» Continued from Part 1

=== Islam
17. No end to Christian-Muslim tension

=== Scientology
18. Scientology means business against city and state
19. UPS: It may be said that the parcel company provided help to the sect

=== Hate Groups
20. Anti-Semite convicted; faces 30 years in prison (Gordon Winrod)
21. Anti-Jewish Preacher Is Convicted Of Kidnapping
22. Aryan Nations To Meet at Ex-Base
23. Park can't refuse Aryan permit request
24. Aryans want gathering at Farragut
25. Anti-racist demonstrations nation-wide (Norway)
25a. Right-wing extremism looming larger in Switzerland
26. KKK loses fight against rally waiting period in Indiana
27. Church signs are defaced by swastikas
28. Hate in the crosshairs: Lawyers, legislators battle hate crime

» Part 3

=== Other News
29. Nepal: The case against jailed Norwegian missionary opens
30. Out-of-state activists depart church protest (Indianapolis Baptist Temple)
31. Judge Rules Sect Can't Place Tenets Near Ten Commandments in Ogden
32. Indianapolis Worker's Pursuit of Office Blessings Spurned by Court
33. Media heiress Patricia Hearst defends pardon by Clinton
34. Cult to return 'brainwashed' member's assets
35. Minister resigns over quake remarks
36. Resident sues Golden Beach for slander
37. Evangelical leader fears Sharon will pass anti-missionary laws
38. Kollek joins outcry against Temple digs

» Part 4

=== Alternative Healing
39. Reiki -- soul food for Asia's largest prison
40. Alternative medicines: Science or magic?

=== Noted
41. Deepak Chopra Discusses His Mystical Life
42. The Bakker Family Discusses Living Through Scandal and Personal Tragedy

=== The Monks Around The Corner
43. Rock'n'roll monks defy Greek church


=== Islam

17. No end to Christian-Muslim tension
BBC, Jan. 31, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
One year on there is no sign that enthusiasm for Sharia law is waning.

Thousands of Muslim men gathered in Zamfara's capital Gusau to celebrate the first anniversary of the introduction of an Islamic legal code, or Sharia.

It includes punishments such as stoning to death, amputation and flogging. According to the Muslim's in Zamfara, it is the fear of these punishments which have already made for a better society.
(...)

For the Christian community these are nervous days. Christians were always a tiny minority, but the Anglican Bishop of Gusau, Simon Bala, says their numbers have dwindled in the past 12 months, because of the fear of Sharia.
(...)

The Governor, Ahmed Sani, has been at the forefront of the Sharia revival, but he says he has no intention of harming Christians.

''They have total freedom. We don't in anyway attempt to tamper with their religious freedom. As far as we are concerned each religious group should be able to practice fully its own religion.''

The problem is that Governor Sani's interpretation of complete religious freedom for Muslims does, in itself, encroach on the freedoms of other peoples.

Men and women - of all faiths - are now prohibited from sharing public transport in Zamfara. Boys and girls are taught in separate schools. The sale and consumption of alcohol has been banned.

More radical Christians in Zamfara, such as Father Linus Awuhe, say their people have taken enough.
(...)

The spiritual head of the Anglican Church Archbishop George Carey is due to visit Zamfara on a tour of Nigeria. He will be entering something of a minefield.

Christians in the north will be disappointed if he is not seen to be standing up for them. Whilst the Moslem authorities will not take kindly to lectures from a visiting Western clergyman.

The Nigerian government, eager to heal divisions between the two faiths, will be keeping a nervous eye on his progress.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

18. Scientology means business against city and state
Stuttgarter Zeitung (Germany), Feb. 1, 2001
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Scientology organization, which is under surveillance from Constitutional Security, apparently wants to gain new members with the widespread launch of a new image campaign. The sect is threatening to sue the city because its video advertisements were cancelled and the state is also being vigorously attacked.
Berliner Zeitung

The best offence is a good defense - disciples of the Scientology movement have adapted this dogma and made it their own. Yesterday the movement announced it would sue the City of Stuttgart because a pre-paid video commercial for Scientology writings was taken out of the program at the municipal Bosch Tower at Pragsattel. Besides that the controversial organization also handed a petition to State Assembly President Peter Straub. In the petition 59 Scientologists demanded the dissolution of a work group which resides in the Ministry of Culture and which is concerned with sects and psycho-groups. The signers used the usual heavy artillery in their list of reasons: they accused the head of the work group and CDU regional assemblyman Hans-Werner Carlhoff not only of wasting taxpayers' money and discrimination, but also of disinformation and misuse of office.

