickety-looking three-story homes. With the arrival of the PA in the mid-1990s, Paltel, the Palestinian telecommunications company, introduced phone lines into the West Bank and Gaza camps for the first time. Foreign donor aid was used to modernize sewage systems.

UNRWA schools have a reputation for excellence. The UNRWA mandate stipulates that its schools teach the same curriculum as ordinary schools in the "host" areas or countries, so students can qualify to go on to university. UNRWA says it provides extracurricular enrichment that "focuses on peace education, human rights, tolerance and conflict resolution."

Along with its international staff, UNRWA employs some 18,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, making it the largest employer in the field after the PA.

ALL OF WHICH begs the question why many suicide bombers did come out of the Jenin camp - and why terrorists and armed militiamen have been able to turn other West Bank and Gaza camps into refuges of their own, where PA police often fear to tread.

Cotler acknowledges that UNRWA "may not be wrong in ascribing responsibility to the host countries." But it cannot exonerate itself, he says, as an agency of the U.N., which has set forth principles of conduct in its Security Council resolutions. All this, he fumes, is "taking place on UNRWA's watch. They may have no police, but they have a responsibility to report to the U.N. that 'we are unable to implement the mandate to which we are charged, or to fulfill international humanitarian law.' Instead," Cotler asserts, UNRWA is displaying a "willful blindness to what's going on. And that's being charitable, because this appears to be complicity."

UNRWA's Deputy Commissioner General Karen AbuZayd pleads innocent. "We just don't see anything like this," she tells The Report, speaking from UNRWA headquarters in Gaza. "These things are not visible to us." She says her staff files daily reports on events in the camps to the security office in New York - about a bomb that goes off here, or a casualty there - but what the security office does with that information she doesn't know.

What AbuZayd does know is that UNRWA staffers are operating within a very grim reality. Expelling armed men from the camps would be "difficult in this region," she says, with obvious understatement, though they are not allowed in the clinics and schools. When it comes to the posters and shrines to the suicide bombers that TV cameras have shown in the schools, she says, "We have to take the safety of our staff into account too. If we were to ask our staff to do certain things, we realize that would get them into big trouble. And if they didn't do them, would we take action against them?" As things stand, the local staff is not required to report on such activities.

She adds that U.N. resolutions about keeping armed elements out of the camps, haven't been applied elsewhere. "Think of the Somali or Afghan camps. People just look the other way." And here, she says, everything is "upside down. The refugees are the armed elements."

UNRWA did complain to the PA once when its police tried to use a school in Gaza after hours for meetings. "The PA police are not allowed in our facilities," she says.

In Minister Dani Naveh's March 2002 special report for the Israeli government on "Inciting and Educating Children Towards Hate, Anti-Semitism, and Violence in the Palestinian Authority," there is one documented case from July 2001 where Saheil Alhinadi, an UNRWA teachers' representative, praised suicide bombers at a Hamas rally at the Jabalya camp in Gaza. AbuZayd says this case was only recently brought to the agency's attention by AIPAC, and that UNRWA is investigating. According to AbuZayd, the agency still lacks evidence. For now, Alhinadi remains on staff.

But AbuZayd suggests that it is ridiculous to blame UNRWA for all the ills in the camps. Incitement, she argues, comes principally from TV and the mosque sermons that all Palestinians are exposed to.

"We certainly do our best. If we weren't there, things would be much, much worse. The children would not have access to the extracurricular activities we provide. It would be dreadful to think."

Surprisingly, perhaps, Israeli officials agree. Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem say that "so long as UNRWA is here, Israel supports its mandate, its work and its goals. It is very important, specifically at this time, to have assistance for the Palestinian refugees whose situation is very difficult."

Still, Israel has complaints about the agency at the operational level, and protests against what it sees as an increasingly anti-Israeli flavor in the statements Peter Hansen has been making to the press. After the Jenin battle, sources say, he was quoted in the Scandinavian press accusing Israel of having carried out a "massacre." Moreover, Israeli diplomats say, in its annual reports to the General Assembly, UNRWA consistently ignores the fact that the camps are breeding grounds for terror and that the PA police do nothing to stop it.

Officials admit there is sometimes a problem providing UNRWA with evidence of claims against the organization's staff because much of it is classified. But they add that when they have offered material, the UNRWA staffers don't always want it.

Israeli diplomats feel that UNRWA, which has a budget problem, is "demonizing" Israel to garner donor sympathy. "We don't want countries not to donate," they say, "but it shouldn't be at our expense."

Israel seems to have little interest in Congress cutting UNRWA funds. "If UNRWA wasn't doing what it does, Israel would be in a worse situation, and the refugees would be worse off too," says an official in Jerusalem. "We agree with a lot of what Lantos wrote," he goes on. "On the one hand, we want to see reform in UNRWA. But we don't want the baby thrown out with the bath water. We have no interest in harming UNRWA's ability to work."

To Israeli anti-UNRWA campaigner David Bedein, that smacks of expediency over morality. Israel, he states cynically, has benefited for years from cheap labor, with workers subsidized by UNRWA willing to work for a third of the normal rate.

A Lantos staffer told The Report from Washington that the questioning of UNRWA is ongoing. "We are interested in holding hearings on the subject. Many questions remain unanswered," he went on. "The purpose of UNRWA in the camps, particularly in the Palestinian territories, is still something we want to look into."

It is still too early to say whether Lantos will seek a reduction in funding to UNRWA, or for funds to be made conditional, "but I wouldn't rule it out," said the staffer. Asked about Israel's desire to see UNRWA's work continue unhindered, the staffer said, "We're aware of that. That's why we aren't jumping to conclusions."

Nevertheless, on the international agenda for the first time is the very question of UNRWA's continued existence. Many critics argue that the Palestinian refugees should come under the aegis of the UNHCR, established in 1951 initially to deal with European refugees of World War II. Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem call that "a whole other discussion" - one they don't seem overeager to engage in right now.

Some experts argue that Israel would be better off with the UNHCR, whose mandate is more oriented toward finding permanent solutions for refugees than pure maintenance. UNHCR aspires to offer refugees three options: resettlement in host countries, relocation to a third country or repatriation. UNRWA officials argue that in the Palestinian case, these options have not so far applied with the first two rejected by the refugees, and the third by Israel.

Some experts also argue that under the UNHCR terms of refugee status, the number of Palestinian refugees would significantly drop, since those living within PA areas, or those with Jordanian citizenship would be considered "resettled."

But Karen AbuZayd, who came to UNRWA after years at UNHCR, says nothing would change in the Palestinians' refugee status. On the contrary, she says, the numbers could even rise as the UNHCR doesn't have as strict a definition as UNRWA regarding the 1946-1948 place of residence. All refugees' children are refugees, she adds. Ironically, AbuZayd arrived in Gaza in August 2000 because her bosses thought that her UNHCR-acquired expertise in permanent settlement for refugees would be needed as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process progressed. "Now I'm doing emergency relief," she remarks wryly.

Whether the Palestinians fall under the aegis of UNRWA or the UNHCR, she says, there has to be a political solution to the root cause of the refugee problem before there can be moves to implement resettlement. The refugees in Jordan, she says, "have in a sense opted temporarily for local resettlement," by taking citizenship. And if local resettlement basically means becoming self-sufficient, then the majority of Palestinian refugees would fall in that category, she says. But eventually, once the root problem is solved, those refugees should have the choice, she suggests, whether to remain with local integration, or, say, to go to Canada.

Officials in Jerusalem, for their part, are split on whether it would be best to stick with UNRWA or opt for UNHCR, seeing advantages and disadvantages in both.

In the meantime, UNRWA will work to rebuild the destroyed houses of the Jenin camp. A roomier piece of land adjacent to the camp had been offered, says AbuZayd, but the refugees turned it down.

"Their families didn't want to move out of the camp," she says. For them, at least until further notice, it has become home.

LOAD-DATE: September 24, 2002

SECTION: NEWS

LENGTH: 764 words

HEADLINE: TEST SCORES FOR THOSE ON PARLIAMENT HILL

BODY:
OTTAWA

THERE WAS NEVER any expectation that Monday's four federal by-elections would change the national picture and they did not. So safe were the three Liberal seats at stake in Quebec and Ontario that a defeat for the government in any one of them would have sent political analysts running to palm readers for insight on the results. As for the other riding in contention, a New Democrat seat, it sits in a section of Saskatchewan that had chosen to remain NDP in the recent provincial election.

But even in the absence of earth-shattering change and despite the low turnout, it would be wrong to dismiss the exercise as meaningless. By- elections earned their reputation for quirkiness because they traditionally provide a safe, easy outlet for voters' dissatisfaction with the government. From that angle, Monday's results amount to a mid-term report card for the government and the opposition. Here is how they scored:

Overall, the Liberals did better than is normally expected of a second-term government midway through a lacklustre mandate. If only 30 per cent of voters bothered to vote, one can assume the government isn't making too many people angry.

In fact, in Toronto's York-West, Quebec's Hull-Aylmer and Saskatoon-Rosetown- Biggar, the Liberals emerged with their share of the vote from the last election intact. The retirement of two frontline ministers from the first two and the political fallout of the Prairie farm crisis in the third did not change the picture at all.

As for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, it has now earned a place in political trivia books for something other than propelling Pierre Trudeau into politics. There, human rights activist Irwin Cotler was elected with an astounding 93 per cent of the votes cast, improving his predecessor's score by 30 per cent.

Thus, Cotler, who was the choice of the riding's elite, rather than of the Liberal establishment, and who wanted to come to Parliament a free man, got his wish. The question now is how long Prime Minister Jean Chretien can afford to keep this self-made star out of cabinet. Should Treasury Board's Lucienne Robillard, who will be up for a federal pension in January, or even unity minister Stephane Dion, who has always maintained he would not linger in politics once the national unity debate abated, want to bow out, Chretien will not have to look far for a replacement.

In contrast to the Liberals, the Reform party came in far below even modest expectations, considering the seats at stake. Its downhill slide continues. There have now been seven by-elections during this mandate and Preston Manning's party has lost steam in every one of them. Never mind that Reform is so weak in Quebec that it did not bother to run a candidate in Mount Royal; in York-West, it was reduced to insignificance, going from 9 per cent of the vote in 1997 to less than 3 per cent on Monday night. And in Saskatoon, it came in 5 per cent below the last election.

As Reform slides, the Progressive Conservative party rises. But the movement is confined the margins of the political landscape. The Tory core vote is only slowly trickling back to Joe Clark. On Monday night, the Conservatives did best in Saskatoon, where they collected a bit more than 14 per cent of the vote, double their 1997 score, but still only half of Reform's. The Tory share also doubled in York-West, but its distant second place at 13 per cent support is nothing to write home about.

More worrisome to the Tories is their ongoing vanishing act from Quebec in the post-Jean Charest era. Almost wiped out in Sherbrooke last year, they are now down to half their 1997 support of 17 per cent in Hull-Aylmer and to less than 4 per cent in Mount Royal, where they had collected one in 10 votes in the last election.

Despite the slump in sovereignty support, the Bloc Quebecois is on the receiving end of the Tory drain. In Hull-Aylmer, the BQ collected one in four votes cast, a five-point improvement on 1997 and not a bad score for a contest held in federalist territory.

And what, finally, of the NDP, the only opposition party to have a victory to celebrate as a result of Monday's vote? Well, its win in Saskatchewan removes the immediate threat of moving from the fourth to the last-place party in the Commons. But the NDP has lost ground overall. And that does not bode well for its chances of moving up to third place in Parliament anytime soon.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears in The Star on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

LOAD-DATE: November 17, 1999

SECTION: May 22, 1995

CBCA-ACC-NO: 3413018

LENGTH: 294 words

HEADLINE: Canadian businessman fighting five-year jail sentence in Tunisia (Kamel Masmoudi)

BODY:
MONTREAL (CP) - A Canadian businessman sentenced to five years in prison in Tunisia should be set free because he was held incommunicado for longer than Tunisian law allows, a lawyer argued Monday.

Kamel Masmoudi, who was arrested last March 4 at Tunis-Carthage Airport as he was about to return to Montreal after a business trip, also repudiated a confession obtained during his 12-day detention.

Masmoudi, 28, told the court that the confession - the main prosecution evidence - was coerced out of him.

On a trip to his Tunisian birthplace to complete a computer-transfer agreement, Masmoudi was sentenced to a five-year prison term for alleged contacts with a known Islamic fundamentalist in the United States in 1991.

His lawyers argued the meeting could not have taken place because evidence from U.S. immigration authorities indicated that the fundamentalist in question was not in the country that year.

Irwin Cotler, a McGill University law professor who is advising Masmoudi's family in North America, said just the discrepancy between the police report on the length of his detention is enough to invalidate the charges.

''Masmoudi was arrested at the airport March 4 but the police report says it was March 7,'' Cotler said.

''He was held for 12 days before he saw a lawyer or his family, which is contrary to Tunisian law limiting such detention to 10 days.

''His illegal detention itself should be enough for the appeal court to quash the charge and conviction.''

Human rights groups based in Montreal and New York City have appealed to the Tunisian govenment to release Masmoudi, saying his continued detention violates international human-rights standards.

A ruling on the appeal is expected next week.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: July 08, 1999

SECTION: v.32(1) D 13'01 pg 3; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5270472

LENGTH: 654 words

HEADLINE: Solidarity rally for Israel draws 3,000 (Record in progress)

BYLINE: Blackman, Carolyn

BODY:
TORONTO--Speaker after speaker at last Sunday's Israel Solidarity Rally for Freedom supported both Israel's right to live free from violence and the worldwide struggle against terrorism.

The rally, sponsored by Israel Now, a consortium of community organizations under the auspices of UJA Federation and the Consulate General of Israel, had been originally scheduled for early fall, but was postponed in the wake of the Sept. 11 [2001] attacks.

Speakers included Art Eggleton, Minister of National Defence; MP Irwin Cotler; Major Cindy Rosen of the U.S. Marine Corps; Consul General of Israel Meir Romem; and Dan Meridor, Minister, Government of Israel.

Terrorism came to North America on Sept. 11, said-Eggleton, and we felt at home what others have been feeling for so long.

''Israel has been facing these wanton acts for many years but its spirit is far mightier than any force that tries to destroy it.

''Terrorism has no home and it knows no bound aries. It must be confronted,'' he told an audience of 3,000 at Beth Tzedec Synagogue.

Canada has taken up the cause of terrorism, he said, and has committed over 3,000 troops, the largest operation since the Korean War.

''Terrorists and those who harbour them must be responsible,'' he said. ''Canada and Canadians stand firmly with Israel, and we must remain a viable voice in the world if we want to make a difference.''

Cotler, who took the stage to a standing ovation, said that the rally occurred as Israel was arising from a week of mourning. ''The number of people injured and killed in Israel, is proportionately the same as the number of people injured and killed in the World Trade Center attack. Israel is a standing World Trade Center.''

The most proximate cause of terrorism is the incitement of hatred, said Cotler.

''The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers. It began with words. Terrorism in Israel [also] began with hatred. This kind of hatred is unprecidented since World War II.''

''This is a war against terrorism. It is not a war against a religion or a person. We need a coalition against terrorism, and for human rights.''

Let there be no mistake, said Cotler.

''This is not a conflict about borders. At the core is the unwillingness of many leaders to accept the legitimacy of Israel. That is the root cause.

''As Israel rises from shivah, let us remember that this is 2001, not 1941. There is a Jewish State today. There are Jewish people with resolve, and there are non-Jews who are prepared to stand up and be counted for a just cause. If we do what we can, what we must and what we will, then we will be able to say that truth and justice will prevail,'' Cotler said.

The only motivation behind terrorism, said Romem, is to frighten and intimidate us. ''Israelis continue on with their lives and refuse to be intimidated. This is the one great lesson to be learned from Israel.''

Meridor said that terrorists should look back on Jewish history and see that Jews have been fighting for freedom for 2,000 years.

''Do they think we will be afraid today? The real lesson of Chanukah,'' he said, ''is that we took faith in our own hands. If there are threats, we go on praying, but we don't count on miracles. We need to defend ourselves with our own hands.''

In the past, said Meridor, countries fought countries and armies fought armies.

''The rules of the game have changed,'' Meridor said. ''The threat now comes from organizations with no boundaries. It's a global world and a global threat. We are all on different fronts, but it is the same war against terrorism.''

North Americans need to learn from Israel, he said. ''We have been under attack since day one, and if we had been afraid there would have been no Israel today.

''That is the lesson. Even in times of threats, you have to go on building what you have been building. Do not stop for the terrorists.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2002

SECTION: Part 3 Asia-Pacific; CHINA AND HONG KONG; CHINA; ISRAEL; FE/D4066/G

LENGTH: 276 words

HEADLINE: Canadian MPs want prime minister to lobby for Tibetan rights in China trip

SOURCE: Source: Radio Canada International audio web site, Montreal, in English 0500 gmt 7 Feb 01

BODY:
Text of report by Radio Canada International audio web site on 7 February 2001

A group of Canadian federal politicians is urging Prime Minister Jean Chretien to press Chinese authorities to respect human rights in Tibet. Mr Chretien leaves on a trade mission to China at the end of the week. Members of parliament want Canada to act as a mediator in future negotiations between the government of China and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, who is now living in exile. Robert Jaros has more.

[Jaros] Canadian politicians are asking Prime Minister Jean Chretien to convene talks between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the government of China on the future status of Tibet. More than 80 members of parliament from all the federal political parties have signed a letter calling for the prime minister to intervene. Irwin Cotler is a member of parliament with the governing Liberals and a human rights lawyer.

[Cotler] The timing is propitious. The Canadian trade mission led by the prime minister to China provides a unique opportunity for this request to be both made and implemented. And second, because of the continuing repression of the rights of the Tibetans and increasingly so in the last year.

[Jaros] Next week, Prime Minister Chretien will be in China as part of the Team Canada trade mission. He will meet with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji. Mr Chretien is expected to raise human rights issues during these meetings. According to Canadian officials who will accompany him, Mr Chretien will encourage Beijing to open a dialogue with the Tibetan leader exiled in India.

LOAD-DATE: February 8, 2001

SECTION: Focus; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 701 words

HEADLINE: Trying to reopen the exit door for Soviet Jews

BYLINE: By Trudy Rubin

DATELINE: Jerusalem

BODY:
They gathered daily in room 500, several dozen family members of Jews imprisoned in the Soviet Union. They were looking for someone to whom to tell their stories among the more than 1,600 delegates from 31 countries at the Jerusalem World Conference on Soviet Jewry being held last week.

There was slender, balding Yitzhak Paritsky, whose brother Alexander is in his second year of a three-year sentence of hard labor at a prison camp in the far east of the Soviet Union. He was sentenced for slander of the Soviet system, meaning that the electronics engineer applied to emigrate to Israel and founded a Jewish ''university'' in Kharkov for other Jewish scientists who had been dismissed from their posts and for their children, who were prevented from attending a university.

