CAUGHT ON TAPE: Human rights tribunal threatens to censor Rebel News

Rebel News faces a politically charged hate speech complaint from Canada's Human Rights Tribunal over its reporting on controversial transgender figure Jonathan Yaniv.

Rebel News was just hit with a hate speech complaint by one of Canada’s out-of-control human rights tribunals.

They're targeting our news reports about a transgender bully named Jonathan Yaniv.

Read the full complaint for yourself, right here:

And here is the phone call I recorded when I spoke with the human rights cop who’s investigating us:

You’ll remember Yaniv: he made national headlines as the male-to-female transgender “woman” who demanded that female aestheticians wax his male genitals, and when they refused, he took them to the human rights tribunal.

He’s gross. But the human rights tribunal is worse — they helped him abuse those women. They agreed to take those nuisance suits. And now the same tribunal has agreed to take his complaint against us.

Yaniv and his friends at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal are calling our news reports about him "hate speech" and threatening us with huge fines. They even told me on the phone that they might issue a binding legal order to us to stop reporting on him!

The complaint was written by Yaniv himself and it looks like it was written by a crazy person — it’s in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. It’s so obviously a nuisance suit, it’s shocking that the tribunal would actually run with it.

But this has happened to me before. In a famous case almost 20 years ago, I was prosecuted by Alberta's human rights commission for republishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in a magazine I ran back then. They pursued me for 900 days before finally dropping the matter — leaving me with a huge legal bill.

Well, it's happening again.

And by the way, this sort of shakedown is going to happen a lot more when Justin Trudeau passes his new censorship bill, called C-63, that’s before Parliament right now.

Right now this “hate speech” provision is just in a few provincial laws. But Trudeau wants to make it national and his version will launch a flood of these complaints, because it pays up to $20,000 to any crank, any bully, any left-wing activist for making complaints like this. It will be a giant cancel culture machine and it rewards nuisance complaints.

To be precise, I’m being prosecuted under section 7 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, which says it’s illegal to publish anything that’s  “likely to expose a person... to hatred or contempt”. It’s not even a thought crime, it’s a feelings crime — if anything you say might cause someone to feel the emotion of hate or contempt, you lose. Of course, just showing Jonathan Yaniv’s vicious conduct is going to make a lot of people feel contempt for him. He’s a vicious bully and a terrible racist, too. It’s so weird that the human rights tribunal has teamed up with him.

Obviously we have to hire lawyers, which is part of the abuse here: Yaniv doesn’t have to hire a lawyer. He just typed out his crazy manifesto, gave it to the government, and they’re prosecuting us with government lawyers. We, on the other hand, have to hire lawyers by ourselves — and even if we win, we don’t get our legal fees back. This is the template that Trudeau is going to replicate nationally and he’s going to make it worse, by actually paying people up to $20,000 to make complaints.

You heard the human rights cop in my phone call with him: he says he has power to legally order us to stop reporting on Jonathan Yaniv — plus make us pay a fine. This is clearly unconstitutional, but they obviously don’t care about such details.

We’ve got to fight back. Can I please ask for your help?

I’m afraid I need it. Yaniv is a kook, a total nut, a criminal, a predator, a racist, all of that. But he somehow manages to convince the B.C. government’s human rights tribunal to go after his enemies, again and again. Those poor aestheticians — mainly immigrant women — were crushed by him. I refuse to be crushed by him. We’ve got to stand up to this bully.

I have a three-point plan, if you want to help me to fight back.

1. READ THE COMPLAINT

Please read the complaint for yourself. See how bizarre it is. And listen to the recording of my conversation with the human rights officer — who casually says he knows the complainant is a nuisance litigant, but he doesn’t care. Listen to him say he could fine us or even ban us from publishing things he doesn’t like. And share those shocking facts with your friends and family.

2. SIGN THE PETITION

Please sign our petition to repeal section 7 of the law — that’s the censorship provision. There’s a provincial election on right now in B.C., and I think we could make this an election issue. I bet the NDP premier David Eby loves censorship. But the Conservative Party challenger, John Rustad, seems like a freedom-oriented guy. And I think most Canadians are getting a bit tired of all of this censorship and political correctness — and this could be a real winning issue for Rustad.

PETITION: Repeal Section 7!

1,201 signatures
Goal: 15000 signatures

Freedom of speech is under attack, and we need your help to fight back. Section 7 of the B.C. Human Rights Code allows the government to censor journalists for publishing truthful reports if they might cause someone to feel "hatred or contempt." This outrageous law is being used right now to silence Rebel News, and if we don’t act, it could soon be used nationwide. We must repeal this dangerous censorship provision before it spreads any further. Please sign our petition now and demand that every candidate for Premier in the October 19 BC election pledge to repeal Section 7 and stand up for free speech and press freedom in Canada.

Will you sign?

3. DONATE

And step three is a personal favour to me. The last time I was prosecuted by a human rights commission, it was a three-year battle that cost me around $100,000 in legal fees to fight back. I hope this won’t be as costly, but there’s no way it will be less than $30,000. (And Yaniv has to pay nothing — the government does all the prosecutions for him, for free.) You can chip in right here on this page.

Please help Defend Rebel News at the BC Human Rights Tribunal!

We're now facing a costly legal battle against a human rights tribunal determined to silence Rebel News for exposing the truth. This fight will cost at least $30,000 in legal fees, and while my opponent, a convicted criminal abusing the legal system, has the government fully funding his case, we're left to cover all the expenses ourselves. Please help us defend ourselves against this injustice, and fight back, by supporting us with a donation.

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This complaint is bad news. But if it’s a wake-up call to Canadians, if we listen to this alarm, then there’s a silver lining to it. This is happening to me, today, at the hands of the B.C. human rights tribunal. But if we don’t fight back now, it could happen to everyone, as Trudeau expands this censorship across the country.

So, if you can, please chip in to help us fight back. Unlike Yaniv, we have to pay for our own lawyers, and we can’t afford to lose this one. Please help us now — our freedom depends on it. (Thanks.)

See more of our coverage on Jonathan (Jessica) Yaniv

Ezra Levant

Rebel Commander

Ezra Levant is the founder and owner of Rebel News and the host of The Ezra Levant Show. He is the author of multiple best-selling books including Ethical Oil and most recently, China Virus.

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