April 5, 2005

Ahenakew says he still believes Jews started war CTV - Former aboriginal leader David Ahenakew told his hate trial Tuesday he still believes Jews were the cause of the Second World War. "So you still believe today, in 2005, that the Jewish people started the Second World War?" Crown prosecutor Brent Klause asked Ahenakew. "Yes," he responded. Ahenakew testified it was the Germans who told him that when he served overseas in the military after the war. He joined in 1951. 10:54:42 PM

Ahenakew's lawyer wants key tapes excluded CTV, Canada - David Ahenakew claims he had no idea he was being taped when he told a newspaper reporter that Jews were a "disease.". In response to Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter James Parker's testimony that he was holding the tape recorder right in front of the accused's face, Ahenakew said he didn't see it. "Maybe he has big hands," Ahenakew said. 1:19:59 PM

And the Stalie Goes To.... Freedom House has released a Who's Who of oppression, their report "The Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies 2005" [PDF]. Six of the "top" 18 sit on the UN Commission on Human Rights. [Hit and Run] 1:14:14 PM

Acquittal overturned for 2 cleared in TV piracy case By CBC. The Quebec Superior Court has reversed the acquittal of two men who imported U.S. cable signals with a grey-market satellite dish. Justice Wilbrod Claude Decarie found Drummondville, Que., resident Jacques D'Argy and his brother-in-law Richard Thériault guilty of three counts each of appropriating foreign signals. Judge Danielle Côté cleared the two men in June. She ruled that the federal law that criminalized their actions was unconstitutional because it violated the right to free expression. The federal government and the Canadian television industry, who consider it theft to use special decoders to capture foreign satellite signals, opposed the decision. Decarie found that Côté erred in her decision. [CBC | Canadian News] 1:11:39 PM

All the characters on "Terrorism in the Hands of Justice" are captured suspected insurgents. For more than a month, they have been riveting Iraqi viewers with tales of how they killed, kidnapped, raped or beheaded other Iraqis, usually for a few hundred dollars per victim. Far from appearing to be confident heroes battling U.S. occupation, they come across as gangsters.  "For the first time, we saw those who claim to be jihadists as simple $50 murderers who would do everything in the name of Islam. Our religion is too lofty, noble and humane to have such thugs and killers. I wish they would hang them now, and in the same place where they did their crimes. They should never be given any mercy."  - Abdul Kareem Abdulla, 42, a Baghdad shop owner. 12:35:12 PM