Alexander's wife, Polina, has made the eight-day train trip from Kharkov to the prison camp twice. The first time she was granted 10 minutes with her husband; the second time she was forbidden to see him and was warned not to try again until further notice. Five months have passed without a letter or a visit.

''Three years in this terrible camp is like 10 years elsewhere,'' said Yitzhak worriedly.

Mrs. Faina Tsukerman, a young bank clerk from Kishenev, talked about her engineer husband. She and her eight-year-old son haven't seen him for five years. He has spent the last two years in a labor camp for Jewish group activities.

Yakov Katz of Tashkent, who lost both legs as a result of poor treatment in Soviet prisons, talked morosely of his sister Zhaneta Podolsky whom he raised as an orphan. Along with her husband and daughter, she has been refused permission to emigrate from Pyatigorsk in the Ukraine to Israel on the grounds that her brother is not adjudged sufficient kin.

These Soviet immigrants to Israel and thousands of other Soviet Jews who remained behind are casualties of the collapse of detente between the United States and the Soviet Union. With it has also collapsed the steady stream of Soviet Jewish immigrants to Israel and elsewhere over the past decade. In 1979, 51,320 Soviet Jews got permission to leave. Last year only 2,688 did.

In the first two months of 1983 only 204 Jews were permitted to leave, although 400,000 - of about 2.5 million Jews in the USSR - have requested and received invitations from relatives in Israel for family reunion. It is the required first step for emigration.

With the gates shut tight, discussion at the conference focused on finding new ways to apply pressure on the Soviets to open them.

Prof. Irwin Cotler of McGill University proposed internationalizing the plight of Soviet Jewry by linking it to human rights struggles all over the world. Mr. Cotler, the attorney for well-known imprisoned Soviet Jewish activist Anatoly Shcharansky, is about to form an international human rights advocacy center - called Inter Amicus - with a group of well-known US and Canadian human rights lawyers.

Planned as a sort of legal parallel to Amnesty International, it would link up with volunteer legal groups throughout the Western world who would fight human rights cases in their country of origin or via international organizations.

''The legal rights of Soviet Jews have to be seen as part of the larger human rights picture,'' said Cotler, who also wants to challenge the keenly legalistic Soviet bureaucracy with violations of its own laws. Cotler said such an approach would not rule out handling the cases of Palestinians who were deprived of legal assistance.

The broad human rights approach is opposed by some Soviet Jews who fear it will dilute the focus of their particular cause and further antagonize the Soviets by linking them with other non-Jewish activists inside the Soviet Union.

Other dissidents disagreed. ''We are in the same leaking boat as other minorities in the Soviet Union now,'' said one new Soviet immigrant to Israel who preferred not to be named. ''Besides, if we want the help of priests and nuns outside (a reference to the presence of many Christian clergymen supporters at the conference), how can we say we don't support [Andrei] Sakharov [a leading Soviet human rights activist] because he isn't Jewish?''

SECTION: Pg. 7

LENGTH: 216 words

HEADLINE: WHO'S GUILTY?

BODY:
A Soviet prosecutor's promise to review criminal convictions from the 1970s and 80s of former Prisoners of Zion "on a case-by-case basis" has stirred little excitement among the ex-prisoners themselves.

"Thanks, but no thanks," says educator Yuli Edelshtein, who spent 1984 to 1987 in Soviet jails and prison camps and now lives in Jerusalem. "I don't care about their decision on whether I was guilty of illegal drug possession; I know they made up all the charges and that's what they should admit."

His attitude is shared by Natan Sharansky, who served nine years in Soviet prisons after being convicted of spying for the West in 1977. "It's the Soviets who have to rehabilitate themselves by initiating the process of throwing out our old illegal convictions," he says.

The Soviet announcement came during a meeting in Moscow last month between Chief Prosecutor Nikolai Trubin and Canadian human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler. Cotler said Trubin explained that the ex-prisoners' criminal culpability will be tested against the "law and circumstances" as they exist now, and not at the time of their convictions. Confirming the story, a Soviet prosecutor's office spokesman told The Jerusalem Report that no additional steps had yet been taken. Jerusalem Report staff

LOAD-DATE: November 16, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A16

LENGTH: 907 words

HEADLINE: Canadian groups fight to 'rescue' Soviet Jews

BYLINE: by Olivia Ward TORONTO STAR

BODY:
Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat asked the Soviet Union last week to cut down immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. And, he told the New York Times, Jews who want to leave should go to Canada, "which is empty."

Since Soviet emigration rules loosened in 1987, the Canadian Jewish community has scorned such advice. The homeland of Soviet Jews is Israel, it says, and the settlement of the new emigrants there is the best way to protect Jewish cultural identity.

But now Canadian Jewish organizations have quietly declared a state of emergency on Soviet emigration as reports of anti-Semitic incidents surface daily. The groups are petitioning Ottawa for help in getting more Jewish refugees away from what they call a potentially explosive situation.

"We're talking about a rescue operation," says Susan Davis, executive director of the Jewish Immigrant Aid Service. "The idea is to get as many people out as quickly as possible."

Anti-Semitism in the U.S.S.R. is not new. But since Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev put an end to state-sponsored attacks on Jews and accepted greater religious freedom, long-suppressed hatreds have been emerging in Soviet society.

"We know there is mob violence taking place between minorities in the Soviet Union," says Herb Rosenfeld, chairman of the National Budgeting Conference for Canadian Jewry.

"We've heard about ugly anti-Semitic incidents, and you don't have to go too far to see how prejudices can spill over to the Jewish minority."

Genya Intrator, who has worked for Soviet Jewish emigration for more than a decade, calls the mood of many Jews in the U.S.S.R. "near panic."

Leonid Stonov, head of the refusenik community (Jews denied exit visas) in Moscow, told Intrator of a young Jewish woman who was attacked by "hooligans," and had a Star of David carved into her chest.

Gorbachev could put an end to public anti-Semitism by using a law making it a criminal offence to "incite strife among national minorities," Intrator says.

But Soviet Jews place little hope in a government that, until recently, institutionalized religious persecution.

While Jewish organizations urge changes that would release more of the 1 million people they estimate want to leave the Soviet Union, Gorbachev is also under fire from Arab leaders who say the stream is too swift.

Arafat and others say the influx is a threat to the Palestinians, now desperately struggling for an independent state. Although no more than 200 of the Soviet newcomers appear to have settled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip so far, Israel's defence of its right to settle the occupied territories has Arabs outraged.

Most of Israel's 250,000 Soviet Jews live in urban areas. But for several months, emigration from the U.S.S.R. has been formidable. Since the beginning of this year, about 1,500 Soviet Jews have landed in Israel each week.

"This is an utterly new phenomenon," says international lawyer Irwin Cotler, who has represented prominent Soviet dissidents denied exit permits.

Since last year, Cotler says, "not only individuals and families, but whole communities are trying to leave. Not only are the absolute numbers reflecting a sense of panic, but the people who are leaving are making Israel their main port of call."

Until the United States closed off its major European visa centres, only 10 per cent of Jews leaving from the U.S.S.R. went to Israel. Now, more than 70 per cent find their way there.

At first, the Canadian Jewish community was pleased with this turn of events. Many of its members had feared an outpouring of Soviet Jews to North America would lead to a loss of Jewish identity, as people who had been brought up with little or no religious education landed in a highly secular society.

At the Canadian Jewish Congress's 1989 plenary meeting in Montreal, there were lively debates on ways of "educating" Soviet Jews in the U.S.S.R. to form a religious and cultural core in their country of residence.

But although opinions differed on ways of reinforcing the faith among Soviet Jews, most agreed Israel would be the best venue for those who wanted to leave.

"The general view is that going to Israel is probably easier, and that people who settle there will remain Jewish in a way that they might not in other countries," Cotler says.

"Looking at it in an international perspective, it helps Soviet Jews and it helps Israel."

For the past few months, the chief concern of Canadian Jews has been rescuing the Soviet Jews from an increasingly threatening situation.

The Soviet Jews are looking to Canada to make the immigration process swifter and more expansive.

"It's true that far fewer people apply to enter Canada than the U.S. or Israel," Davis says. "But we think that's mostly because they know in advance that Canada doesn't admit many."

Davis says Canada's consulate in Moscow is also overburdened and understaffed, with one official handling all enquiries.

Immigration Minister Barbara McDougall has met with the president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, who asked for an expansion of the criteria for the family reunification program, to allow Soviet Jews to join family other than immediate relatives. There are 20,000 Soviet Jews now in Canada.

Says the congress's Les Scheininger: "Our first priority (for emigration) used to be Israel. Now it's just getting people out as quickly as possible."

GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Irving Cutler; Yasser ArafatJew; emigration; Soviet; Union

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: v.30(42) O 26'00 pg 33; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4976649

LENGTH: 422 words

HEADLINE: PM reaches out to community

BYLINE: Simcoe, GK

BODY:
[Graph Not Transcribed]

Crises, whether in the Middle East or the political sector, often give politicians an opportunity to shine. Last week, the sun shone brightly on the copper-plated roofs of Parliament and a political disaster for the Liberals was adeptly salvaged by the little guy from Shawinigan.

As predicted here a couple of weeks ago, the PM did reach out to the community and had a ''let's make up'' meeting with Jewish community leaders. Word has it, he provided them with an impressive list of activities he agreed to undertake at the request of his good friend Mr. Barak.

Even if it didn't erase the anger resulting from Canada's Security Council vote, obviously the Canada Israel Committee was sufficiently impressed to call off the ''full-court press.'' People are tight-lipped, but some Ottawa watchers believe the PM offered the group a preelection goody. If so, nobody we know is talking.

As well as the PM performed, Stockwell Day may have done even better. His was a win-win situation and we've learned that the telegenic pretender to the throne is scoring points with Jews who are convinced of his sincerity. Apparently, more than a few showed up for his $1.7 million party last week in Toronto.

Irwin Cotler was another ''winner'' coming out of this crisis, at least in his Jewish riding of Mount Royal. But his ''triumph'' came at the cost of his standing within the Liberal caucus - where his fellow MPs felt he had stepped over the line.

In Toronto, the ''Metro Ministers'' took a beating, including Elinor Caplan, who was likely as upset at the government's UN vote as Cotler but was constrained by her Cabinet status. Luckily, she has the kind of credibility within her constituency that people will almost certainly believe that her interventions, and those of Jim Peterson and Art Eggleton, were just as effective as Cotler's, although not as loud or as public.

Friends in the Jewish community tell us, though, that the politicians who most endeared themselves were Joe Volpe and Carolyn Bennett, who sided against their own government and stood with their Jewish constituents. They, like Stockwell Day (strange bedfellows) reflected their conscience in taking the position they did. But we bet both Carolyn and Joe are hoping their Jewish friends are as quick - and loud - to praise them as they were to criticize the government.

Let's see if the leaders who went to Ottawa to meet the politicians understand that they still have some work to do!

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: January 8, 2001

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 785 words

HEADLINE: COURT ISSUES 5-2 RULING ON DEPORTING ACTIVISTS

BYLINE: HERB KEINON

HIGHLIGHT:
AFTER nearly 24-hours of furious legal activity, the High Court of Justice ruled late yesterday afternoon that over 400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members could be temporarily deported.

BODY:
AFTER nearly 24-hours of furious legal activity, the High Court of Justice ruled late yesterday afternoon that over 400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members could be temporarily deported.

In its 5-2 decision, the court rescinded a restraining order issued early Thursday morning. That order had held up the 22 buses carrying the deportees in Metulla, en route to Lebanon.

The court also issued a show-cause order giving the government 30 days to explain why it deported the Palestinians.

Court President Meir Shamgar, Deputy President Menahem Elon, and Justices Shoshana Netanyahu, Eliezer Goldberg, and Eliahu Matza voted in favor of going ahead with the deportations; Justices Aharon Barak and Theodor Orr voted against.

Immediately after the decision was handed down, some 418 Palestinians were taken to the border. Because of a "bureaucratic error," the army removed 35 of them from the buses and sent them back to prison. Military sources said another 32 prisoners were flown by helicopter to Lebanon later.

"The decision is unprecendented as a matter of international law generally and Israeli law in particular," internationally known law professor Irwin Cotler told The Jerusalem Post last night. "The commencement of the proceedings at 5 a.m., the issuing of a temporary restraining order halting the deportation in its tracks, the temporary character of the deportation order itself, the marathon character of the proceedings, the unusual enlargement of the panel of justices during the hearing itself, and the somewhat quixotic character of a 'final' court order which is itself temporary - all testify to a textbook Socratic case that cannot be found in any textbook."

The legal maneuverings began early Wednesday evening, when Lea Tsemel received calls from the families of some of the 1,600 Hamas members who were arrested earlier, saying that buses were moving out and deportation proceedings were under way.

Tsemel called an official in the State Attorney's Office, who responded "no comment" when asked whether deportations were indeed taking place. Taking this as an affirmative answer, she - along with Andre Rosenthal - gathered the names of some of the 1,600 who were arrested and on their behalf turned to Justice Barak, the duty judge, for a restraining order.

The deportations followed a cabinet decision that read: "In light of the emergency situation and in order to preserve public order, the prime minister and defense minister is empowered to order officers in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to issue orders for temporary expulsions without prior warning."

The order spelled out that the deportations would not be for more than two years, and that they would directed against those whose actions endanger lives or who incite to such actions. It was determined that committees of appeals, headed by military judges, will be established to hear appeals by the deportee's family members or lawyers within 60 days.

The hearing on the deportations in front of three High Court justices was set for 10 a.m., but because of the urgency was moved up to 5 a.m. The court was later expanded from three to seven justices.

For some 10 hours, the court heard arguments supporting the decision from Attorney-General Yosef Harish, and against the decision from Tsemel, Rosenthal, and Joshua Schoffman, representing the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Harish argued that the move was necessary in light of the deteriorating security situation, while the lawyers for the appellants argued that it was illegal because it denied the deportees the right of due process.

The star of the show was Chief of General Staff Lt. -Gen. Ehud Barak, who became first chief of general staff ever to testify before the High Court of Justice. His testimony was punctuated by acrimonious exchanges with Tsemel.

Barak said that while he is aware of the legal problems, "a quick answer" is needed to stop the security situation from deteriorating further. "It is not right that we bury soldiers or Jewish or Arab civilians only in order to prevent the temporary and reversible damage to the rights of one of the deportees," he said.

Following Barak's testimony, Tsemel summed up her arguments by saying: "The question is not if we act against Hamas," but if we do so by acting in the middle of the night with a new order that denies the right of appeal.

This theme was picked up by Schoffman. "The plan was to carry out the deportations in secret, with the help of the censor. It was an attempt to go around the courts ... If it is possible to deport 400 people in the middle of the night, there is no guarantee that it won't be possible to deport 40,000."

LOAD-DATE: January 21, 1993

SECTION: COVER; Pg. 38

LENGTH: 1308 words

HEADLINE: CANADA'S NAZI PRESENCE

BYLINE: MADELAINE DROHAN in Ottawa with correspondents' reports

BODY:
The small white house in a working-class area of east Vancouver is unremarkable -- apart from the fact that it shelters a convicted war criminal who has never been punished for helping the Nazis during their occupation of Holland. In 1948 a Dutch court sentenced Jacob Luitjens to life imprisonment for his crimes. But Luitjens, who managed to flee from his homeland to Paraguay after the war ended, entered Canada in 1961 and became a citizen 10 years later. Ottawa refused a 1981 extradition request from the Dutch government because Canada's extradition treaty with the Netherlands did not specifically cover collaboration with the enemy.

Luitjens, a 66-year-old retired botany teacher, denies that he committed such crimes as helping to arrange the executions of a German army deserter and a Dutch underground member. But his tranquil postwar life has fuelled the anger of Jewish community leaders who say that Canada has done a poor job of tracking down and prosecuting war criminals. Declared Irwin Cotler, a law professor at Montreal's McGill University: "For 40 years the issue has not been a lack of legal remedy but a lack of political will." Indeed, he and other critics say that Ottawa's failure to prosecute Nazis encourages anti-Semites to disseminate hate literature against Jews and question the reality of the Holocaust.

Hit list: Still, a royal commission report by Quebec Superior Court Justice Jules Deschenes in March has given Cotler and other critics new hope for government action. That is because Deschenes' 837-page report is the first comprehensive attempt to verify the presence of war criminals in Canada. It also dispelled the myth that thousands of former Nazis had found refuge here and recommended that the government move quickly against at least 20 alleged war criminals and conduct investigations of another 218 suspects.

To that end, federal Justice Minister Ramon Hnatyshyn has begun to draft amendments to the Canadian Criminal Code that would permit prosecutors to lay charges for crimes that allegedly occurred in wartime Europe. Hnatyshyn said that he expects to have the legislation passed before Parliament adjourns for its summer recess in June or July. But he faces an overloaded governmennt agenda and competition from other cabinet ministers who also want to get their bills passed. As a result, Liberal justice critic Robert Kaplan expressed concern that war criminals might slip out of the country before the proposed changes take effect and they can be brought to trial. Said Kaplan: "I would be very surprised if some of the people on the hit list have not already taken steps to protect themselves."

Burden: Hnatyshyn has already authorized the formation of a special investigative team. The unit -- which is still being assembled -- will try to find war criminals and compile evidence against them. That step was praised by Allan A. Ryan Jr., a Harvard University lawyer and former director of the Office of Special Investigations, a U.S. federrl unit with similar responsibilities for war criminals. But, declared Ryan: "Until some concrete steps are taken to actually bring Nazis to the dock, the burden is still upon Canada to show that it is serious." For its part, the OSI has achieved some notable successes since its formation in 1979, with 27 cases now before the courts and 500 more under investigation. Its greatest coup to date: the extradition of John Demjanjuk (Ivan the Terrible), who is currently on trial in Israel.

Still, spokesmen for eastern European communities in the United States have objected to an OSI mandate that combines the tasks of investigation and prosecution in a single office. To forestall similar criticism in Canada, Hnatyshyn had adopted a recommendation from Deschenes that Ottawa's Nazi-hunting unit take action against suspected war criminals in a two-step process. First, RCMP officers attached to the unit would submit their investigation reports to justice department lawyers who would then decide if charges should be laid.

Wounds: In addition, the Quebec judge tried to remove continuing sources of friction between ethnic comunities and Canada's Jewish population. To that end Deschenes vindicated as many as 600 Ukrainian-born Canadians who had served in the Galicia Division, a military unit recruited by the Germans in 1943. There had never been any substantiated proof, he said, that division members who had immigrated to Canada had ever committed atrocities.

But representatives of eastern European groups in Canada say that the sweeping accusations made during the commission's 22 months of hearings have already maligned entire ethnic communities. Peter Aruvald, secretary general of the Toronto-based Estonian Central Council of Canada, said that war crime accusations often painted Estonians and other Baltic nationals "with the same brush." He added, "Whole ethnic groups are accused of being Nazi collaborators on extremely spurious evidence."