The activism by the Hubbard disciples was triggered by an expert opinion report about sects and psycho-groups from the State administration of Baden-Wuerttemberg. It warned about the Scientologists' activities. The report, fresh from the press, deals critically with the sect founder's writings, which are said to aim for a ''cleared'' society and to reprogram sect members into robots. ''We'd rather have you dead than incapable,'' sect guru L. Ron Hubbard is quoted as saying.

According to what the sect experts in the state government say, the Scientology organization in Baden-Wuerttemberg has about 1,200 members. Their establishments are said to have not been able to expand their positions, but are able to continue to afford money for costly propaganda campaigns. Two years ago, for instance, 40 million marks were allegedly made available from sect centers overseas for a ''crusade.'' Continued advertising offensives are to be reckoned with in the future. This was verified by Scientology spokeswoman Maja Nueesch. She said the organization will launch a new image campaign, but would not go into details. It is also said that Scientology plans a chain of establishments which allegedly will be concerned with the risks of drug consumption.

What this actually involves is a widespread membership drive. The campaign is supposed to increase the degree of familiarity with Scientology, because in membership figures the sect is way behind its own expectations. As the experts in the state government say, the organization is trying to present itself to the ''public as a small, persecuted, religious minority.'' The state view is shared by Andreas Reissig, SPD city assemblyman and sect expert of his faction, ''The fox wants to take care of the chickens.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* The publisher of Religion News Report agrees with the German government's view of Scientology:

''The German government considers the Scientology organization a commercial enterprise with a history of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and an extreme dislike of any criticism. The government is also concerned that the organization's totalitarian structure and methods may pose a risk to Germany's democratic society. Several kinds of evidence have influenced this view of Scientology, including the organization's activities in the United States.''

The Scientology organization increasingly acts like a hate group, and has a record of abusing the legal system in its harassment of critics.

The cult's hate actions are inspired by Scientology's master, who wrote:

''The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.''
- L. Ron Hubbard, A Manual on the Dissemination of Material, 1955

19. UPS: It may be said that the parcel company provided help to the sect
Der Tagesspiegal (Germany), Feb. 1, 2001
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The ''Aktion Bildungsinformation'' consumer advocate organization may continue to assert that the UPS strengthens the finances and capacity of the Scientology sect. The Berlin State Court overturned an application for a temporary restraining order yesterday which the UPS had effected against statements to that effect by the chairman of the organization, Eberhard Kleinmann. The consumer advocate's accusations were based on items including donations which UPS had made to Scientology organizations. Thomas Brach, the UPS attorney, said yesterday that it had not been clear to UPS that the organization maintained connections to Scientology. While court did not consider it had proof that UPS knowingly supported Scientology-aligned organizations, neither did it find Kleinmann's statements impermissible in light of freedom of opinion.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Hate Groups

20. Anti-Semite convicted; faces 30 years in prison
The Kansas City Star, Feb. 2, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
GAINESVILLE, Mo. - The trial of anti-Semite Gordon Winrod ended as it began - with prosecutors arguing their case while Winrod fumed in his jail cell.

After Ozark County Prosecutor Tom Cline completed his closing arguments Wednesday, jurors took just one hour to convict the 73- year-old Winrod of abducting six of his grandchildren and keeping them on his farm for more than five years.

The jury recommended that Winrod, who has spent more than 35 years spreading his beliefs throughout the Midwest, spend his next 30 years in prison.

Winrod was speechless after the verdict, merely shrugging his shoulders when Circuit Judge William Mauer asked whether he had any questions.
(...)

The sentence jurors recommended was exactly what Cline had asked for - the maximum possible prison time. Mauer, a Jackson County circuit judge assigned to the case after two Ozark County judges had recused themselves, will sentence Winrod on March 12, after a presentence investigation.

Winrod spread his anti-Semitic beliefs throughout the Midwest on radio and through his ''Winrod Letter.'' In 1965 he started Our Savior's Church, a ministry that preached the tenets of Christian Identity: a hatred of blacks, Jews and Catholics; and the belief that white, northern Europeans are the true people of God.