And despite Deschenes' efforts to heal old wounds, an Ottawa historian said that an unreleased report that she prepared for the commission could renew friction between Jews and eastern Europeans in Canada. That is because Deschenes' final report deleted the names of all suspected war criminals and their countries of origin -- information that consultant Alti Rodal included in her 550-page study. Said Rodal: "It's one thing if an outsider, some historian at a university, writes it up. It's another if the government itself is publishing it." Hnatyshyn has said that the government still plans to publish Rodal's report.

But Montreal's Cotler says that there are greater issues involved than simply arraigning aging men in court. Said Cotler: "Not putting war criminals on trial can allow the inference to be drawn that maybe this wasn't all that serious." Indeed, a former Conservative member of the Alberta legislature resigned from the provincial Land Compensation Board last week after restating his skepticism about the Holocaust. Stephen Stiles had become embroiled in controversy four years ago when he said that he doubted that the Nazis had rounded up and massacred Jews. Last week he said that he had seen no evidence to convince him that the Nazis had singled out the Jews for persecution.

According to Cotler, Ottawa's past inaction has emboldened such convicted anti-Semites as Toronto-based graphic artist Ernst Zundel. In 1985 an Ontario district court jury concluded that Zundel had knowingly spread false news likely to cause social harm. He did so by claiming that the Holocaust was a hoax in a pamphlet titled Did Six Million Really Die?

But last January the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a retrial because the trial judge had made several errors by refusing to admit several books, slides and models that Zundel wanted to use as evidence. Ontario Attorney General Ian Scott has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to reinstate the conviction, but Zundel has said that he would welcome a new trial to restate his views.

Risk: Zundel's trial -- and the 1985 trial and conviction of former history teacher James Keegstra of Eckville, Alta., of wilfully spreading hatred about Jews -- produced the spectacle of lawyers arguing over the number of Jews who died in Nazi concentration camps. And a tough federal campaign against war criminals still living in Canada may produce similar experiences. But David Matas, a Winnipeg lawyer and senior counsel for the Jewish service organization B'nai B'rith, says that he wants to take that risk. Said Matas: "Time is running out. Witnesses and accused are growing old." Clearly, for Cotler and Matas and many other Canadians, delaying bringing war criminals to trial will perpetuate another crime -- denying justice to the victims of the Holocaust.

GRAPHIC: Picture 1, Zundel: a claim that the Holocaust was a hoax and a charge of spreading false news, SANDFORD/CANADA WIDE; Picture 2, Cotler: justice,
MONTREAL GAZETTE

SECTION: NEWS

LENGTH: 371 words

HEADLINE: HUMAN RIGHTS CAN'T BE IGNORED IN CHINA

BODY:
China's imperviousness to international pressure means trouble for Zhang Kunlun, a former McGill University professor who holds dual Chinese-Canadian citizenship. He has been sentenced to three years in a forced-labour camp for performing Falun Dafa meditation exercises in a public park in July.

The Chinese government's position is that Falun Dafa, a growing movement with millions of adherents who practise a meditation technique derived from Buddhism, is a dangerous cult.

In the case of Zhang, because he entered China on his Chinese passport, Beijing insists he is Chinese, not Canadian.

It also means trouble for Jean Chretien's Liberal government, which has taken the line that the development of human rights in China can be helped by trade and investment relations. At a point when the government is preparing a Team Canada trade mission to China in February, Zhang's arbitrary arrest and imprisonment come as an inconvenient reminder of the limitations of Canada's policy.

Chretien's position is made all the more awkward now that Zhang has garnered the support of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler. A prominent human rights lawyer, Cotler in the past has represented high-profile political prisoners such as South Africa's Nelson Mandela and former Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov.

Canada's stake in China, its fourth-largest trading partner, is high. Two-way trade between the two countries reached $10 billion in 1998.

But, commercial interests aside, Canada should also be bound to uphold human rights around the world. If its international obligations conflict with its trade interests, the trade interests are not supposed to take precedence.

Moreover, Zhang is a citizen of Canada and should be guaranteed the best representation his country can provide.

If such an immensely powerful country is still so afraid of someone like Zhang meditating in a park, it means human rights in China will not be honoured any time soon.

Canada should keep up the pressure. If Chretien persists in going ahead with his trade mission, he should make a point of raising human rights violations on his visit.

This is an excerpt from an editorial first published in the Montreal Gazette.

LOAD-DATE: December 12, 2000

SECTION: (587) My 14'01 pg 16; ISSN: 0848-0427

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5122656

LENGTH: 263 words

HEADLINE: Old blue eyes comes back to Parliament Hill, chastises PM: former prime minister John Turner attracts some 180 guests to official portrait unveiling, lectures PM

BYLINE: McDonald, Terry

BODY:
The PM might not have been too eager to exchange pleasantries with his old adversary John Turner but that doesn't mean the former Liberal leader doesn't have his fans in Parliament.

Just who was that gentleman queuing up to have his picture taken with Mr. Turner when the former Liberal prime minister had his official portrait unveiled last Tuesday?

It was none other then British Columbia Alliance MP Gary Lunn, who was recently suspended from the Canadian Alliance caucus after he asked for Alliance Leader Stockwell Day's resignation.

Ontario Liberal MP Brenda Chamberlain later teased Mr. Lunn in the Hall of Honour, saying it looked as though her party had a new recruit.

[Graphs Not Transcribed]

Toronto Liberal Senator Jerry Grafstein and Liberal MP Irwin Cotler were also on hand to salute their former boss. Sen. Grafstein, of course,once served as Mr. Turner's executive assistant and Mr. Cotler was a human rights adviser to Mr. Turner when he held the Justice portfolio.

Saskatchewan NDP MP Lorne Nystrom was another politician who liked the idea of getting a pic of himself with his former House colleague. He failed to notice, though, that there was already a line in place as he took a spot beside the former PM. Ontario Liberal MP Marlene Caterall's Grit whip instincts quickly kicked in and she told Mr. Nystrom to get in the quene as she and her sister were next.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1075

LOAD-DATE: November 1, 2001

SECTION: EDITORIAL/OPINION; Pg. A14

LENGTH: 562 words

HEADLINE: Terrorism bill changes strike uneasy balance; Public safety: Vigilance will be required

SOURCE: The Hamilton Spectator

BODY:
For someone caught between a rock and a hard place, Justice Minister Anne McLellan is faring rather well.

Responding to a storm of criticism, the minister has proposed a series of amendments to the federal government's anti-terrorism legislation. Not surprisingly, those amendments don't please all critics.

For some, any law that puts this much power in the hands of police, courts and the government amounts to an unacceptable violation of personal rights and freedoms. For others, the extent to which those same rights and freedoms have greater protection due to McLellan's proposed amendments render the legislation ineffective as a tool to combat terrorism.

The critics are right, to a point. It is true that this law gives the state a worrisome amount of authority without the usual checks and balances. It is also true that if these amendments are folded into the legislation, it will have more safeguards than the original bill.

Yes, this is an unhappy compromise. But it's one that most reasonable people will be able to live with, albeit with a level of anxiety. Liberal backbencher Irwin Cotler, a former McGill University law professor and human rights expert, was among those uncomfortable with the original legislation. He, along with other MPs and interested parties, took the government at its word when McLellan invited input. They spoke loud and long, and Cotler admits they didn't get everything they wanted. But they got enough.

"The core concerns I had were addressed. I'd rather have a bill with some imperfections than no bill at all."

Cotler and others argued for inclusion of a nondiscrimination clause to reassure racial, ethnic and other minorities who fear they could be targeted. Vic Toews, justice critic for the Canadian Alliance, said most of his concerns had been addressed and "I would find it very difficult, personally, not to support this legislation."

Among other things, McLellan's amendments would put a five-year expiry period on provisions that allow police to hold terrorism suspects without charges for up to 72 hours and force them to testify at investigative hearings. The government will also be required to submit a public report each year once the bill is in force, explaining how the new powers are being used.

Other amendments would change the bill's definition of terrorism to ensure legitimate protest is not labelled terrorism, and require judicial review in cases where the government wants to withhold sensitive intelligence from release under access to information and privacy laws.

And they would clarify that fundraisers and others who "facilitate" terrorist activity can be charged only if they do so knowingly, a change that will help protect well-meaning charities and their contributors.

Make no mistake, there are still parts of this law that should worry us. For example, lawyers warn that a barely noticed section could allow for "secret trials" by giving judges unilateral authority to ban the identity of justices, lawyers, prosecutors, police officers and other witnesses involved in any proceedings related to alleged terrorist acts.

At the end of the day, Bill 36 remains a scary law. It may be necessary in these times, but it's scary nonetheless. We will need to be vigilant, and vocal, to ensure its risks don't outweigh the protection it affords.

-- Howard Elliott

LOAD-DATE: January 1, 2002

SECTION: N 4'01

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5239051

LENGTH: 1352 words

HEADLINE: Canada touted as leader in efforts to establish International Criminal Court

BYLINE: Joyce, Greg

BODY:
The days and murderous ways of the likes of Osama bin Laden and Slobodan Milosevic may soon be numbered on international crime court documents with power to punish if Canada and other like-minded countries have their way.

Less than a month ago, Switzerland become the 43rd and most recent country to ratify the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the framework for the proposed International Criminal Court.

Canada, touted as one of the countries in the forefront of setting up the court and promoting the ratification process, gave its blessing in July 2000.

The court comes into existence when there are 60 ratifications from the 120 countries that signed the treaty. Some observers believe that may occur by the middle of next year.

Under international law, signing a treaty is like a show of political support but doesn't bind the country. To be legally binding it must be ratified.

Only seven countries voted against the treaty, including the United States, China, Israel and Iraq.

The court is directed at bringing individuals as opposed to states to justice for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. But Canadian observers also believe those engaging in terrorist acts would be unable to run and hide, even though terrorism isn't specifically covered.

''The 20th century could be billed as the century of atrocity, but it might also be called the century of impunity since few perpetrators were ever brought to justice,'' said former law professor Irwin Cotler, the Liberal MP for Mount Royal, an adviser to Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley on the court.

''Individuals and not just states are responsible for their crimes.''

The idea for an international criminal court was first proposed about 55 years ago at the time of the Nuremberg trials for Nazi war crimes, said Cotler, who was director of McGill University's Human Rights Program.

Atrocities of the last few decades, in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan, Liberia and elsewhere ''gave the idea for the ICC the sense of urgency it warranted,'' he said in a recent interview.

Cotler, an internationally known human rights lawyer who once served as counsel to South African activist Nelson Mandela, bubbles with enthusiasm when he discusses the proposed court.

''I regard this as one of the most dramatic developments in international human rights law in generations, and international criminal law in particular for the last 55 years.''

Warren Allmand, a former Liberal cabinet minister and current president of Montreal-based Rights and Democracy organization, said his group and the University of British Columbia belong to an international coalition that includes hundreds of non-governmental organizations that pushed initially for the Rome statute.

They now are leading the charge for ratification and implementation by the signatories.

''Canada was 14th to ratify, but first to ratify as well as pass implementation legislation,'' said Allmand.

The implementation process for each country involves amending criminal codes, extradition acts, armed services acts and other statutes, he explained.

Rights and Democracy, together with the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform at the University of B.C., produced a manual showing other nations the way for ratification and implementation.

''The Canadian government has shown a leadership role in the world on this issue,'' said Allmand. ''Canada was the first country to put through a law on ratification and implementation. Their legislation we've been using as a model.''

Joanne Lee, a PhD. candidate at the UBC centre who helped produce the manual, has been taking it around the world.

''This manual is considered the best introduction to the technical details on how to ratify and implement the Rome statute,'' says Lee.

The ICC would be more sweeping and international in scope than tribunals now in existence, such as the International Court of Justice in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

That court is an inter-state system that deals with a complaint by one state against another and in which both states must consent to the proceedings.

It would also differ from tribunals, such as the Rwandan and Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunals, which are set up under UN regulations for specific situations.

Milosevic, known as the 'Butcher of Belgrade,' is currently undergoing pre-trial appearances before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

There is yet a third type of hearing, such as occurred when the Lockerbie bombers were brought to trial. In that case, the two parties Libya and the U.S. had to agree to a trial but the venue was in a third locale, Scotland.

Cotler and Lee concede terrorism wasn't included when the Rome statute was hammered out three years ago, but they haven't lost hope.

''In the list of crimes against humanity and war crimes, many would cover terrorist things, so it's possible to catch people under a so-called maybe,'' said Cotler, noting that in Canada's current anti-terrorism bill, C-36, many things that people would consider terrorist activities are already in the Criminal Code, such as hate crimes and murder.

Lee said there have been scholarly disputes about how the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. would be treated through the International Criminal Court.

''If we had the court on Sept. 11, there are two schools of thought,'' she said. ''One is that what happened in U.S. constituted a crime against humanity and could have been prosecuted as such if you could prove there was an organization behind it.''

But another group believes the Sept. 11 attack wouldn't fit the definition of crimes against humanity, she said.

''The final treaty in Rome was a compromise,'' said Lee, ''the bare minimum that 120 countries (in attendance) could agree to. So they picked the most serious crimes that nobody could possibly dispute were international crimes.''

But seven years after the treaty comes into force there will be a conference to discuss including more crimes, and terrorism and drug trafficking are among them, said Lee.

Many of the so-called rogue countries, such as Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iran have not ratified the treaty, which may be a concern in terms of international effectiveness.

Allmand said that if a country has not ratified the statute and a crime is committed on its territory by individuals of another country that has ratified, the individuals can be brought to court by the ratifying nation.

''If Germany invaded Belgium and Belgium had ratified and Germany had not, and Germany committed war crimes on Belgium territory, you can still try the Germans.''

''Or, if there are Belgians in Germany and war crimes are committed against Belgians, you could try Germany.''

Allmand concedes the statute is ''not as complete as we would like it and our aim is to get more than 100 ratifications.''

Another important feature of the implementing legislation for each country that ratifies the statute is the ''principle of complementarity.'' It gives states the primary responsibility to prosecute the most serious crimes, allowing the court to step in if the states fail their duty.

Cotler also expresses disappointment but understanding that the United States has not come on board.

The United States believes, said Cotler, that it is the world's greatest democracy with the best legal system ''and why should they subordinate that system to an international legal system.''

Secondly, said Cotler, the treaty means that a country not only becomes party to an international agreement, but the treaty could subject U.S. nationals to prosecution before the court.

Cotler also noted that at the last meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission, the United States was not re-elected, but ''one of the great human rights violators in world, Sudan, was elected.''

''So the U.S. says, 'If this is the universe we're living in, we're not sure we want to be part of this international system.'''

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2002

SECTION: v.37(47) March 27, 1997 pg 29; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 3817758

LENGTH: 717 words

HEADLINE: Russians stonewall on Wallenberg

BYLINE: Csillag, Ron

BODY:
TORONTO -- More than 50 years after the disappearance of Swedish war hero Raoul Wallenberg into Soviet "protective custody," Moscow is still stonewalling inquiries into his fate, says a Canadian researcher recently returned from a fact-finding mission.

Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas says many officials in Russia still go to great lengths to block queries into the plight of Wallenberg, who is credited with having rescued as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust.

Last September, Matas received a $5,000 grant from Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, enabling him to travel to Russia, Sweden, London, Riga and Washington to probe the fate of Wallenberg, one of the lasting mysteries of World War II.

The scion of a wealthy banking family, Wallenberg was dispatched from Sweden to Budapest by the U.S. War Refugee Board in 1944 to try and save as many Jews as possible from Nazi deportations. In the frantic months ahead, he issued up to 50,000 fake Swedish passports and spirited their bearers to safe house that flew the neutral Swedish flag.

Near the end of the war, he per-shaded the Nazis to call off the razing of Budapest's Jewish ghetto with its 50,000 inhabitants.

Wallenberg was arrested by the invading Soviets in 1945 as an American spy. Beginning in 1957 and continuing to this day, Moscow has maintained that he died of a heart attack in prison in 1947, despite any supporting evidence and plenty of evidence to the contrary. There have also been at least a dozen credible witnesses who claimed to have had contact with Wallenberg in prison through the 1950s and '60s, and as late as 1989.

Wallenberg was made Canada's only honorary citizen in 1985.

Matas had been involved with the international 1990 team that probed Wallenberg's fate and whereabouts. The 10-member commission, which was headed by McGill University Prof. Irwin Cotler, hoped, ideally, to find a "smoking gun" -- something that would finally reveal what became of Wallenberg.

Not only did Cotler not find his grail, he encountered what he called a massive coverup of the Wallenberg file by the KGB and an impenetrable wall of bureaucratic silence.

Matas calls his mission an "outgrowth" of Cotler's commission, and its outcome is chillingly similar: "In Russia, the Wallenberg case is a secret within a secret," Matas told The CJN. "A tremendous amount of effort has gone into covering it up."

Matas spent a week in Moscow poring over documents and trying to interview Russian officials. "Everybody who has ever had contact with the case has been intimidated into silence," he says. "We encountered bureaucratic roadblocks everywhere, especially at the lower levels, where secrecy is a carry-over from the old Soviet days."

Some files on Wallenberg were released in 1991, but Matas says the doors closed again soon after. For example, at Vladimir prison outside Moscow, where Wallenberg had been held, officials allowed members of a Swedish group to examine records but not to photocopy them.

Similar other attempts were also stymied, Matas says, because the Russians continue to keep prison files on Wallenberg at the old KGB archives, where the public has no access to them.

Two separate commissions continue to probe Wallenberg's fate: a Swedish working group headed by Sweden's ambassador to Latvia, and a Russian working group. Matas was able to secure interviews with every member of the Swedish group, but none with the Russian, which he says has done little else but throw up obstacles.

Matas now believes that the 1957 memo signed by Russia's then foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, declaring that Wallenberg had died of a heart attack a decade earlier, is "a total fabrication." He fears that a 1947 "liquidation" order against Wallenberg could mean the Swede was murdered and all traces of the crime removed.

Matas' frustration was not limited to Russia. In Washington, he found CIA documents with Wallenberg's name, but the relevant parts were blacked out.

In London, he unearthed listings of files on Wallenberg for 1946 and 1947, but the files them selves were missing.

Matas hopes to release his report in May, after the two working groups release their findings.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: July 07, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

LENGTH: 676 words

HEADLINE: Ex-Metro businessman a war crimes suspect Soviets tell Ottawa

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
OTTAWA - The Soviet Union has informed a federal inquiry investigating alleged Nazi war criminals in Canada it has 34 witnesses who are prepared to testify against two Canadians - one of them a former Metro Toronto businessman.

Alexei Makarov, an official at the Soviet embassy, told The Toronto Star yesterday that his government officially responded on April 30 to a request from the commission to travel to the Soviet Union to collect evidence.

"The door is open for representatives of the commission to go to the Soviet Union and see for themselves the documents and to listen to the statements of the witnesses and make their own conclusions," he said.

'Mass execution'

Makarov, minister counsellor at the embassy, said the two men "are accused of the mass execution of Soviet citizens during the war."

Previously published reports - which Makarov said are based on Soviet evidence - said one suspect, who now lives outside Metro, belonged to a Ukrainian underground unit which killed at least 100 men, women and children who were either Poles or Ukrainians.