''I think the verdict sends a pretty clear message that there isn't as strong a base in Missouri as some Christian Identity leaders would like,'' said Devin Burghart, spokesman for the hate-group watchdog Center for New Community, in Oak Park, Ill. ''People were able to see past the rhetoric and come to a just verdict. Christian Identity leaders know they can't get away with breaking the law in the state of Missouri.''

Burghart said it was too early to tell how significant a blow Winrod's conviction would be for such extremists.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


21. Anti-Jewish Preacher Is Convicted Of Kidnapping
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 2, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Jurors needed just over an hour Wednesday to both have lunch and find outspoken anti-Jewish minister Gordon Winrod guilty of abducting six of his grandchildren.

Winrod, 74, a zealot linked to the Christian Identity movement, kept some of them at his remote farm in the Ozarks for more than five years.

Jurors recommended the maximum penalty of five years in prison on each of six counts of child abduction. Senior Circuit Judge William Mauer will decide in a hearing March 12 whether to make those terms run concurrently or consecutively.

Police raided Winrod's farm May 17, arresting him and then working for four days to talk the children, from 9 to 16 years old, into surrendering. Authorities said the children had been ''brainwashed'' against outsiders and barricaded themselves in a 6-foot-by-6-foot basement room.
(...)

Winrod is pastor of the small Our Savior's Church. He preaches that Jews are the offspring of Satan, that minorities are ''mud people'' and that homosexuals should be executed. Parts of Missouri have become centers for such beliefs.
(...)

Prosecutor Tom Cline said two of the six children are under treatment at a mental health center in North Dakota because of years of indoctrination.
Sheriff Steve Bartlett, who testified against Winrod, said the verdicts show that Ozark County does not share Winrod's beliefs. ''The best thing about this is that we freed the children,'' Bartlett added

In a closing argument Wednesday, Cline accused Winrod of attempting ''mind control'' on jurors by claiming he had only protected the children from abuse.
(...)

On Tuesday, one of Winrod's grandchildren told jurors that life with him was a daily drill of guard duty and sermons. Erika Leppert, 18, who left the farm in 1998, said she used two-way radios to warn Winrod of any visitors to the farm.
For hours at a time, the children listened to Winrod's preaching, she said.
Winrod's daughter Carol and son Steven Winrod are charged as accomplices and are awaiting trial.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


22. Aryan Nations To Meet at Ex-Base
AP, Feb. 1, 2001
http://news.excite.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - A white supremacist group losing the site of its annual conference to bankruptcy plans to hold this year's event at a former Navy base where sailors once trained to fight fascism.

Many in the area are upset at the Aryan Nations renting the northern Idaho site of the Farragut Naval Training Center, one of the largest training bases during World War II. But officials say they have little choice but to allow the group to use the property, now Farragut State Park.
(...)

''That's where servicemen went to boot camp to fight the Nazis,'' complained Marshall Mend, a Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, real estate agent. ''Now the Nazis want to have a function on this property?''
(...)

For more than two decades, the neo-Nazi group has held its Aryan World Congress at founder Richard Butler's 20-acre northern Idaho compound, usually drawing dozens of followers.

But the compound is to be sold at a Feb. 13 bankruptcy auction to satisfy part of a $6.3 million civil judgment against Butler, the Aryan Nations and three of Butler's supporters.
(...)

Aryan Nations member Shaun Winkler said the group was holding the event in northern Idaho to send a message to residents who hoped the bankruptcy would be the end of the group.

''We are here and we are here to stay,'' Winkler said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Park can't refuse Aryan permit request
The Spokesman-Review, Feb. 2, 2001
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The director of Idaho state parks says there is no legal way for her to block the Aryan Nations from using Farragut State Park in North Idaho.

The homeless Aryan Nations wants to use the Nighthawk group-camping site at Farragut as the site for this year's Aryan World Congress.
(...)

Shaun Winkler, staff leader for the white supremacy group, has made a $325 deposit to use the state park site from July 5-9. The use permit will cost $900.