However, Toronto lawyer Y.R. Botiuk, who represented the Brotherhood of Veterans of the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army at the Deschenes inquiry, says the allegations are false.

The man "had nothing to do with the Nazis," Botiuk said in an interview. "He was in the Ukrainian underground and fighting the Soviets before the Germans came to the Ukraine.

"What I know about this man has never, in any way, shape or form, involved him in fighting with the Nazis."

Botiuk has told the commission that the Soviets will use only evidence fabricated by the KGB (secret police). That evidence is designed to discredit the Ukrainian nationalist movement, he said.

Makarov's revelation came one day after the inquiry, headed by Mr. Justice Jules Deschenes, concluded public hearings. Commission officials had stated publicly they had yet to get a response from the Soviets to their request for war crimes evidence.

Inquiry officials refused to comment yesterday and would only say that the Soviet offer was "under consideration."

But Makarov's assertion that the message was delivered to Ottawa on April 30 was confirmed by Brian Dickson, the external affairs official who received it. He would not speculate on why it was not made public by the inquiry.

Montreal lawyer Irwin Cotler, who represented the Canadian Jewish Congress at the hearings, was stunned when informed by a reporter that the Soviets had invited commission officials to examine their evidence.

"Why is it only coming out now?" he said in an interview. "Why have they (inquiry officials) made it appear to us that they haven't had a response?"

The Soviet offer says the commission travel must take place after June 10, which presents Deschenes - and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney - with an interesting dilemma since the inquiry is scheduled to report to the government on June 30, [1986].

But it makes no mention of the strict conditions Deschenes set down in November when he announced his controversial decision to travel to the Soviet Union and other East bloc countries in search of evidence.

Protect identities

Those safeguards include protection of the identities of the Canadian suspects, the examination of original German documents in Soviet archives, the hiring of independent interpreters and the granting of access to any statements made previously by witnesses the inquiry plans to hear.

Toronto lawyer John Sopinka, who represented the Ukrainian Canadian Committee at the hearings, was also unaware of the Soviet response when contacted by The Star. He said if the inquiry accepts the offer, the safeguards must be assured.

Cotler said the Soviet response means Deschenes must seek an extension of his mandate from the government.

One source, who asked not to be named, said it is likely that Deschenes will submit a report to the government on June 30 and at that time ask Mulroney for an extension so inquiry officials can examine the Soviet evidence.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

LENGTH: 375 words

HEADLINE: CANADIAN LAWYERS SLAM PRC CAMPAIGN AGAINST FALUN GONG

BYLINE: By S.C. CHANG

DATELINE: Ottawa, Jan. 22

BODY:
By releasing a Chinese Canadian practitioner of Falun Gong from a labor camp, the Communist Chinese government may have let slip a snake as the Year of the Snake approaches.

Kunlun Zhang, a 60-year-old professor of art, who was freed earlier this month in Shandong, met the press Monday in Toronto along with a lawyer who serves as counsel to Canadian practitioners of the religious sect.

Zhang said he rejects "everything that was attributed to me during these weeks of intensive mental manipulation, deception and brainwashing. Only what I say as a free man represents my true feelings."

He added that he wanted to "tell the world that Falun Gong is good. I will continue to practice Falun Gong for the rest of my life."

He was rebutting a defamation campaign by mainland Chinese officials based in Canada.

Rocco Galati, constitutional and civil rights lawyer, also spoke out against the mainland officials. "On Jan. 21, 2001, in Toronto, Chinese consulate officials participated, as primary speakers, at a public rally announced for the purpose of 'condemning' the 'rampant, anti-Chinese activities' and the misguided and 'evil' nature of Canadian practitioners of Falun Gong in Canada.

"This incitement of hatred by the Chinese government to have Canadian-Chinese citizens condemn another group of Canadians from exercising their constitutional rights in Canada is not only contrary to international law, but contrary to the criminal laws of Canada and the Canadian Charter of Rights."

Irwin Cotler, a Liberal Party member of parliament and a lawyer acting as Zhang's legal counsel, also issued a statement. "The persecution of Falun Gong is a case study of the persistent and pervasive assaults on human rights in China today.

"Professor Zhang's release should not obscure the fact that thousands of practitioners of Falun Gong are still languishing in prisons and labor camps in China."

Cotler had earlier responded to a smear campaign against Zhang -- launched by the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa -- by saying that no repressive governments have ever admitted that political prisoners they had released were innocent.

LOAD-DATE: January 30, 2001

SECTION: International news

LENGTH: 599 words

HEADLINE: Chretien leads trade mission to China, with human rights on his mind

BYLINE: Howard Williams

DATELINE: OTTAWA, Feb 9

BODY:
Prime Minister Jean Chretien has pledged to tackle China's leadership on a wide range of human rights problems during a major trade mission to the country which begins Friday, one of his backbench members of parliament said Thursday.

Chretien leaves for Beijing Friday with the largest ever Team Canada trade mission assembled. The trip, to take in Shanghai and Hong Kong, will last until February 18.

While in Beijing, he is scheduled to meet with, among others, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji and Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Shi Guangsheng.

In Hong Kong, he will meet with Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa.

Chretien has been widely criticized in the past for putting trade before human rights in his dealings with China.

His first-ever Team Canada trade mission was to China, in 1994. The 2001 tour marks the first time Team Canada has visited the same country twice.

On this month's trip, Chretien will be accompanied by the premiers of nine of Canada's 10 provinces, plus the leaders of the three northern territorial governments.

More than 600 business leaders hoping to win contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars are also participating in the tour.

But human rights will not be ignored, according to Irwin Cotler, a member of parliament in Chretien's governing Liberal Party.

Cotler told reporters Thursday than Chretien had said he was prepared to "make representations to the Chinese authorities" about human rights abuses in China.

Cotler said he met with Chretien Wednesday to discuss a wide range of human rights questions in China, including treatment of the Falungong sect, Tibet, the alleged torture of prisoners in China and violations of internationally accepted labor standards.

Cotler said he gave Chretien a list of alleged human rights abuses in China.

"I sensed that the prime minister was taken aback by the degree of the systematic abuse of human rights in that country.

"The prime minister was responsive and said he was prepared to make representations to the Chinese authorities," Cotler said.

Canadian Falungong supporters have distributed a letter they said they had sent to the Canadian Foreign Ministry claiming they had been targeted by "direct interference, threat, intimidation, and assault by Chinese foreign officials right here in Canada."

They said Chinese consular officials in Toronto were involved in inciting hatred against Falungong at a public rally in January.

Alex Neve of Amnesty International, appearing at the same news conference with Cotler, claimed the time had come for "no more rhetoric, no more empty gestures" in Canadian pressure on China to improve its human rights situation.

But trade will certainly be the main topic of the Team Canada trip.

During the 1994 mission, 65 new business deals worth 8.9 billion dollars (about 6 billion US) were announced.

Since then, the Canadian business presence in China has more than doubled to over 400 Canadian firms with offices or operations there, Canadian officials say.

The officials said that the 2001 mission will have a stronger emphasis than previous trade missions on culture and education.

The largest single group will be representatives of Canadian colleges and universities.

Sectors represented are largely dominated by the energy and forestry industries.

But a wide spectrum of other industries is also participating, including transportation, information and communications technologies, financial service, the construction industry, and medical and health services.

hfw/jlp

LOAD-DATE: February 9, 2001

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 1

LENGTH: 219 words

HEADLINE: MAN PRESSES EX-PRISONER

BYLINE: NATHALIE TREPANIER, OTTAWA SUN

BODY:
Prof. Kunlun Zhang's words of gratitude to the Canadian people were disrupted yesterday when a reporter for a Chinese newspaper tried to dominate a press conference.

Zhang, an art professor who holds dual Canadian and Chinese citizenship, was released from a Chinese labour camp last Wednesday and returned to Canada early Tuesday.

Zhang had been arrested, imprisoned and tortured for practising the ancient discipline of Falun Gong, a peaceful practice similar to Tai Chi that was banned by the Chinese government in 1999.

Appearing happy and relaxed yesterday, Zhang made his way to a podium at Parliament Hill to thank the people who helped set him free and to describe his ordeal.

Zhang spoke of being tortured and even accepting the inevitability of his own death.

The conference turned tense when a man in the front row began speaking to Zhang in Mandarin, drawing the fury of Zhang's daughter, Lingdi.

FALUN GONG CHARGE

The family translated the man's speech. The man, who is thought to work for the Chinese People's Daily, insisted Zhang practised his own form of Falun Gong.

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, an international affairs lawyer who represented Zhang, reminded the gathering his client was only one of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who are unfairly persecuted in China.

GRAPHIC: photo by Suzanne Bird, Ottawa Sun KUNLUN ZHANG reads a statement yesterday as his daughter Lingdi and lawyer Irwin Cotler listen in.

LOAD-DATE: January 19, 2001

SECTION: Opinion

LENGTH: 230 words

HEADLINE: ELI RUBINSTEIN

BYLINE: Nathan Lewin, Judith Barnett, Irwin Cotler

HIGHLIGHT:
Sir, - We read with sadness an article in The Jerusalem Post of April 30 entitled "a letter to the real Eli Rubinstein." Having had the pleasure of working with Elyakim Rubinstein over the past two decades, we are dismayed at the unfortunate comments made publicly by his colleague, Yosef Ahimeir.

BODY:
Sir, - We read with sadness an article in The Jerusalem Post of April 30 entitled "a letter to the real Eli Rubinstein." Having had the pleasure of working with Elyakim Rubinstein over the past two decades, we are dismayed at the unfortunate comments made publicly by his colleague, Yosef Ahimeir.

Eli Rubinstein has been, and is now, an outstanding civil servant. Few individuals representing Israel today command more respect and admiration than Eli. He has dedicated his career to a goal which we all share - achievement of a fair and lasting peace in the Middle East.

???
positions now being taken in Israel in the peace negotiations. He has every right to express that disagreement publicly and vigorously. But he demeans the debate by personalizing his differences and questioning the integrity of Eli Rubinstein. As a dedicated emissary of his country, Eli has shown unique ability to rise above politics and petty personal disputes. His outstanding abilities as a diplomat, lawyer and negotiator have earned him the confidence of holders of such divergent views and personalities as prime ministers Shamir and Rabin.

Ahimeir does not know the secret information available to Eli Rubinstein and the tactical choices that confront the Israeli negotiating team in these sensitive discussions.

NATHAN LEWIN, JUDITH BARNETT, IRWIN COTLER, Washington, D.C.

LOAD-DATE: June 10, 1993

SECTION: Financial pages

LENGTH: 682 words

HEADLINE: Canadian PM in China on trade mission but rights concerns loom

BYLINE: Elisabeth Zingg

DATELINE: BEIJING, Feb 10

BODY:
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien arrived Saturday for a week-long visit aimed at boosting trade with China but the mission is widely seen to be dogged by human rights concerns.

An ongoing crackdown on the banned Falungong spiritual movement that has made headlines in recent weeks, along with the situation in Tibet and the need to promote legality in China are likely to figure prominently in Chretien's talks with Chinese leaders.

He is to have a formal meeting with Premier Zhu Rongji Sunday and attend a ceremony for the signing of bilateral agreements, details of which have not been disclosed, before moving on to the ancient capital, Xian, in northern China the following day.

The Xian trip was originally set for Sunday but pushed back at the Chinese side's request.

Chretien will meet President Jiang Zemin on Tuesday for an overview of bilateral ties. Diplomatic sources said the Chinese side is likely to broach the controversial US plan for a National Missile Defense that Beijing and Moscow oppose.

Also high among Beijing's concerns is the question of how Ottawa proposes to handle the case of Chinese businessman Lai Changxin, who is detained in Canada charged with smuggling vast amounts of goods from China.

Chretien will visit Shanghai on Wednesday before moving to Hong Kong.

While Ottawa has sought to avoid confronting Beijing, human rights issues have drawn attention, with Canadian Falungong supporters claiming recently that they had faced "direct interference, threat, intimidation, and assault by Chinese foreign officials right here in Canada."

They said Chinese consular officials in Toronto had incited hatred against Falungong at a public rally in January.

Ottawa has promised to investigate the incidents.

Irwin Cotler, a member of parliament in Chretien's governing Liberal Party told reporters Thursday that human rights will not be ignored during the trip.

Cotler quoted Chretien as having said he was prepared to "make representations to the Chinese authorities" about human rights abuses in China.

"I sensed that the prime minister was taken aback by the degree of the systematic abuse of human rights in that country," Cotler said. He has given Chretien a list of alleged human rights abuses in China.

Chretien has been widely criticized at home in the past for putting trade before human rights in his dealings with China.

Trade is expected to be the main concern of Chretien's "Team Canada" trip. His 600-strong delegation including several chief executives of corporations will be seeking to further strengthen the already booming bilateral trade.

With China hoping to enter the World Trade Organisation this year, Canadian businesses will be seeking tie-ups in several areas including agriculture, education, energy, environment-friendly technologies, financial services, mining and information technology.

There is no word yet on the contracts to be concluded but a Canadian source said a signing ceremony was set for Monday when some 170 projects of varying importance are to be finalized.

Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier, which already has a more than 60 percent share of private jets in China, having delivered some 30 planes in recent years, is expected to announce a fresh deal with a Chinese group during the Shanghai leg of Chretien's trip.

Meanwhile Ivanhoe Energy Inc hopes to sign a letter of intent for producing natural gas in southwest China's Sichuan province, with the Canadian company investing more than 500 million dollars.

Bilateral trade which was worth 6.2 billion Canadian dollars (4.1 billion US) in 1994, rose to 11.6 billion Canadian dollars (7.7 billion US) and to 13.9 billion Canadian dollars (9.2 billion US) in the first 11 months of 2000, with a massive surplus for China, Canadian figures show.

Canadian international trade Pierre Pettigrew and secretary of state for Asia Pacific Rey Pagtakhan are among officials in Chretien's team.

Pettigrew is scheduled to meet China's Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Shi Guangsheng Sunday.

ez/nj/cs

LOAD-DATE: February 10, 2001

SECTION: D 2'00

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4999647

LENGTH: 261 words

HEADLINE: Philanthropist gathers campaign signs and donates them to charity

(Record in progress)

BODY:
MONTREAL (CP) A local philanthropist is collecting posters from the recent federal election campaign with the hopes of putting them to use for charity.

''These signs can be used again to announce fundraising campaigns and events,'' Montreal businessman Murray Levine said Saturday. ''They can just be turned over and printed on the other side.''

The corrugated plastic signs, which decorated most of Canada's lampposts throughout the election campaign, usually cost about $5, Levine said.

''It all depends on how many you buy. But free signs could end up saving some charities a lot of money.''

Levine started asking riding associations to donate the signs last week, after realizing they would be recycled or thrown out.

Riding associations have anywhere from three to 15 days after election day to remove the signs, depending on the bylaws of the municipality they're posted in.

''I thought if I could get the riding associations to agree, I could even take down the signs myself,'' he said.

Levine removed 60 Tory campaign posters in Pierre Trudeau's old riding. He was given permission to do so by Conservative candidate Stephane Gelgoot, who finished second to Liberal incumbent Irwin Cotler in the Mount Royal riding.

Levine said Cotler's campaign manager has also promised to donate signs, as will organizers for Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephane Dion.

Another Liberal campaign worker has promised to donate 250 signs from the nearby riding of re-elected MP Marlene Jennings.

(Montreal Gazette)

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: January 20, 2001

SECTION: v.29(38) S 30'99 pg 1,27; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4679051

LENGTH: 1045 words

HEADLINE: Irwin Cotler to carry Liberal banner in Mount Royal

BYLINE: Arnold, Janice

BODY:
Montreal -- Irwin Cotler, who has spent much of the past 25 years travelling around the world for the cause of human rights, will be, barring an upset of historic proportions, the next member of Parliament for Mount Royal.

Cotler, 59, said no one is more surprised than he that today he finds himself about to be acclaimed the riding's Liberal candidate and fight a byelection expected in November. He had plans to teach at Jerusalem's Hebrew University next year. His wife Ariela was looking forward to returning to her native Israel.

Cotler insists he is answering a groundswell of grassroots support, and was not wooed by the party hierarchy.

The longtime McGill University law professor, perhaps most famous for his work to release Soviet refusenik Natan Scharansky, was at the end of last week, the only contender and awaiting acclamation at the party's nomination meeting Oct. 4 at Congregation Beth-El.

Candidates can declare themselves up to Oct. 1, but it's improbable anyone will do so.

''I see becoming an MP as a continuation and intensification of the work I have done in promoting human rights,'' Cotler said in an interview. ''There are things that I stand for and I don't intend to change that because I am in Parliament.''

Since he has been an independent voice for so long, many wonder if Cotler will be comfortable toeing a party line. He takes the larger view.

''I have a lifetime commitment to broadening and deepening human rights internationally and domestically. Maybe the Kosovos and the East Timors could have been prevented if there had been less protracted debate and an amplified voice and vision for human rights in Parliament.''

Cotler, who was president of Canadian Jewish Congress from 1980-83, will find himself in the same caucus with some people he has criticized over the years for dragging their feet on bringing suspected Nazi war criminals to justice. Cotler served as a counsel to the Deschenes commission of inquiry during the Mulroney government.

He plans to carry on with many of his international human rights interests, as head of InterAmicus, the McGill-based centre he founded. Lately, he has been involved with the effort to establish a permanent international criminal court. He also wants to continue teaching at McGill, where he has been a professor for 27 years, if a reduced schedule can be worked out.

As a constitutional law expert, Cotler thinks he can make a contribution to the national unity debate. ''Federalism is a morally compelling ideal, which I don't think is being articulated properly. It's imperfect, but internationally it is seen as an effective model, something I don't think we understand or appreciate.''

Cotler rejects the bookkeeping approach to federalism, that is, focusing on its fiscal benefits or drawbacks. ''Federalism is a system of values, beliefs and principles about social justice, sharing of power, protecting the individual by limiting the state's authority which should be asserted.

''In the battle of ideas, federalism will win out over secession.''

Cotler has not been associated in the public's mind with Quebec's language issue, and he is not now donning the mantle of anglophone rights defender in Ottawa.

''I see language as part of the larger issue of minority rights... As representative of Mount Royal, I should reflect the multicultural mosaic, which includes the promotion and protection of minorities. Language is part of the larger concerns of minorities,'' he said.

Although he is better known for his activities on the international stage, Cotler said his human rights work began at the local level, working in anti-poverty projects, including founding the legal aid clinic in Pointe St. Charles 30 years ago.

Cotler, a lifelong resident of the riding, said that until a few days before Yom Kippur he had no intention of or interest in running for the seat vacated when Sheila Finestone, Mount Royal's MP for 15 years, was appointed to the Senate Aug. 11.

He was in Israel at the time for his grandson's brit milah, and didn't even know Finestone had resigned until his return at the beginning of September. Later that month, Cotler returned to Israel for the pidyon haben.

''When I came back, the pressure began and built to a crescendo.''