Ferrell said she had reviewed the Aryans' application with Assistant Attorney

General Nick Krema but had not asked for a formal legal opinion.
''I know what the First Amendment is all about,'' the parks chief said.
''You can't deny them registration for a group-camping permit if they meet the expectation and conditions that all campers are required to meet,'' Ferrell said.
The Aryans won't be allowed to burn a cross, as they usually do at their annual gatherings. But they will be allowed to display their Nazi flags in a state park where U.S. servicemen were trained to fight Nazis in World War II.
''We'd prefer that not happen,'' Ferrell said, ''but there's nothing we can do to stop it.

''The courts have repeatedly upheld the First Amendment rights of such groups to exercise freedom of speech and assembly,'' she said.

An outlaw motorcycle gang, Brothers Speed, has obtained group-camping permits for Niagara Springs State Park, near Buhl, Idaho, for more than a dozen years, Ferrell said.

''They have been very good guests while they're there,'' the parks boss said. Ferrell said she expects the same from the Aryans.

''If we were to deny them this permit, it would result in a needless waste of taxpayers' money as the result of a hopeless court battle,'' Ferrell said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


24. Aryans want gathering at Farragut
The Spokesman-Review, Feb. 1, 2001
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Idaho Attorney General's Office is being asked whether the state parks department should issue a group-camping permit to the Aryan Nations.

Without its former compound, the white supremacy group wants to conduct its annual Aryan World Congress this summer at Farragut State Park.

The camp-out in the state park and three parades planned this summer ''will show the people of North Idaho that we're not going away,'' Shaun Winkler, staff leader of the Aryan Nations, said Wednesday.
(...)

Winkler showed up with Butler at a court hearing Tuesday where the Aryan leader unsuccessfully attempted to delay the auction.

Then Winkler paid a $325 deposit for the use of the Nighthawk camping facility in the 4,000-acre Farragut State Park near Athol.
(...)

The annual Aryan World Congress is attended by skinheads, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and Christian Identity followers who believe they are the true children of God.

The planned camp-out in Farragut is intended to coincide with an Aryan parade scheduled for July 7 in downtown Coeur d'Alene, about 30 miles south of the state park, Winkler said.

The city of Coeur d'Alene has issued a permit for the parade, Winkler said.

The Aryan Nations also has applied for a parade permit on April 21 in Sandpoint. City officials there are processing the ''special event request form.'' Winkler said the group also plans a parade in Rathdrum, but hasn't obtained a permit for that event.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. Anti-racist demonstrations nation-wide
The Norway Post, Feb. 1, 2001
http://www.norwaypost.no/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Demonstrations and torch-light processions against violence and racism were arranged in many cities and towns in Norway Thursday evening.

In Oslo, as many as 40,000 may have participated in the torch-light march, starting at the city's main Youngstorget square, and ending up at University Square.

It seems clear that it was one of the biggest mass demonstrations in Norway since the Liberation in 1945.
(...)

Prime Minister Stoltenberg appealed to all Norwegians to do something to fight racism. He also appealed to all schools to fly the flag at half mast, to mark the funeral of the boy who was killed by neo-nazis in an Oslo suburb last Friday.
(...)

Similar demonstrations against violence and racism were also held in Trondheim, Stavanger and many other towns and villages around the country.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25a. Right-wing extremism looming larger in Switzerland
Neue Zuercher Zeitung (Switzerland), Feb. 2, 2001
http://www.nzz.ch/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The federal police are bracing for another year of right-wing extremist activity, following a record rise in the number of incidents during 2000. A spokesman said it was imperative that extremists were prevented from forming a coherent political movement.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. KKK loses fight against rally waiting period in Indiana
AP, Feb. 2, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HAMMOND, Indiana (AP) -- The Ku Klux Klan lost a fight against a new waiting period to hold rallies in a predominantly black Indiana city after a judge rejected the group's attempt to have the rule declared unconstitutional.

Gary Mayor Scott King last month changed the waiting period from seven days to 45 on the same day the city rejected a Klan request to hold a rally around the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

U.S. District Court Judge James T. Moody said Thursday that the Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in Butler, had failed to rebut the city's explanations for the rule, primarily that it takes the city 45 days to evaluate, process and approve a permit application.

''I hope they dry up and blow off the face of the earth,'' King said when asked about the Klan's efforts. ''Barring that, I hope they just stay away from Gary.''

''It is so hurtful to so many people. It's really contemptible,'' he said.

Ken Falk, legal director for the Indiana Civil Liberties Union who represented the Klan at Thursday's hearing, said the Klan will decide its next step after the city decides whether to grant it a rally permit for March.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


27. Church signs are defaced by swastikas
The Boston Globe, Feb. 1, 2001
http://www.boston.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
In what church officials are calling a hate crime, someone twice drew swastikas over signs welcoming gays and lesbians to a Sudbury church.

Two rainbow triangles, intended to symbolize the First Parish of Sudbury's openness to gays and lesbians, were covered with swastikas on Saturday, police said. Then, after congregants of the Unitarian Universalist church cleaned off the swastikas, someone drew new swastikas over the triangles Saturday night and stole a rainbow flag and the accompanying flagpole.

''Somebody out there is really trying to send a message,'' said Diane Kolb of the Anti-Defamation League. ''There's no way this can be a random act of vandalism. It was purposeful and vengeful.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Hate in the crosshairs: Lawyers, legislators battle hate crime
Trial (Association of Trial Lawyers of America), Jan. 1, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Hate crime. The words alone can conjure up horrific images of savage brutality--an African American man being dragged to his death behind a pickup truck; a gay man left to die hanging from a fence after being pistol-whipped into a coma; the battered body of a young white woman who was gang-- raped, tortured, and fatally shot in the face several times by a group of African American men whose leader said her death was payment for ''400 years of oppression'' by white people.

Reports of these murders have appeared in recent news articles, but hate crimes are anything but new.
(...)

Given this grim history, efforts to put an end to hate-- driven threats and acts of violence would seem fruitless. But that hasn't stopped advocates for tolerance-the currently popular antonym for hate-- who have in recent years stepped up efforts to at best prevent and at least punish bias-motivated crimes.

Supporters, including President Bill Clinton, say these efforts are essential to ensure a peaceful and civilized society.
(...)

But some critics question whether the harm done by bias-motivated crime is so great that it warrants special federal legislation. Others, including tolerance advocates themselves, have expressed concern that efforts to punish hate crime can all too easily cross over into the constitutionally protected zone of hate thought and hate speech.

''Generally speaking, I think we have to combat bad speech with good speech,'' said Richard Cohen, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama. ''We take a civil libertarian approach.''

The center, which has been at the forefront of anti-hate activities for decades, has recently won several civil lawsuits on behalf of hate violence victims. The multi-- million-dollar verdicts have all but driven some of the most vocal and widely feared groups out of existence and have helped fund the SPLC's litigation and advocacy machine.

The center's legal strategy-using civil remedies to cripple or destroy hate groups and their leaders financially rather than bringing individual perpetrators to justice in criminal courts-has been hailed as nothing less than brilliant, earning its cofounder and chief trial counsel Morris Dees awards from legal associations like the American Bar Association and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
(...)

Pursuing large monetary verdicts against the groups is akin to attacking hate at its roots rather than merely pruning its branches, said Frederick Lawrence, a law professor at Boston University and author of Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law. ''When you go after the kingpins rather than the local street guys, you decentralize the group. But you have to be sure there is a close nexus between the people or group you're going after and the violence that has been done,'' said Lawrence.

Establishing that nexus has been key to each SPLC victory. The most recent case is a good example. Last fall, an Idaho jury handed up a large compensatory and punitive damages award against the white supremacist group Aryan Nations, its corporate entity, and several of its members, including the group's leader, Richard Butler. (Keenan v. Aryan Nations, No. CV 99-441 (Idaho, Kootenai County Dist. Ct. Sept. 7,2000).)
(...)

Similar results in cases the center has won in the last decade have hobbled several Ku Klux Klan (KKK) factions and other hate groups, including the neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance (WAR) and its leaders, Tom and John Metzger.
''The United Klans of America, after a large jury verdict in the mid-1980s, is defunct. The Invisible Empire Knights of the KKK, which had a long history and was one of the larger Klan groups in the early 1980s, is defunct. WAR is a shadow of its former self. The Metzgers are still extremely active, but our lawsuit put a significant dent in their operation,'' Cohen said. (Details of these cases are available on the SPLC Web site at http://www.splcenter.org.)
(...)

Although effective, verdicts in cases like the Keenans' don't go far enough to address the problem of hate crime, many civil rights advocates say. And while 42 states and the District of Columbia have laws specifically addressing bias-motivated crime, they are inconsistent and unevenly enforced, according to Michael Lieberman, legal counsel for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in its Washington, D.C., offices.
(...)