But, he was torn, he said. ''I didn't feel good about it.''

So, just before Yom Kippur, he turned to his spiritual mentor, 80-year-old Herzl Fishman in Jerusalem, an ethical philosopher.

''He said, 'You have no choice. Your responsibility is to answer the call of those who believe in you. You must run.'''

''I thought it through during Yore Kippur and right after Neilah, made my decision. The next morning i filed my papers.''

At the same time, Saulie Zajdel, 43, a Montreal executive committee and Lubavitch community member, generally seen as the front runner, withdrew his candidacy and declared his support for Cotler. He had entered the race only five days earlier.

Cotler, he stated, ''is a candidate of national and international stature. His record as an advocate for the poor and the rights of women, minorities and the oppressed speaks for itself. I am confident that Irwin will be a strong and effective voice in Ottawa for the concerns of Mount Royal, and will bring much needed intellectual rigor and passion to Parliament. We need people like Irwin Cotler in public life.''

Shortly after, lawyer David Lisbona, 30, also bowed out, giving his support to Cotler. ''Irwin has a stellar reputation... It's an honor just to have him as my MP.''

The last hold out, lawyer Anthony Housefather, 29, a militant English rights and Canadian unity campaigner, dropped out Wednesday night.

''There was tremendous pressure, more from the community than the party. The party played by the rules. They didn't say you're out or we won't sign your papers,'' his aide Steve Pinkus said.

Housefather withdrew reluctantly, however, because he had signed up close to 900 members.

''It was a realistic assessment. A man of Cotler's worldwide stature and the considerable resources he could mobilize were more than we could go up against,'' Housefather said.

Within three days, Cotler's team had 2,000 members signed up.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: December 16, 1999

SECTION: NEWS

LENGTH: 643 words

HEADLINE: TEAM CANADA VISIT TO CHINA LARGEST YET

BYLINE: Graham Fraser

BODY:
OTTAWA - Jean Chretien's Team Canada trade mission, leaving for Beijing today, may be the largest in Canadian history, officials said yesterday.

"As of today, we have over 600 participants," a senior official told reporters yesterday.

The largest contingent is from Canadian universities but officials said there is strong representation from the high-tech sector as well.

Participants are from major firms, including Air Canada, Alcan Asia Pacific, Canada 3000 Airlines, Canadian Pacific Railway and SNC Lavalin, and companies as small as Newfoundland's Fogo Island Co-Operative Society.

Commercial sponsors for the trip include the Bank of Montreal and Canada Post as partners, with additional sponsorships from Bombardier, the Export Development Corp., Can-Achieve and the Canadian Commercial Corp.

The Feb 9-18 mission will include visits to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Chretien is to meet China's top three leaders: President Zhang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji and Li Peng, chairman of the National People's Congress.

According to officials, human rights will be a theme of the trip, with Chretien, a lawyer, addressing the National Judges College and speaking on the importance of the rule of law and the role of legal aid.

Canada has supported two aid projects in China related to justice: one on reform of its prosecutorial system and the other on legal aid.

Matters in Tibet are also normally on the agenda at such meetings, officials said. China lays claim to Tibet as does the exiled Buddhist Dalai Lama.

Chretien has come under new pressure from within his caucus to emphasize human rights this time. Liberal MP Irwin Cotler argues that "A human rights foreign policy has to find expression not only as a statement of principle, but also as an expression of policy."

New pressure from ???
law professor in Liberal caucus Cotler supports the trade mission as constructive engagement with China "but that alone is not enough. Trade and human rights must be seen as complementary and not contradictory."

Respect for human rights is critical for good trade relations, the newly elected Quebec MP for Mount Royal said.

As a law professor at McGill, he acted on behalf of dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Natan Sharansky in the former Soviet Union, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Jacobo Timmerman in Argentina and most recently for Falun Dafa adherent Kunlun Zhang, a retired Canadian university professor.

Zhang was detained by China this winter, which has banned the movement also known as Falun Gong. A combination of diplomatic work by Foreign Affairs and public pressure, led by Cotler and other MPs, prompted Zhang's release in January.

Cotler has taken on another Falun Dafa case, involving imprisonment of ShanLi Lin, on behalf of his wife JinYu Li, a Canadian citizen.

"What we are witnessing today in China is the most persistent and pervasive assault on human rights" since the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, Cotler said.

"There is scarcely an area of human rights activity that has not been the object of government repression."

A Falun Dafa group complained in a 30-page legal brief yesterday that its members face threats and intimidation in Canada from Chinese embassy and consular staff, The Star's Alan Thompson reports.

The brief filed with the foreign affairs and justice ministers seeks expulsion of China's Toronto consul and staff but a foreign affairs spokesperson said the department has no mandate to deal with such complaints. She said those who feel threatened in any way should contact police or, if threatened by agents of another country, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Xin Yao, a political officer at the Chinese embassy, said the official spokesperson was not available to comment.

LOAD-DATE: February 7, 2001

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 1121 words

HEADLINE: Petitions to retry Demjanjuk rejected

BYLINE: EVELYN GORDON

HIGHLIGHT:
THE High Court of Justice yesterday rejected nine petitions to have John Demjanjuk tried for his actions at Sobibor and other concentration camps, saying that Attorney-General Yosef Harish's decision not to prosecute wasn't unreasonable enough to warrant intervention.

BODY:
THE High Court of Justice yesterday rejected nine petitions to have John Demjanjuk tried for his actions at Sobibor and other concentration camps, saying that Attorney-General Yosef Harish's decision not to prosecute wasn't unreasonable enough to warrant intervention.

However, the court ordered Demjanjuk kept in the country until tomorrow, when it will rule on the petitioners' request for a second hearing before an expanded panel of justices. The request to delay Demjanjuk's expulsion was filed by attorney Shapir Shilansky on behalf of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and eight Sobibor survivors.

"Each of (the three justices) came to the conclusion that there is no choice but to reject the petitions," Justice Gavriel Bach told the petitioners.

Harish had recommended against trying Demjanjuk, arguing that a new trial would exact a heavy price both financially and emotionally, while the chances of obtaining a conviction were low. He cited three reasons:

First, Demjanjuk might be able to claim double jeopardy, since the Supreme Court had considered convicting him for offenses committed at Sobibor and Trawniki during his successful appeal against his conviction as "Ivan the Terrible."

Second, the evidence might be insufficient to convict him, and third, putting him on trial for charges other than Treblinka might violate extradition law.

Harish also argued that after seven years of legal proceedings on Treblinka, it is unreasonable to drag the case out even further. In its verdict on the "Ivan the Terrible" appeal, he noted, the Supreme Court itself said returning the case to a lower court "seven years and more after the proceedings began does not seem to us reasonable."

In their separate but concurring rulings, Justices Shlomo Levin, Gavriel Bach and Mishael Cheshin explained that the court could overturn Harish's decision only if it found his arguments "completely unreasonable," since the law gives the attorney-general sole power to decide whether to put someone on trial.

"The mere fact that the decision appears wrong or mistaken in our eyes is not enough to justify interference, and even if we are convinced we would have come to a different conclusion than the attorney-general did ... that isn't enough to make us accept a petition against the attorney-general's decision," Levin wrote, quoting a 1986 ruling by Bach.

In this case, he said, Harish's considerations were not completely unreasonable. The double jeopardy argument might really be accepted by a court if the case came to trial; the evidential problems were real - particularly since not a single Sobibor survivor had been able to identify Demjanjuk; and Harish's interpretation of the Supreme Court's verdict with regard to dragging out the proceedings was also reasonable - even though the petitioners were correct in saying the length of the proceedings was of small importance beside the severity of Demjanjuk's alleged crimes.

However, he added, his ruling was not an endorsement of Harish's decision.

"If the attorney-general had decided to serve an indictment (against Demjanjuk), I wouldn't have seen any reason to interfere," he said.

Levin stressed that he accepted the argument advanced by one of the petitioners, the Canadian human rights group InterAmicus, that international law obliges Israel to try war criminals, even if the outcome isn't assured. However, he added, this obligation doesn't extend to cases where the attorney-general believes the chances of conviction are "small."

In contrast, he rejected the argument that letting Demjanjuk go would discourage other countries from prosecuting war criminals.

"The obligation to try the Nazis and their helpers continues to apply in all its force," he wrote.

Unlike Levin, Bach considered two of Harish's four arguments to be unreasonable: The extradition problem could be solved by asking the US to agree to another trial, he noted, while he interpreted the Supreme Court's comment about the length of the proceedings as referring only to a continuation of that trial, which had revolved around Treblinka. It would have been unreasonable, he said, to return the case to a lower court on different charges, but that did not mean the attorney-general couldn't serve a new indictment.

However, he continued, both the double jeopardy argument and the evidential concerns were reasonable enough that the court could not overturn Harish's decision.

Like Levin, however, Bach stressed that reasonable was not the same as correct.

"It isn't at all easy to accept letting this man go free, without even trying to convict him on the alternative charges mentioned in the (Supreme Court) verdict," he wrote. "Human feeling and plain sense revolt against the failure to exercise any possible means, within the framework of the law, to punish someone suspected of participating in crimes as terrible as these."

In contrast to both Levin and Bach, Cheshin's decision revolved almost exclusively around the Supreme Court's statement on dragging out the proceedings. Like Harish, Cheshin interpreted this statement as a virtual order.

The justices' decision caused consternation among many in the packed courtroom.

"You bring shame to the Jewish people," one spectator shouted at the court.

"I believe in the justices," said petitioner Dov Freiberg, a Sobibor survivor. "I can't say they are bad people. But I cannot understand how they can let a murderer go free. I was in Sobibor for 17 months. I saw what the Ukrainians did - and they did it with enthusiasm."

Irwin Cotler, professor of law at McGill University in Montreal and president of InterAmicus, said he was not surprised by the ruling, since Harish's decision left the court little choice.

"But I was very disappointed in the position taken by the attorney-general," he added.

Cotler said he did not believe the verdict would discourage other war crimes trials - if it were actually read, and people saw that Demjanjuk had been released due to procedural problems unique to this case.

"But it could have an adverse effect if it is left unread," he warned.

Demjanjuk's attorney, Yoram Sheftel, was furious at the court for a different reason - the fact that his client is still not being permitted to leave the country.

"The man was acquitted, whether people like the decision or not," he told the court. "There's no reason to delay the deportation order a second time."

Kach leader Baruch Marzel threatened Demjanjuk's life after the ruling.

"We will make justice. Demjanjuk one day will be killed by good Jews and not by corrupt Jews like we have in the High Court.. He'll be dead in a short period," he said.

GRAPHIC: Illustration: Photo; Caption: Yisrael Yehezkeli, one of the Holocaust survivors who had petitioned the High Court, expresses his disgust to the press after yesterday's decision that John Demjanjuk should not be tried for crimes at death camps other than Treblinka. Credit: Efraim Kilshtok.

LOAD-DATE: August 19, 1993

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A10

LENGTH: 353 words

HEADLINE: 4,500 Jews left Russia last month, meeting told

BYLINE: By Olivia Ward Toronto Star

DATELINE: MONTREAL

BODY:
MONTREAL - Last month a record 4,500 Soviet Jews were allowed to leave the U.S.S.R., says a senior Israeli diplomat.

And, he said, next week staff in Moscow will move back into the Israeli consulate that was closed down 20 years ago when relations between the two countries broke down.

"These are great advances, and there's no doubt that they come from very large changes within the Soviet Union," New York Consul Shmuel Shenhar told the Canadian Jewish Congress's plenary meeting yesterday.

"But we must not forget there are still 2,788 refuseniks who have been actively trying to leave the country for at least two years."

Shenhar said that the warming of relations between Israel and the Soviet Union is encouraging, but it would be premature for North Americans to give up the cause of Soviet Jewry.

In Moscow, he said, seven consular staff members will soon be working in the building abandoned in 1969. Since then the Dutch consulate has acted as a diplomatic base for Israel.

Contentious topic

Shenhar was one of a panel that discussed the issue of Soviet emigration at the three-day plenary session of the national Jewish organization. About 1,000 delegates are gathered to vote on resolutions of major importance to the Jewish community in Canada.

Until recently Soviet emigration was a motherhood issue. But since Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost brought unexpected advances in human rights, it has become a contentious topic.

"We've gone from a situation where nobody can leave, to one where new records are being set," said McGill law professor Irwin Cotler, an advocate for many prominent Soviet dissidents.

"What people don't realize is that Israel is faced with enormous settlement costs, and hasn't got the dollars to accomplish the task.

"The best solution is a two-track exit system," he said, pointing out that the Soviet Union has agreed to allow Jews to leave with visas to other countries as well as Israel.

Cotler said the U.S. must also change its policy of allowing Soviet Jews refugee status, and instead let them into the country as immigrants.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A6

LENGTH: 439 words

HEADLINE: DAY CRITICIZED, PRAISED FOR STAND ON UN VOTE CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

BYLINE: CP

BODY:
Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day is over his head wading into the turbulent waters of Middle East politics, says a spokesperson for Arab- Islamic Canadians.

"It's a serious faux pas in terms of his support within the Arab-Canadian and Islamic communities," Ian Watson of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations said yesterday from Ottawa.

"He doesn't really understand the depth of feeling. He doesn't quite understand the ramifications of taking a strong position on something that is so dear to the hearts of a very large number of Canadians."

Day slammed the federal government this week over its support of a UN resolution that condemns Israel's use of excessive force against Palestinians.

Day said the resolution is "clearly slanted with anti-Israel bias" and the federal government made a mistake by taking sides.

But Day is the one choosing sides, Watson said.

"He has now put himself on the record as supporting a country that is flagrantly abusing its position as the occupier in terms of excess use of force against unarmed civilians . . . he's also now on record and the party's now on record, unless they retract, as opposing Canadian support for the application of international law."

Watson called on Day to retract his remarks.

But Day, on a pre-election campaign swing through Manitoba, said Arab-Canadians he has talked to haven't objected to what he said.

"We've been very careful not to say it's the fault of the Muslim community or the Arab community or the Jewish community . . . we're saying 'Let's be sensitive to both sides.' "

Day's view was unexpectedly echoed by a Liberal MP.

"I don't object to the critique of Israel," Montreal MP Irwin Cotler told CBC-TV. "I object to the fact that the resolution was unbalanced and contained no critique of the violence against Israel."

Cotler, a former president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he didn't see this as breaking with his party.

"I see this as a critique of the process of international human rights law with which we are all engaged."

Both the congress and the Canada-Israel Committee were pleased with Day's position on the resolution.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jean Chretien issued a statement deploring the growing violence in the Middle East.

"Canadians are deeply concerned by the escalating tension and mounting loss of life in the region and call on both parties to exercise strong and decisive leadership to put a stop to hostilities," he said.

"I call on them not to let the events of the past few weeks undo all the progress they have made toward a just and lasting peace . . ."

LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2000

SECTION: v.38(11) Jl 3'97 pg 9; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 3938223

LENGTH: 1600 words

HEADLINE: Human rights, Judaism and the law

BYLINE: Matas, David

BODY:
Thank you for making me the Lord Reading Law Society Honoree for 1997. I appreciate the gesture. It encourages me to continue with my human rights work.

The Lord Reading Society, I learned tonight, was founded in Montreal in 1948 and named after the first Jewish member of the judicial committee of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. The society was founded to combat discrimination against Jews in the legal profession in Quebec.

It is heartening to see that the human rights work of the society continues and that the society's values endure in a larger arena, now that the discrimination which gave it birth has largely ended. I cannot persuade you of the need for human rights work, because you were already persuaded before I arrived.

Since this is an award given by an association of predominantly Jewish lawyers, I thought I would make some remarks about the connection of law and of Judaism to my human rights work.

For me, the law has been a source of ammunition and of frustration. For many of my cases, the court room is the arena for a human rights battle. The law library is the arsenal from which the weapons are drawn. The arms are not just human rights law, but, as well, for the battles I have fought, administrative law, the law of evidence, the law of civil procedure, international law and criminal law. I have been in private practice since 1973 and in those 24 years, I have been part of many victories and many defeats.

In the case I argued of Fernando Molina in 1979, Justice Rhodes Smith of the Federal Court Trial Division held that reasons had to be given for the refusal of a refugee claim. Following that decision, Ron Atkey, then minister of immigration in the Tory government of the day, changed government policy and decided that reasons for refusals would be given in all refugee cases. That policy has now become a commonplace to the point where the duty to give reasons for a refugee refusal is written into the current Immigration Act.

In the case of Albert Helmut Rauca, in 1983 at the Ontario Court of Appeal, I intervened on behalf of the Canadian Jewish Congress, as did Irwin Cotler, who is here tonight. We intervened on the side of the Crown, arguing that an accused Nazi mass murderer who was a Canadian citizen could be extradited to stand trial in Germany despite the right to remain in Canada given to Canadian citizens in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our arguments were accepted and Rauca was extradited to Germany, where he died in jail.

In the case of John Ross Taylor in 1989 at the Supreme Court of Canada, I intervened on behalf of B'nai Brith, as Irwin Cotler did on behalf of the Canadian Jewish Congress, to argue on the side of the Crown that provisions in the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibiting the use of the telephone to communicate hate speech were constitutionally valid despite the guarantee of freedom of speech in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court accepted that argument, and upheld the ban on hate speech. Taylor went to jail for his refusal to abide by the banning order of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. That decision now looms in importance with the spread of hate speech through the Internet, since Internet communication is at its base telephone communication.

These were a few of our successes. But there were many failures. I learned that the law as a weapon in the battle for human rights is as likely to blow up in your hands as to hit its target.

In the case of Imre Finta, I intervened at the Supreme Court of Canada for B'nai Brith, to argue on the side of the Crown for a retrial. The Supreme Court of Canada nonetheless, in 1994, upheld Finta's acquittal, even though the trial judge had allowed Finta's counsel to put to the jury the defence that Finta was justified in shipping Jews off to Auschwitz crammed in cattle cars, because Finta genuinely believed prevalent Nazi propaganda that all Jews, including children, were traitors.

Though we like to link law and justice, the stark reality is that law is often the handmaiden of massive injustice, the sword of the oppressor rather than the shield of the oppressed. Doctors swear the Hippocratic oath, swear not to use their skills to harm and kill their patients. Lawyers take no such oath and often behave in no such way. The United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, adopted in 1990, state that lawyers shall seek to uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, that duty is not part of the code of ethics of law societies in Canada. It is not part of the oath of office of judges. Doctors will not take part in execution because it violates the Hippocratic oath to do so. Lawyers, on the other hand, just a few miles south of us in the United States, without hesitation prosecute death penalty cases and judges impose the death penalty, without the thought crossing their minds that it might violate their professional ethics. Lawyers in a frightening number of countries in the world offer evidence in court that is obtained by torture. Judges admit that evidence and base their findings on it, again without a twitch of professional conscience.

So, for me, in my pursuit of human rights, law has been ambivalent, sometimes a friend, as often an enemy. The ideal of law is justice. However, day to day justice is far from the reality. Law can be used and is used to inflict injustice. However, if the ideal of justice is ever to be realized, surely we lawyers must play an important part.

My Judaism is a different matter. It is at the core of why I am involved in the human rights battle. It is a source of commitment and determination. I do not mean that I am inspired by the Jewish religious texts, although surely there is much there that is inspirational. Rather, what has sparked my dedication to human rights values is being part of the Jewish people, a people that was targeted for total extermination in the Holocaust during my lifetime. Ishmael, in Herman Melville's novel, Moby Dick, cads his tragic tale of Captain Ahab and the ship Pequod by quoting from the book of Job, saying: "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."

Strictly speaking, I am not a survivor of the Holocaust, since all four of my grandparents came to Canada before World War I. Yet, in a very real sense, I and every Jewish person are survivors of the Holocaust. Six million Jews were killed. All Jews were targeted. It is only the fortunes of war that gave us an Allied rather than an Axis victory in World War II. If the Axis powers had won, not I, not one Jewish person would be alive today. We only have escaped alone to tell the world. And tell the world we must. If we can give any meaning at all to the meaningless slaughter of so many millions of innocents, we must learn the lessons of the Holocaust. But these are lessons we must learn ourselves. They will not descend from Heaven like the holy Jewish texts. They rather ascend from hell, the inferno of total conflagration from which the remnants of the Jewish community escaped. Elie Wiesel in his novel Twilight writes: "It may not be in man's power to erase society's evil, but he must become its conscience." For the lessons of the Holocaust to have their greatest reverberation, for the deaths of the Holocaust to have their greatest meaning, we must avoid narrowing its focus in future just to "how to protect the Jewish community."

We must learn the larger lessons of how to protect all humanity from its oppressors. To say, never again, is easy. To make it happen is not so easy. The reality is since World War II, genocide has happened again and again, not to Jews, but to Cambodians, to Hutus, to Tutsis, to Bosnians, to Somalis and even more.

In biblical times, God made a covenant with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to make their descendants multiply like the stars in heaven and the sand upon the sea shore. In modern times, after the Holocaust, after so really observant and non-observant, rabbis and scholars were murdered, the painful question must be asked: Where is that covenant now? But there are no answers. Thus, in a secular world, we must make our own individual covenants with reality, to combat human rights violations wherever they are found. The fate of millions depends on it. That is a duty that falls on everyone, not just the Jewish people. But surely the Jewish people who have suffered so much and escaped so narrowly must learn that lesson first, must learn that lesson best.

The post-war international human rights movement began as a reaction to the Holocaust. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the Genocide Convention of 1951, the Refugee Convention of 1951 were all adopted as so many attempted lessons learned from the Shoah. While the legacy of the Holocaust belongs to all humanity, if we who are Jewish put that legacy aside, how many others will take it up? The lessons I have attempted to draw from the Holocaust are that we must prosecute, convict and punish mass murderers ban hate speech, protect refugees and never accept in silence gross violations of human rights, wherever they occur. Virtually all of my human rights work has been dedicated to acting on these lessons. I do not claim that these are the only lessons to be learned from the Holocaust, though I am partial to them. What I do claim is that the Jewish community cannot turn a blind eye to the Holocaust and lead our daily lives as if it never happened.

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: July 07, 1999

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

LENGTH: 726 words

HEADLINE: Nazi inquiry will gather evidence in Soviet Union

BYLINE: By David Vienneau Toronto Star

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
OTTAWA - A commission investigating suspected Nazi war criminals in Canada will travel to the Soviet Union to collect evidence against suspects hiding here, Judge Jules Deschenes announced today.

"It is worth recalling that this commission is not trying anybody," Deschenes said in a statement. "It is an inquiry into allegations of war crimes and for that purpose it must hear and collect evidence wherever it may be.

"That process cannot and should not be prevented."

Deschenes' commission has compiled a list of 660 alleged Nazis living in Canada, including eight against whom serious allegations have been made. Evidence against them will now be collected in the Soviet Union, Poland, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands.

The decision is almost certain to anger many Canadians of Ukrainian origin, who have argued that any evidence provided by the Soviets will be tainted and unreliable.

But Deschenes, a Quebec Superior Court judge, said in his 47-page statement that he realizes the anguish his decision will cause many Canadians of East European descent.

Stir emotions

"The commission is fully conscious of the emotions which a discussion of this question is bound to stir, especially among Canadians who have known in their own flesh the crimes on account of which the commission was created," he said.

"Yet the crimes which are alleged against certain individuals residing in Canada were committed abroad, documents and eyewitnesses are scattered in many countries, and the question of foreign evidence cannot be avoided."

Deschenes stressed that because of the concerns about unreliable evidence, the facts will be gathered under the strictest of safeguards.

These safeguards include the protection of the identities of the Canadian suspects, the examination of original documents only, the hiring of independent interpreters and the commission obtaining access to any statements made previously by witnesses it plans to hear.

In addition, testimony of witnesses will be videotaped, Deschenes said, and the inquiry will operate under Canadian rules of evidence.

Two deputies

Deschenes will not personally travel with the inquiry. He intends to appoint two deputy-commissioners who will be responsible for collecting foreign evidence. These could be commission co-counsel Yves Fortier and Michael Meighen.

"The power of this commission to hear foreign evidence appeared to be firmly embedded in the form of Canadian law and practice," Deschenes said. "This is not a recognition of the Soviet legal system," but of the Canadian legal system.

The commission was established earlier this year to determine how many Nazis are in Canada, how they got here and what could be done about bringing them to justice.

When Deschenes raised the possibility of travelling to the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian community protested loudly. It has raised $2 million to fight accusations that some of its members are war criminals.

Toronto lawyer Y.R. Botiuk, who represents the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army before the inquiry, said he was "flabbergasted" at the decision.

"Corrupt' evidence

Any Soviet evidence "is politically motivated and corrupt and is therefore unreliable," Botiuk said. "Soviet evidence is all collected by the KGB (Soviet secret police), so our deputy commissioners will only be looking at one side of the story."

But Irwin Cotler, a spokesman for the Canadian Jewish Congress, praised today's decision.

"It recognizes the integrity of the Canadian legal system and provides the necessary safeguards," he said in an interview.

Sol Littman, Canadian representative of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said it would have been "catastrophic" had Deschenes not made the decision to travel.

"It indicates the commission is forging ahead and is doing its utmost to examine every piece of evidence available," he said in an interview. "It was an inevitable decision. Justice requires it."

Canada has taken action against only one suspected war criminal here, Helmut Rauca, 73, of Willowdale, a former staff sergeant in Hitler's SS who came to Canada in 1950.

Rauca was extradited to West Gernmay three years ago on charges he supervised the killings of 11,584 Lithuanian Jews and others during the war, but he died in prison before his trial.

LOAD-DATE: May 13, 1999

SECTION: CANADA/WORLD; Pg. A7

LENGTH: 442 words

HEADLINE: Alliance's Day criticized for comments on Mideast issue

SOURCE: CP

BODY:
Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day is over his head wading into the turbulent waters of Middle East politics, says a spokesman for Arab-Islamic Canadians.

"It's a serious faux pas in terms of his support within the Arab-Canadian and Islamic communities," Ian Watson of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations said yesterday from Ottawa.

"He doesn't really understand the depth of feeling, he doesn't quite understand the ramifications of taking a strong position on something that is so dear to the hearts of a very large number of Canadians."

Day slammed the federal government earlier this week over its support of a UN resolution that condemns Israel's use of excessive force against Palestinians.

Day said the resolution is "clearly slanted with anti-Israel bias" and the federal government made a mistake by taking sides.

But Day is the one choosing sides, said Watson.

"He has now put himself on the record as supporting a country that is flagrantly abusing its position as the occupier in terms of excess use of force against unarmed civilians... he's also now on record and the party's now on record, unless they retract, as opposing Canadian support for the application of international law."

Watson called on Day to retract his remarks.

But Day, on a pre-election campaign swing through Manitoba, said yesterday that Arab-Canadians he has talked to haven't objected to what he said.

"We've been very careful not to say it's the fault of the Muslim community or the Arab community or the Jewish community... we're saying 'Let's be sensitive to both sides.' "

Day's view was unexpectedly echoed by a Liberal MP yesterday.

"I don't object to the critique of Israel," Montreal MP Irwin Cotler told CBC-TV.

"I object to the fact that the resolution was unbalanced and contained no critique of the violence against Israel."

Cotler, a former president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he didn't see this as breaking with his party.

"I see this as a critique of the process of international human rights law with which we are all engaged."

Both the congress and the Canada-Israel Committee were pleased with Day's position on the resolution.

"We were happy to hear and to realize Stockwell Day and the Canadian Alliance understood our position and declared their opposition to what we considered a very unhelpful action on the part of the Canadian government," Robert Ritter, executive director of the committee, said from Ottawa.

The resolution blames Israel entirely for what's going on in the Middle East and doesn't recognize "the violence initiated and incited by the Palestinian authority," Ritter added.

LOAD-DATE: December 2, 2002

SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 7

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HEADLINE: Painful Concessions

BYLINE: Gail Lichtman

HIGHLIGHT:
The families of victims of Palestinian terror attacks voice their objection to the release of convicted Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

BODY:
The Boim family of Har Nof has an extra reason to celebrate this Rosh Hashana weekend. Their daughter's wedding is coming up. But mixed with this joy is a terrible sadness for the child who will never grow up and never marry: 16-year-old David, machine-gunned to death by Palestinian terrorists in May of 1996 as he waited for a bus to take him home from school in Beit El.

And in Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion, the Dasberg family will watch four-year-old Yishai and six-year-old Dvir eat their apples and honey knowing that both boys have been sentenced to live the rest of their lives without their parents - Efrat (Effie) and Yaron Ungar, who were killed in a drive-by shooting by Palestinian terrorists on a road near Beit Shemesh in June of 1996.

David and the Ungars are three of nearly 400 Israelis who have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists since the Oslo Accords in 1993. The signing of Wye Plus, with its provision for the release of 350 convicted Palestinian terrorists, last Saturday night at Sharm-el-Sheik, has enraged the victims' families and left them wondering just what kind of justice there is in the State of Israel.

In the week leading up to Wye Plus, the families held a vigil outside the Knesset, met with MKs and repeatedly tried to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Barak to express their views.

"This is the first Israeli prime minister in history that has not had time to meet with the victims and their families," notes Yehudit Dasberg, Effie's mother. "I was very disappointed. He was too busy for us, yet he had time to meet with representatives of the murderers. And he says he is the prime minister of all the people."

"For the families to see these murderers go free is like reliving the murder all over again," says Shifra Hoffman, a popular columnist for the New York newspaper The Jewish Press and founder and president of Victims of Arab Terror (VAT). VAT, which publicizes the plight of victims, acts as a charitable organization and serves as a support group for terror victims and their families, has organized a petition drive urging Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak "not to release terrorists with blood on their hands. Terrorists must pay for their crimes."

Hoffman points out that the release of convicted terrorists is a violation of international law. This is backed up by Irwin Cotler, a distinguished professor of law at McGill University in Montreal and an international human rights lawyer. Writing in last weekend's Jerusalem Post, Cotler called the release of prisoners with blood on their hands "an utter disregard for the international law principles - including the Nuremberg Principles." He noted that "states are obliged to prosecute and punish the perpetrators of international crimes such as terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity as a matter of fidelity to the law." He also noted that "the notion that a subordinate who committed a crime could be relieved of responsibility by demonstrating that he or she acted pursuant to orders of a superior was unequivocally rejected in the Nuremberg Charter." The 'I-was-only-following- orders' defense has also been repeatedly rejected by subsequent international tribunals.

Cotler also went on to state that "there can be no justice without peace, but there can be no peace without justice." For Joyce Boim, David's mother, who made aliyah with her family from New York City in 1985, the past three years have been a struggle for justice. She is one of the founders of Killer Watch, an organization which tries to monitor if terrorist murderers are really in prison in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

David was killed by Khalil Sharif, a graduate of Bir Zeit University, and Amjad Hinawi. In February 1997, Hinawi was convicted by a Palestinian court after he admitted to killing David. "He was tried and convicted the day after I got back from a tour of the US which included meeting with senators and congressmen about justice for David's murder," Boim recalls. "He got 10 years, which is not equal to my son's life."

Since then, Boim has been trying to verify that Hinawi is really being held in prison and/or to have him extradited to the US, since David was an American citizen.

"The American consulate keeps assuring me that Hinawi is in prison, but the consular officers admit that they do not have a picture of him, nor do they have his fingerprints," Boim says. "They also phone the PA before they come to check up on Hinawi. They seem to be going through the motions and nothing more."

Boim has been repeatedly frustrated in her extradition efforts. "An American court of law will not accept Hinawi's confession because they say that the PA uses torture," she continues. "We have witnesses who are willing to identify Hinawi but more than three years have passed and no one has ever put him in a lineup. The FBI comes every year to gather information but the Justice Department and the State Department don't want to rock the boat. After all, we are involved in the peace process and that seems to be more important to them than justice."

The other murderer, Sharif, was either apprehended and released by the PA or never apprehended. Boim's information on this is sketchy. But in September 1997, Sharif resurfaced as one of three suicide bombers who killed five people, including three teenage girls, and injured hundreds in the terrorist attack on the Ben Yehuda Street Pedestrian Mall.

"The pain of even thinking about the release of the murderers has literally made me physically ill," Boim says. "Even though none of those they are talking about releasing is David's murderer, there are murderers of Jewish men, women and children among them. If a murderer is given a life sentence by a judge, what gives anyone else the right to let him out? How many have been let out in previous exchanges only to go on to kill again? It is like Chelm. I pray every day that G-d will avenge David's death. I will not stop trying. I am just sad about the complacency of people in Israel and Jews abroad. It seems we must not do anything that might derail the peace process."

For the Dasbergs, the prisoner release is far more personal. Effie and Yaron were murdered by a six-man gang that also killed Oz Tivon, Yaniv Shimel, soldier Sharon Edri and the Munk family, as well as three young women in the Apropo cafe bombing in Tel Aviv. Four of the gang members are in jail in Israel. Abed Ghanimat, who planned the murders and the Apropo bombing, is among those whose release is being demanded by the PA. Of the other two members of the gang, one blew himself up during Apropo and the other is at large somewhere in the PA.

Five bullets entered the Ungar's car, killing Effie and Yaron instantly. Also in the car, sleeping in the back seat, was nine-month-old Yishai, who miraculously escaped unharmed. Dvir, who was almost two at the time, was at grandma's and grandpa's house.

"I don't have the energy to check on the murderers," Yehudit Dasberg admits. "I am too busy raising my children and grandchildren. We all have to struggle to survive after our tragedies. Each of us must find his own way. It is important for me that my children's murderers be brought to justice. But I spend most of my time trying to commemorate my daughter's memory and trying to see that the world will continue to benefit from the great light her soul gave out."

However, during the week leading up to Wye Plus, Dasberg ran around trying to stop the handover of murderers. "No one can bring my daughter and her husband back," she states. "The only thing left for us to do is to see that their deaths were not in vain. So it is very important for us to feel that somehow we can stop terror from happening again. Each person killed because we didn't do enough to stop terror turns my daughter's death into something that had no purpose or meaning. The release of convicted murderers only increases the danger that others will be killed. It encourages potential terrorists to act because they feel they can literally 'get away with murder.' Let me remind you that these people are not POWs. They are criminals who were duly tried in courts of law and found guilty. But today, we have a Justice Minister who wants to come along and cancel their legal standing as criminals for a value which he seems to think supersedes justice - peace.

"If he will not defend the rule of law in this country, who will? It is ironic that the State of Israel is the only place today where one can kill Jews just because they are Jews and not be punished. In post-Zionist Israel we have institutionalized anti-Semitism into agreements."

GRAPHIC: Photo: The last Ungar family portrait taken before parents, Yaron and Effie, were killed in a drive-by shooting by Palestinian terrorists in June of 1996. (Credit: Courtesy Of The Ungar Family)

LOAD-DATE: September 16, 1999

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 687 words

HEADLINE: TOP JURISTS RULE ON A REAL ISSUE -- IN A FAKE COUNTRY. IN 'PROTONIA,'
A BAN ON ANTI-SEMITIC BROADCASTS.

BYLINE: By DAVID MAKOVSKY, Jerusalem Post Reporter

HIGHLIGHT:
Jews in Protonia can breathe a sigh of relief after last week's ruling that the courts have a right to block anti-Semitic radio broadcasts.

BODY:
Jews in Protonia can breathe a sigh of relief after last week's ruling that the courts have a right to block anti-Semitic radio broadcasts.

Never heard of Protonia? Didn't know any Jews lived there? The country is fictitious, and the question of whether the courts should intervene in the event of anti-Semitic broadcasts was the focus of a mock trial last week that was the highlight the Eighth International Conference of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, held in Jerusalem and at the Dead Sea.

In a 4-1 decision, the court ruled that such intervention was indeed warranted and that the anti-Semitic broadcasts in Protonia should be stopped.

"Inventing" a state for the trial prevented eager lawyers from pulling an obscure regulation out of their hats and ensured that the legal debate would be confined to principle, rather than technicalities. As it was, both sides saturated the five-judge panel with submissions and documents, simulating real-life court proceedings that are often characterized by overkill.

The scenario for the mock trial was apparently based on a true case that occurred in Sweden, where the authorities last month suspended the operating licence of the Stockholm-based Radio Islam because of its anti-Semitic diatribes. The radio's owner, a Moroccan immigrant, received a six-month sentence on the grounds of racial agitation.

The mock trial scenario, written by Tel Aviv lawyer Yair Ben-David, centred on a private television station owned by a former neo-Nazi leader, Zigfried Heinzhammer. Heinzhammer produced a television series, called A Small Window of History, whose purpose was to "reconstruct and shed new light, the true light, on what really happened in the chain of important, historical events that influenced the history of mankind."

The fictitious television series demonstrated how the Jews were to blame for causing World War I and the Great Depression of 1929, and how the Jews conspired to weave the "myth" of the Holocaust for Zionist purposes. Following the broadcasts, there was a rise of anti-Semitism in Protonia complete with the drawing of swastikas, and there were calls for the banning of Jewish stores. When Heinzhammer ignored the pleas of Protonian Jews to halt the series, Jewish leaders went to court seeking judicial intervention.

Canadian human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler along with Israeli lawyer Amnon Goldenberg argued on behalf of Protonian Jews, saying the series should be banned because it "incited group hatred" against Jews. Cotler, citing precedents in Canadian law, inter alia, contended that society has a strong interest in halting incendiary invective against ethnic groups.

Attorneys arguing the case of the mythical TV station, New York-based Stanley Godofsky and Israeli Amihud Ben-Porat, based their cases on the right of free expression. In their evidence, they pointed to the famed "Skokie case," in which an American court permitted Nazis to march in the Chicago suburb heavily populated by Jews.