The solution? Enact a federal hate crime law that would make it easier for federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute bias- motivated crimes and would expand existing laws to allow prosecution of hate crimes committed against people because of their sexual orientation, gender, or disability, Lieberman said.

That nearly happened last year when bipartisan majorities of both houses of Congress voted to support the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2000, which was backed by a host of civil rights groups, including the Anti-Defamation League. The measure was later stripped from a Department of Defense appropriations bill by a House committee.

Attorney General Janet Reno reacted to the bill's demise with dismay, saying that while ''Congress cannot outlaw hatred, it should do all it can to combat hate-motivated violence.'' President Clinton hinted at a veto of the appropriations bill if the hate crime provision wasn't put back in.

But is it really necessary? According to FBI statistics, fewer than 8,000 bias-motivated crimes of all types were reported in 1999, the latest year for which statistics are available. An estimated 1.4 million violent crimes were reported that same year. These numbers would seem to support arguments that additional federal legislation is not needed.

Not so, said law professor Lawrence. ''You can't just tote up the numbers to determine the impact. The harm that these crimes cause goes far beyond the individual involved. It affects the whole community.''

The SPLC's Cohen agreed. ''Simply comparing the numbers is misleading. The James Byrd [dragging-death] tragedy shows that hate crimes have a way of victimizing the whole community and reverberating in a way that others do not. For example, I might read in the paper about a domestic dispute that led to murder, and I wouldn't feel threatened because I'm not in that kind of situation. But if I hear that someone was plucked off the street and beaten up because they're Jewish, then suddenly I'm affected because that person could have been me.''

Also, the numbers are unreliable, Lawrence said, because they are based on self-reporting by the states. ''Some localities underreport, sometimes for nefarious reasons like not caring about bias crime or sometimes because their people are undertrained-they don't know what to look for.
(...)

While the war against hate crime rages on in courts and capitals, David Goldman is keeping a close eye on an emerging and fast-growing frontline-the Internet. As executive director of the nonprofit Hate-- Watch.org, Goldman heads up a small staff of people who monitor online bigotry and intolerance.

''There are approximately 400 to 500 hate sites,'' he said. ''And what I mean by that is a Web site that is advocating unreasonable hostility or violence against someone because of their race, ethnic background, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. There are about 2,000 to 5,000 hate-related sites, but these are not technically hate sites,'' he said.

In the Internet's infancy, hatemongers used the Net primarily to spread their message and recruit members. But in recent years, sites have become more sophisticated and more dangerous, Goldman said, providing online help to followers who are encouraged to wreak havoc with the ''enemy's'' infrastructure and commit violent acts.
''We see things like Web jacking [taking over the content of a Web site], information being stolen, and e-mails being spoofed,'' Goldman said.
(...)

The other extremely disturbing evolution is attacks on individuals,'' Goldman said.

For example, not long after a Denver woman began to help an Internet group monitor hate groups online, she became a target herself. ''Someone posted messages on a public chat board that said, 'I want to kill Joan Duncan' (a pseudonym).

'I don't know why nobody has killed Joan Duncan yet.''It would make me happy to kill Joan Duncan.' They posted her social security number, her phone number, a photo of her, and a map to her house,'' Goldman said.

And yet the FBI refused to investigate, Goldman said, because these acts of intimidation were not specific enough to be considered a serious expression of an intent to harm or assault another person. Hate sites and hate speech are protected by the First Amendment unless they can be clearly linked to a ''true threat.''

What constitutes a true threat is the question at the center of an appeal pending before the Ninth Circuit in Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists. It involves the Nuremberg Files, a now-defunct Web site that advocated violence against abortion providers. The site included bomb-making instructions and a list of providers' names, addresses, phone numbers, and the names of their spouses and children, Goldman said. The names of abortion doctors who had already been murdered were crossed out.

A federal judge in Oregon ruled that the Web site represented a true threat of physical harm and was actionable. (41 F Supp. 2d 1130 (D. Or. 1999).) On appeal, the defendants are arguing that the test applied by the court-whether a reasonable person would find the information on the site threatening-was too broad. Oral arguments have not been set, but regardless how the Ninth Circuit rules, Goldman said, the case is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Goldman said cases like these are good examples of why federal hate crime laws must be fortified.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


» Part 3