Presiding at the trial was Justice Moshe Landau, former president of the Israeli Supreme Court. The other judges were Judge Pierre Drai, president of the Supreme Court of France; State Comptroller and former Supreme Court justice Miriam Ben-Porat; Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S Federal Appeals Court in Washington; and Sir Harry Woolf of the British Court of Appeals.

The verdict to ban further broadcasts of the Small Window series, which was only orally delivered due to time constraints, seemed to reflect the judicial traditions and experiences of the judges more than anything else.

The disssenting judge, Mikva, following an American tradition, suggested that all speech should be protected, however odious, unless it seriously threatened society. Mikva's criterion for banning was reminiscent of what American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes called a "clear and present danger."

The other judges, who did not explain their judgment, seemed to share the belief of Cotler and Goldenberg that the lower threshold of racial incitement was sufficient to ban the television programme in Protonia.

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HEADLINE: Liberals expected to retain support in Montreal (Record in progress)

BYLINE: Arnold, Janice

BODY:
MONTREAL -- Montreal Jews appear ready to continue giving the Liberals their overwhelming support in the Nov. 27 election, even if it is without enthusiasm, in the opinion of most close political observers contacted.

The reasons are varied: habit, lack of comfortable alternatives, strong local Liberal candidates, and diminishing anger over the government's criticism of Israel's handling of the Palestinian uprising.

If the Liberals have anything to be concerned about, it may be an apathy about the election that could translate in not bothering to vote.

''There will be no shift in the traditional support of Montreal Jews for the Liberals,'' affirmed Cote St. Luc Mayor Robert Libman.

''A good 30 percent of Jewish voters live in Mount Royal [riding] and they will have no trouble voting for Irwin Cotler, even if they may hold their nose or grumble while they do it. Chretien's apology for the United Nations vote also won a few people back.''

Elsewhere, Libman thinks there may be a ''small, small dropping off, but it will have no impact on the re-election of the Liberal candidates.''

The disaffected, he believes, will not vote at all because he doubts many Jews would vote for the Canadian Alliance.

He will be watching the results in Pierrefonds-Dollard, where Neil Drabkin - who is Jewish and a former Conservative - is running for the Alliance.

''[Liberal incumbent] Bernard Patry has not been very visible, and the riding has a sizeable Jewish population. It will be interesting to see if Drabkin can make any inroads because of anti-Liberal feeling.''

(There is also a Jewish Alliance candidate in Lachine-Notre-Dame-de-Grace, Darrin Etcovitch, 26, who says he voted Reform in 1997. The Jewish population is small in his riding, and the UN vote was not part of his decision to run.)

McGill University professor Morton Weinfeld, a sociologist with expertise in Canadian Jewry, did not hesitate to state that Montreal Jews remain ''overwhelmingly Liberal.

''There may be some slippage because of the UN resolution, [and because some Canadians think it is time for a change of the guard...But certainly the Alliance has not made much impression on the Jews of Quebec.''

Hampstead Mayor Irving Adessky said Jews admire Cotler's outspoken criticism of his own government as a ''principled stand'' and will want to endorse him.

''The only question in Mount Royal is how high will his majority be?'' (It was 92 per cent in the byelection one year ago.)

In other ridings, ''there is still consternation, but I think when people get into the voting booth they will not see much option besides the Liberals,'' said Adessky.

The only problem the Liberals may have is getting the vote out, Adessky thinks. (The turnout was only 28 per-cent in the 1999 Mount Royal byelection.)

This is due to a general apathy about the election, rather than protest, he said. ''I won't be here Nov. 27, so I voted in the advance poll. But what I hear from other people who will be away, is why bother? What does my vote count?

''People are turned off by this election. There's no buzz in the air,'' Adessky said.

''Jews may be unhappy, but that is not going to translate into a vote for any of the opposition parties, to which there's no strong attachment,'' said Jack Jedwab, director of the Association for Canadian Studies.

''The Alliance has not made any inroads; the Tories are yesterday's news.''

The Liberal incumbents in three ridings with significant Jewish populations are cabinet ministers, he noted, and therefore seen as valuable to have as representatives: Stephane Dion (Saint Laurent-Cartierville), Martin Cauchon (Outremont), and Lucienne Robillard (Westmount-Ville Marie).

''Even if they are upset over the UN vote, Jews see that the issue is not going to be resolved by voting for another party, and it's not likely they are going to stay away from the polls either.''

Carolyn Steinman, who ran for the Conservatives in Mount Royal in 1997, is not so sure Montreal Jews will not send a message to the Chretien government.

''There's a lot of anger and disillusionment, there could be a backlash. Many of my friends say they really like Irwin [Cotler], but he still represents the Liberals. They don't want to vote for anyone else, so they won't vote.''

Their disgruntlement is not only due to the UN vote, but other issues such as taxes, health care and the low dollar, she said.

Ben Shoob says he's the only Jew he knows who will openly state he is voting for the Alliance. Shoob, 62, who lives in Mount Royal, said it has nothing to do with the UN vote.

''Usually I don't vote, but it's time for a change. I'm tired of the arrogance of Chretien and his cronies. I like the Alliance platform; it's time for a tougher government.

''Stockwell Day is a nice guy. He's fresh, he has new ideas...I want to vote for a party that can form a government. The Conservatives can't.''

Besides Cotler, two other Jewish Liberals are seeking re-election in ridings with few Jews: Raymonde Folco (Laval West) and Jacques Saada (Brossard-La Prairie). One of Saada's campaign posters was defaced by graffiti equating the swastika and the Star of David.

'It's time for a change'

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: January 20, 2001

SECTION: v.10(3) D 14'98 pg 21; ISSN: 0847-2998

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LENGTH: 533 words

HEADLINE: The end of free speech? Proposed federal anti-hate laws would further criminalize political discourse [Regina conference]

BYLINE: Parker, Shafer

BODY:
When the federal, provincial and territorial justice ministers met in Regina this past October, few noticed that the concluding communique cryptically announced an agreement on "issues relevant to hate-motivated activities consistent with the charter." The brief announcement heralded proposed laws that some observers call a government-sponsored attack on free speech.

The suggested hate law revisions, which federal justice officials plan to introduce in the Commons next year, toughen the penalties for desecrating churches, cemeteries and other institutions. More important, the categories protected by the Criminal Code's anti-hate provisions would be expanded to include sex, sexual orientation, age and mental or physical disability. In light of the increasingly strident attacks on government-run and church-run Indian residential schools, it is perhaps significant that the new hate law would prevent those accused of denying the Holocaust or other acts of genocide from using the defence of truth.

Paul Fromm, a director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression, is troubled by the government's proposal to allow police to seize materials, including computer hard drives, that contain alleged hate propaganda. He is concerned about the chilling effect of such laws. "Christian ministers and spokesmen for other religions," he says, "will think twice before advancing an unpopular view."

British Columbia Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh has been the most forward among justice ministers in urging adoption of the new measures. In interviews and speeches, he has insisted that hatemongers can be curbed while preserving "academic freedom, freedom of expression and all of those values that [Canadians] cherish."

Other provinces have been quick to join Mr. Dosanjh. Peter Tadman, a spokesman for Alberta Justice Minister Jon Havelock, the proposals are "still in the formative stages." "But we will continue to work co-operatively on any changes dealing with hate-related activities. Alberta is a strong supporter of legislation to deal with hate-motivated crime." Asked about the implications for free speech for, say, Christians, Mr. Tadman says, "Hate-motivated law is not designed to prohibit expression of religious beliefs."

Despite these assurances, some academics frankly acknowledge that hate laws limit free speech. "No right is absolute," argued McGill law professor Irwin Cotler at Edmonton's International Human Rights Conference. "Hate speech is an assault on a society that, like Canada's, is built on multiculturalism and respect for group identity." Prof. Cotler explicitly rejected comparing Canadian freedoms to those enjoyed in the U.S., because that country, unlike Canada, has not ratified UN-sponsored covenants that prohibit racist and hate speech.

Asked how to distinguish between hate speech and political discourse, Prof. Cotler said a person has to look at context and underlying purpose. "One looks at the target of the speaker," he responded. "Is he searching for truth, or using words as assault weapons to systematically reduce the status of a minority in the eyes of the rest of the community?"

JOURNAL-CODE: 0532

LOAD-DATE: July 01, 1999

SECTION: v.31(26) Je 14'01 pg 1,30; ISSN: 0008-3941

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5145191

LENGTH: 644 words

HEADLINE: Ottawa proclaims Wallenberg Day

BYLINE: Koven, Diane

BODY:
OTTAWA -- Sixteen years after he was named Canada's only honorary citizen, the federal government has proclaimed Jan. 17 as Raoul Wallenberg Day.

The historic move, announced earlier this month at a special reception on Parliament Hill, will pay tribute to the Swedish World War II hero who rescued more Jews from certain death than any single government.

''In honouring Raoul Wallenberg each year on Jan. 17, we will honour the courage, character and humanity of an exceptional individual,'' said Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps at the June 5 reception. ''Raoul Wallenberg Day will ensure that this man's heroism will live on in posterity.''

In 1944, Wallenberg, scion of a wealthy Swedish banking family, was dispatched to Budapest as a diplomat to save as many Jews as possible from the Nazi death machine. In a matter of months, he printed and distributed thousands of fake Swedish passports, called Schutzpasses, which placed holders under the protection of the neutral Swedish government.

He also persuaded the Nazis to call off the destruction of Budapest's Jewish ghetto, with its 50,000 inhabitants. In all, Wallenberg is credited with saving the lives of some 100,000 Hungarian Jews.

But on Jan. 17, 1945, the invading Soviets arrested the hero as an American spy and took him into ''protective custody.'' He was never seen again, save for alleged sightings by former prisoners of the Soviet gulag. For decades, Soviet officials said Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in 1945 while in prison.

''Of his subsequent fate,'' said Copps, ''we know only that it could not have been good.''

Raoul Wallenberg Day will coincide with the anniversary of his arrest.

The Department of Canadian Heritage is planning an educational program in all of Canada's schools, to teach about Wallenberg's heroism and to inspire students to follow in his footsteps.

''Every year, students will remember the courage and the ingenuity of one person and how one person changed the world,'' Copps said.

Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, who in the early 1990s headed an international commission of inquiry into Wallenberg's fate, described the announcement as ''a hope fulfilled, a dream realized,'' and paid tribute to MP Clifford Lincoln, chair of the standing committee on Canadian heritage, and Senator Sheila Finestone, who all worked on the initiative for years.

Cotler also recognized the efforts of Dr. Vera Parnes, founder and president of the Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity.

The following evening, nearly 300 people attended a screening at the National Archives of Canada of the Canadian-made, award-winning documentary Raoul Wallenberg: Buried Alive, which has been shown around the world.

The event also marked the establishment of a humanitarian award to be presented annually to honour local people who perform good deeds without thought of reward or accolades.

''The reason that this award is different from others,'' explained Fisher, ''is that the purpose is to recognize people on the front lines of working with people, people whose efforts have not been recognized to date.''

To be known as the Lending Hand Award, the honour will be marked by a special sculpture commissioned from sculptor Bruce Garner, and will be accompanied by a $1,000 donation to the individual's chosen cause or charity.

Nominations are being solicited, and the first award will be presented Oct. 21, [2001].

''We would like to challenge other major cities to also initiate a Lending Hand Award,'' Fisher said. He has spoken to Cotler about the possibility of the local committee assisting the government in spreading the message.

Also last week, Cotler rose in the House of Commons to praise the proclamation, saying it is ''an historic initiative that will have enduring resonance.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2001

SECTION: F 7'01

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LENGTH: 695 words

HEADLINE: Manley looking into allegations China threatened Falun Gong members in Canada

BODY:
OTTAWA (CP) Canadian authorities will investigate whether Chinese diplomats have threatened and intimidated Canadian followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley said Wednesday.

But Manley said he has no evidence that China has carried its repressive war on the outlawed religious sect to Canadian soil.

''We don't call in ambassadors because somebody writes a letter,'' Manley said outside the Commons. ''We'll have to investigate.''

A group of Canadian Falun Gong practitioners alleged Wednesday in a letter and at a news conference that they've been the target of a systematic campaign of ''direct interference, threat, intimidation, and assault by Chinese foreign officials right here in Canada.''

And they accused Chinese consular officials in Toronto of inciting hatred against Falun Gong at a public rally there last month.

''It should distress any Canadian citizen that a foreign government would publicly rally Canadian citizens to condemn the spiritual or religious beliefs of other Canadian citizens,'' Rocco Galati, a lawyer for the Falun Gong Association of Canada, told a news conference.

He accused Chinese diplomats of ''seeing Canadian citizens exercising their freedom of association and belief as an internal Chinese problem on Canadian soil and acting as if they were in Shanghai.''

The subject of foreign diplomats' actions in Canada has been a sensitive one since a Russian attache ran down and killed an Ottawa pedestrian 12 days ago, allegedly while drunk at the wheel. The man exercised diplomatic immunity and returned to Russia, where he's expected to face trial.

Officials at Foreign Affairs knew of past allegations of drunk driving involving the diplomat and Manley has ordered an investigation into why the problem wasn't addressed before it turned deadly.

Irwin Cotler, a Liberal MP who is representing a jailed Falun Gong member in China, said the allegations against the Chinese must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.

''If we would be concerned as we ought to have been with diplomats engaged in impaired driving, then we have to be concerned with diplomats who may be engaged in uttering threats and engaging in criminal conduct,'' said Cotler.

Manley appeared to concur.

''If in fact some of these things have been happening, they'd obviously be of concern to us, but there must be evidence,'' he said.

''The letter contained allegations, it did not contain evidence. We'll follow up. The appropriate authorities will investigate.''

Rob Anders, a Canadian Alliance MP, said the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service has already been contacted by a Calgary man whose business associates were threatened because of their involvement with Falun Gong.

Galati claimed China's consul general in Toronto, Xing Zao Zhou, was accompanied by half a dozen consular officials when he gave a vitriolic speech to a Jan. 23 rally denouncing Falun Gong as an ''evil cult.''

According to a translation provided by Galati, Zhou called Falun Gong ''anti-society, anti-science, anti-people, anti-human rights and anti-China.''

Zhou also described Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi's ''ferocious face like a cornered beast'' and accused him of inciting suicide.

Zhou was recalled to China last week, an official at the Toronto consulate said Wednesday, and his replacement has not yet been named. The official would provide no other details, nor his own name.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, attracted millions of followers in China during the past 10 years with its combination of meditation, exercise and doctrine loosely rooted in Buddhist and Taoist teachings.

China outlawed the sect as a public menace and a threat to Communist party rule in 1999. Falun Gong claims that more than a hundred followers have died at the hands of authorities and thousands have been imprisoned.

''Rather than see this for what it is a very benign, non-political meditation group (Chinese authorities) have in effect converted them into a resistance group by this series of repressions,'' said Cotler.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: April 5, 2001

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LENGTH: 484 words

HEADLINE: Commonwealth Jewish Council meets for biennial conference

BYLINE: Koven, Diane

BODY:
OTTAWA -- Delegates from around the world met recently in Montreal and Ottawa for the Commonwealth Jewish Council biennial conference.

The Commonwealth Jewish Council and Trust, established in 1982, is comprised of representatives of 37 Jewish communities, with Hong Kong having observer status. Headquartered in London, England, the council provides links between Commonwealth Jewish communities, and helps those communities to preserve their religious and cultural heritage.

Following the opening weekend in Montreal, delegates arrived in Ottawa on Sunday, Oct. 14 where they joined members of the community at a concert sponsored by the Embassy of Israel, the Canada-Israel Cultural Foundation and the Vered Israel Cultural and Education Program. The Silver-Garburg Piano Duo - Gil Garburg and wife Sivan Silver - performed three works, including one which had been written for them as a wedding gift by the Israeli composer Sergiu Natra.

The concert, billed as a program of ''Solidarity with Israel,'' was attended by over 450 people.

''By you being here,'' Israel's ambassador to Canada, Haim Divon, said, ''all of us, we are not going to be intimidated and we are not going to cave in. This is our way of expressing solidarity - not through rowdy demonstrations, but through music. This is our way and we shall continue that way.

''With your permission,'' Divon added, ''I would like to dedicate this concert to the well-being of the brave soldiers - American, British and Canadian - who, at this very moment, are risking their lives in order to enable us to continue to attend concerts and to live our lives.''

Deliberations continued throughout the day on Monday on Parliament Hill. Keith Landy, president of Canadian Jewish Congress, welcomed to Canada the delegates from such countries as New Zealand, South Africa, Zambia, Barbados and India.

Following a panel discussion on The Campaign to Delegitimize Israel: Challenges and Responses, a luncheon was held with Liberal MP Irwin Cotler as keynote speaker.

The events of Sept. 11 overshadowed the Durban conference, said Cotler, but in many ways, the Durban conference foreshadowed Sept. 11.

''A conference against racism was turned into a conference of racism against Israel,'' he said, citing many examples of how the proceedings were aimed directly and specifically against Israel. In particular, he pointed out, the NGO (non-governmental organizations) forum was a ''cacophony of hate - every discussion, every pulpit, every expression was underpinned by this cacophony of hate.''

Cotler said the hope for the future lies in Jewish youth. He praised university students' efforts but added that the organized Jewish community must provide more support and education for them in order to make them feel comfortable defending Israel and being Jewish.

''We have to stand up and be count- ???

JOURNAL-CODE: 0561

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LENGTH: 474 words

HEADLINE: Debate important over balance between safety and individual rights: McMurtry (Record in progress)

BYLINE: Marowits, Ross

BODY:
TORONTO (CP) Ordinary Canadians have a responsibility to be vigilant in ensuring that Ottawa's fight against terrorism doesn't cost them their civil liberties, Ontario's chief justice said Monday.

''The pressures on our national Parliament and legislatures as a result of Sept. 11 are virtually unprecedented,'' Roy McMurtry said during a luncheon speech at a downtown Toronto hotel.

''And in the months that lie ahead, a high order of legislative and judicial statesmanship will be needed which will require wisdom, courage and restraint under the watchful eye of an informed public.''

For years before his appointment to the bench in 1991, the former Ontario attorney general was a staunch defender of multiculturalism, spearheading a cabinet committee on race relations.

In 1981, along with Jean Chretien and Saskatchewan's Roy Romanow, McMurtry brokered a resolution to the constitutional impasse which produced the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Chretien was responsible for constitutional negotiations in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet, while Romanow was a Saskatchewan cabinet minister under former premier Allan Blakeney.

Although muzzled by his position as head of Ontario's judicial system, McMurtry strongly suggested Monday that any challenges to constitutionally protected rights must be carefully assessed and debated by their critics.

''I think (concerns) have to be expressed, that's all I can say,'' he said after his speech.

McMurtry said it would be unethical for him to comment specifically on Canadian legislation, but the burly former football player said some of the American and British measures established to combat terrorism are cause for concern.

He cited a New York Times editorial which labelled U.S. President George W. Bush's plans including the establishment of secret military tribunals as a travesty which erode the very values Bush is seeking to protect.

The self-described ''aging chief justice'' highlighted a recent debate between Liberal MP Irwin Cotler and Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association over whether Ottawa's proposed terrorist law strikes an appropriate balance.

While Cotler said existing laws don't protect Canadians from terrorist threats, Borovoy argued that the definition of a terrorist was too broad.

''Even when faced with evil, there must be a respect for basic rights and values, and in Canada's case, the rights and values entrenched in our Charter of Rights,'' McMurtry said.

''When the majority takes away the rights of a minority, that's not democracy.''

As impartial bodies, courts must use their discretion while still reflecting basic societal values, he added.

''They cannot be the transient, revolving fashions of the day. They are not headlines and they reflect history rather than hysteria.''

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: February 20, 2002

SECTION: News

LENGTH: 395 words

HEADLINE: KGB says files fail to provide anything new on Raul Wallenberg's fate

DATELINE: MOSCOW

BODY:
Documents given by the KGB to Swedish authorities neither indicated Raul Wallenberg was still alive in the 1980s, nor undermined the Soviet assertion that the Swedish diplomat died in 1947, a senior KGB official told a press conference here Thursday.

The press conference at KGB headquarters came the day after five documents from KGB files about Wallenberg, the scion of a wealthy banking family who saved the lives of thousands of Jews, were handed over to the Swedes.

Wallenberg's relatives insist he was seen alive by fellow inmates at Vladimir prison, 200 kilometres (120 miles) from Moscow, in the 1980s.

"None of the documents allow it to be said that Raoul Wallenberg is still alive," KGB Vice-Chairman Nikolai Stolianov told journalists, adding that they did not change the official Soviet version of his death of a heart attack in a Moscow prison in 1945.

While serving at the Swedish embassy in German occupied Budapest during World War II, Wallenberg provided thousands of Hungarian Jews with Swedish passports, thus frustrating German efforts to deport them to death camps.

He also bribed Nazi and Hungarian fascist officials and dealt with Adolf Eichmann, a key figure in Nazi plans to exterminate the Jews. Wallenberg was also in touch with Americans. After the Soviet Union occupied Hungary at the end of the war, the Red Army arrested Wallenberg in 1945 and he disappeared.

Stolianov displayed copies of the five documents given to the Swedes. They were a military report alluding to his arrest, a list of persons arrested on February 6, 1945, an extract from a letter by a German lieutenant held in the same prison as Wallenberg and filed in 1949, a report by a diplomat in Budapest on the Swede's activities during World War II, and a KGB internal note dated March 2, 1948, saying Wallenberg was no longer a prisoner, having died the previous year.

A report published in 1989 by an international inquiry commission, headed by Irwin Cotler, a Canadian lawyer, pointed out contradictions in Soviet statements. After first saying Wallenberg died of a heart attack, Soviet authorities later told Cotler he had been murdered, then switched back to giving a heart attack as the cause of death. Cotler also said that two witnesses testified to seeing Wallenberg alive in 1987 at a prison situated between Moscow and Leningrad.

LOAD-DATE: September 5, 1991

DISTRIBUTION: TO CITY DESK

LENGTH: 1134 words

HEADLINE: AMERICAN JEWS AND ISRAELIS TO DISCUSS DIALOGUE

DATELINE: NEW YORK, July 8

BODY:
NEW YORK, July 8 /PRN/ -- No one lives in a vacuum -- least of all, Jews. With Diaspora Jewish communities spread all over the world, it has become increasingly apparent, especially in recent years, that no Jewish community anywhere can make a unilateral decision about its own welfare without that decision having an impact on Jews elsewhere.

The increasingly urgent question is to what degree American, Israeli, or other Jews are obliged to take into account the consequences their actions will have upon other Jews. For example, in forcefully suppressing the rioting on the West Bank, or attacking the Iraqi nuclear installation, did Israel have to consider in advance the effect of these actions upon the standing of Jews abroad -- particularly smaller Jewish communities most vulnerable to anti- Semitism?

Questions such as these will be brought to light and examined in Jerusalem next week at the American Jewish Congress 23rd annual America-Israel Dialogue, which will be held at the Van Leer Institute from July 11-14,[1988].

The America-Israel Dialogue, which has become an annual institution in Israel, provides the opportunity for a select groups of Jews from the English-speaking world to meet their counterparts in Israel for a candid exchange about a topic of concern to both Jewish communities.

This year's topic, "Decision-Making by Israel and American Jews: The Obligation to Take Others (and Each Other) Into Account," is a particularly timely subject, especially in light of recent global events affecting Jews worldwide.

Some of the issues which will be discussed are: Should American Jewish criticism of South Africa be muted out of concern for the safety of the South African Jewish community? And must Israel take Soviet Jewry into account when aligning itself with the U.S. in seeking to limit a Soviet role in the Middle East?

The opening session of the Dialogue will take place on Monday, July 11, 1988 at 8:30 p.m., where presentations will be made by Howard Squadron, past president of the American Jewish Congress, Irwin Cotler, law professor at Harvard and McGill Universities, and Nimrod Novik, policy advisor to Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. The session will be chaired by Robert K. Lifton, president of the American Jewish Congress.

The names of the American and Israeli Dialogue participants follow:

AMERICAN DELEGATION

-- Phil Baum, associate executive director, American Jewish Congress
-- Marshall Breger, chairman, Administrative Conference of the United States; former advisor on Jewish affairs to President Ronald Reagan
-- Irwin Cotler, professor of law, McGill and Harvard Universities; former president, Canadian Jewish Congress
-- Michael Curtis, professor of political science, Rutgers University; president, American Professors for Peace in the Middle East
-- Maier Deshell, editor, Congress Monthly
-- Marvin Feuerwerger, first secretary, United States Embassy, Tel Aviv
-- Glenn Frankel, Jerusalem bureau chief, The Washington Post
-- Alan Gerson, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute; former special assistant to Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick
-- Rita Hauser, attorney; former U.S. representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
-- Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
-- Robert K. Lifton, president, American Jewish Congress
-- Theodore R. Mann, honorary president, American Jewish Congress; former chairman, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
-- Hugh Nissenson, author and novelist
-- Richard Ravitch, chairman, New York City Charter Revision Commission
-- Edward Sanders, attorney; former advisor on Jewish affairs to President Jimmy Carter
-- David Sidorsky, professor of philosophy, Columbia University
-- Henry Siegman, executive director, American Jewish Congress
-- Howard Squadron, honorary president, American Jewish Congress; former chairman, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
-- Shlomo Sternberg, professor of mathematics, Harvard University

ISRAELI DELEGATION

-- Moshe Arens, minister without portfolio; former ambassador to the United States
-- Avraham Avi-Hai, member of the Executive, World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency
-- Colette Avital, assistant director general, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
-- Hanan Bar-On, vice president for international operations and public affairs, Weizmann Institute of Science; former deputy director, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
-- Yehuda Ben-Meir, senior research associate, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies; former deputy foreign minister
-- Arye Carmon, president, Israel-Diaspora Institute, Tel Aviv University
-- Naomi Chazan, senior lecturer, political science department; chairperson, African studies department, Hebrew University
-- David Clayman, Israel director, American Jewish Congress
-- Michal Smoira Cohn, head of music, Israel Broadcasting Authority; president, Council of Women's Organizations in Israel
-- Yael Dayan, author and journalist; member, policy committee, Labor Party
-- Hirsh Goodman, strategic fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; contributing editor, U.S. News and World Report
-- Jehudith Huebner, former ambassador to Norway
-- Avraham Infeld, founder and chairman, Melitz Center for Jewish- Zionist Education
-- Yehudit Karp, deputy attorney general, Ministry of Justice
-- Michael Karpin, editor, "Mebat Sheni" public affairs program, Israel TV
-- David Kretzmer, professor of law, Hebrew University
-- Chaim Kubersky, former director general, Interior Ministry
-- Peter Medding, professor of political science and contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University
-- Nimrod Novik, policy advisor to the foreign minister
-- Zvi Rafiah, private consultant to Israel industry; commentator on American affairs
-- Michael Reiner, director, LEAD Foundation for Leadership, Education and Development
-- Meir Rosenne, chairman-international relations, Shaare Zedek Medical Center; former ambassador to the United States and France
-- Elyakim Rubenstein, secretary of the Cabinet
-- Gideon Samet, member, editorial board Ha'aretz
-- Leah Shakdiel, member, Yeroham Town Council; designated member, Yeroham Religious Council

CONTACT -- Andrea Binder of the American Jewish Congress, 212-879-4500

MCGILL UNIVERSITIES (59%);

SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A5

LENGTH: 582 words

HEADLINE: CHINA'S RIGHTS RECORD TROUBLES TEAM CANADA

BYLINE: SANDRA CORDON, CP

DATELINE: OTTAWA

BODY:
Prime Minister Jean Chretien has visions of billion-dollar trade deals but the nightmare of China's human rights record will also haunt his Team Canada trade mission to the Communist country.

The prime minister leaves today amid calls from activists and MPs -- including some Liberals -- to press Chinese leaders on improving their country's human rights record while he talks trade. Chretien insists both are priorities.

But on his largest trade mission ever -- more than 600 business leaders and educators plus provincial premiers -- expansion of Canada's $ 13.9 billion in annual trade with China will likely dominate.

Chretien insists that during the 10-day mission to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, he'll raise Canada's concerns about China's crackdown on pro-democracy forces, religious groups and other perceived threats.

That includes the outlawed Falun Gong meditation movement and Tibet's 50-year-old demand for autonomy.

"We always raise the problem" of rights abuses, Chretien said this week. " We are not shy to raise these issues.

"The problem is, it is their decision to implement the policies. We raise the problem and we engage in dialogue, but we're not running China."

His packed itinerary includes no formal, private meetings with Chinese leaders including Li Peng, chairperson of the National People's Congress. Instead, at every official event, Chretien will be accompanied by an entourage of premiers and territorial leaders.

The only no-show will likely be Alberta's Ralph Klein, who is on the verge of an election call.

It will be the swan song for two others -- Saskatchewan's Roy Romanow, who just stepped aside as premier, and Quebec's Lucien Bouchard, who will give his last speech as premier in Shanghai.

Canada must make the most of its moral and political clout on the trip to speak out on human rights, said Liberal MP Irwin Cotler.

"This trade mission cannot proceed as if it's business as usual," Cotler, a human rights lawyer, warned in the Commons.

Companies should be concerned about doing business with a state that doesn't respect even basic laws, he said later.

"Trade and human rights are inextricably bound up together . . . and a country that will respect human rights will also be a country that will respect the integrity of international commerce."

Cotler also wants Chretien to raise the case of jailed Falun Gong follower ShenLi Lin, a Chinese man married to a Canadian. Lin was in the process of emigrating to Canada with his wife when he was arrested 13 months ago in China.

Cotler is encouraged that Canada's intervention helped win the release last month of another jailed Falun Gong supporter, KunLun Zhang, who has dual Canadian-Chinese citizenship.

Officials say Chretien will "talk about Canadian values" during two major speeches touching on democratic principles, including rule of law.

Chinese officials will likely quiz the prime minister on Washington's latest thinking concerning its nuclear missile defence shield. China and Russia oppose the project, which they say will accelerate the arms race. Canada has held its tongue for fear of offending the U.S.

Chretien has current information from his first state visit this week with U.S. President George W. Bush.

There are other controversies dogging the visit to Canada's third-largest trading partner. Despite Health Minister Allan Rock's opposition to smoking, tobacco industry representatives are among Team Canada delegates.

LOAD-DATE: February 9, 2001

SECTION: F 8'01

CBCA-ACC-NO: 5044473

LENGTH: 642 words

HEADLINE: Largest Team Canada ever: More than 600 organizations join Chretien in China

(Record in progress)

BODY:
OTTAWA (CP) Prime Minister Jean Chretien has visions of billion-dollar trade deals but the nightmare of China's human rights record will also haunt his Team Canada trade mission to the Communist country.

The prime minister leaves Friday amid calls from activists and MPs including some Liberals to press Chinese leaders on improving their country's human rights record while he talks trade.

Chretien insists both are priorities.

But on his largest trade mission ever more than 600 business leaders and educators plus provincial premiers expansion of Canada's $13.9 billion in annual trade with China will likely dominate.

Chretien insists that during the 10-day mission to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, he'll raise Canada's concerns about China's crackdown on pro-democracy forces, religious groups and other perceived threats.

That includes the outlawed Falun Gong meditation movement and Tibet's 50-year-old demand for autonomy.

''We always raise the problem'' of rights abuses, Chretien said this week. ''We are not shy to raise these issues.

''The problem is, it is their decision to implement the policies. We raise the problem and we engage in dialogue, but we're not running China.''

His packed itinerary includes no formal, private meetings with Chinese leaders including Li Peng, chairman of the National People's Congress.

Instead, at every official event, Chretien will be accompanied by an entourage of premiers and territorial leaders.

The only no-show will likely be Alberta's Ralph Klein, who is on the verge of an election call.

It will be the swan song for two others Saskatchewan's Roy Romanow, who just stepped aside as premier, and Quebec's Lucien Bouchard, who will give his last speech as premier in Shanghai.

Canada must make the most of its moral and political clout on the trip to speak out on human rights, said Liberal MP Irwin Cotler.

''This trade mission cannot proceed as if it's business as usual,'' Cotler, a human rights lawyer, warned in the Commons.

Companies should be concerned about doing business with a state that doesn't respect even basic laws, he said later.

''Trade and human rights are inextricably bound up together ... and a country that will respect human rights will also be a country that will respect the integrity of international commerce.''

Cotler also wants Chretien to raise the case of jailed Falun Gong follower ShenLi Lin, a Chinese man married to a Canadian.

Lin was in the process of immigrating to Canada with his wife when he was arrested 13 months ago in China.

Cotler is encouraged that Canada's intervention helped win the release last month of another jailed Falun Gong supporter, KunLun Zhang, who has dual Canadian-Chinese citizenship.

Officials say Chretien will ''talk about Canadian values'' during two major speeches touching on democratic principles, including rule of law.

Chinese officials will likely quiz the prime minister on Washington's latest thinking concerning its nuclear missile defence shield.

China and Russia are opposed to the project, concerned it will accelerate the arms race. Canada has held its tongue for fear of offending the U.S.

Chretien has up-to-date information from his first state visit this week to President George Bush.

There are other controversies dogging the visit to Canada's third-largest trading partner.

Despite Health Minister Allan Rock's opposition to smoking, tobacco industry representatives are among Team Canada delegates.

And Team Canada has begun to accept corporate sponsors, led by Bank of Montreal and Canada Post, which have paid $50,000 each for the publicity boost.

But the timing of the trip is attractive, helping to position Canadian companies for China's expected accession to the World Trade organization later this year.

JOURNAL-CODE: 1418

LOAD-DATE: January 13, 2003

SECTION: (559) O 16'00 pg 1,15; ISSN: 0848-0427

CBCA-ACC-NO: 4965384

LENGTH: 827 words

HEADLINE: Senator attacks Cotler's Middle East views: Canada's condemnation of violence in Middle East creates dissent in caucus [UN Security Council Resolution 1332] (Record in progress)

BYLINE: Curry, Bill

BODY:
Quebec Independent Senator Marcel Prud'homme, who has been a supporter of the Palestinian cause over the years, is denouncing recent comments made by Montreal Liberal MP Irwin Cotler regarding the escalating violence in the Middle East.

Canada's disapproval of violence in the Middle East is creating trouble in the federal government caucus and a crisis for election-fever governing Liberals.

The controversy surrounds Canada's decision to sign United Nations Security Council Resolution 1332, which Mr. Cotler, as well as Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day (Okanagan-Coquilla, B.C.), say is one-sided and singles out Israel as the main perpetrator of the violence in the region over the past two weeks.

But Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre, Man.) defended Canada's condemnation of Middle East violence last week, saying Jewish organizations were making too much of Canada's support of the UN resolution that disapproves of Israel excessive use of violence in battles with Palestinians in the occupied territories.

[Graph Not Transcribed]

Said Sen. Prud'homme: ''It's totally, totally incorrect [and] typical of him when he talks about human rights. If [anything] is one-sided, it is his views,'' referring to Mr. Cotler's public views.

''I totally, fully disagree with the totally incomplete picture done by Mr. Cotler. [It was] completely wrong and completely out of [line with] what we saw in the Middle East when he was there with me.

''Would he have preferred Canada to be alone against 13 friends of the U.N.? [And be] with the one who abstained and always puts a veto, the United States. It would have been a horrible position for Canada.

''If we would have abstained we would have been stuck alone with the United States of America against the rest of the world. How can he feel he's more brilliant than all these people who agonized to come up with this resolution.''

Last week, the Middle East was on the brink of war after a mob killed at least two Israeli soldiers and the Israeli army sent helicopter gunships over Ramallah and the Gaza Strip, representing Isael's first major assault on Palestinian targets since 1994. As well, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a worldwide hunt for the people responsible for a terrorist bombing of a U.S. Navy destroyer in Yemen, killing six, injuring 35 and leaving 11 missing.

Last September, Sen. Prud'homme was the sole Parliamentarian to greet Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat as he arrived under the Peace Tower to meet with Prime Minister Jean Chretien. The senator also greeted Mr. Arafat on his previous visit to Parliament Hill.

For Sen. Prud'homme, the former Montreal-area MP's interest in the area began after visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in 1970. He later went on to criticize Canada's policy of disengagement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

He caused some controversy in 1983 when he sat in as an observer at a PLO meeting in Algiers and was photographed shaking Mr. Arafat's hand.

Last month, Sen. Prud'homme spoke with The Hill Times and explained why he has supported the Palestinian cause.

''They were perceived always, to scare people, as terrorists. But they are people who want to bring justice to the Palestinians and, therefore, bring tranquillity to the Middle East, to everybody,'' he said.

Mr. Cotler, known as a human rights activist and legal scholar whose Mount Royal riding has a large Jewish population, made his comments last week when he spoke to a group of 2,500 people in Montreal.

He argued that the UN resolution, which Canada supported, rightly denounced the violence committed by the Israelis, but failed to equally condemn the violence on the part of the Palestinians.

Toronto Liberal Senator Jerry Grafstein said he believes in facts before policy and told The Hill Times he wants more information on the series of events that led to the recent violence. But he said he agrees with the U.S. position that the UN resolution was ''lopsided.''

''Obviously, everybody is dismayed by violence and what offends me is not just the violence on the streets, but this last heinous outrage with kids jumping around a mutilated body with their parents.

''That to my mind is something beyond my imagination,'' said Sen. Grafstein.

Liberal MP Bill Graham (Toronto Centre Rosedale, Ont.), the chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs committee, said the committee is planning to look into the issue this week and will ask for minister Lloyd Axworthy or officials from the department to appear as witnesses.

''Whether that's productive to get into a finger pointing exercise about what's in or not in [the UN resolution] is I think maybe not what we should be focusing on. We should be focusing on what we can do to reduce the violence and get the peace process back.''

Senator Prud'homme attacks Irwin Cotler's views on Middle East

JOURNAL-CODE: 1075

LOAD-DATE: January 20, 2001

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