Canadisk delstatsregering vil lukke munden på The Rebel med hemmelige retssager

Rachel Notley and the NDP government of Alberta have finally made their move against The Rebel.

They are prosecuting us for what we have said about them.

Bizarrely, they’re using an enforcer, Melanie Malchuk, who used to work for the Alberta Human Rights Commission, the censors who prosecuted me years ago for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. They have given her a special contract to investigate against us. 

Notley wants to shut down The Rebel before the 2019 election — she knows The Rebel has been their most effective critics, and the NDP will do anything to silence us.

Back in 2017, The Rebel first received a threat letter from Notley’s election boss, telling us we were an illegal campaign group. Our lawyer wrote back, explaining the law to Notley’s staff — pointing out that we were journalists and therefore exempt under the law. And we didn’t hear back from Notley again.

Until right before this past Christmas. When we received a letter from Notley’s new campaign enforcer, saying our criticism of Notley’s education minister, David Eggen, was illegal, because we put it on a billboard, not just a website. 

So, we hired the most respected media lawyer in Alberta to represent us. Our lawyer wrote back asking for details, and Notley’s staff replied by saying they’d get back to us with that info on January 15th. 

Sounds reasonable. We didn’t make a fuss about any of this, because we knew we were fine — the law specifically exempts journalism. 

But Notley’s staff lied — they never did get back to our lawyer on the 15th with any details. In fact, they convicted us and sentenced us on the 14th. We’re still waiting for details of the complaint.

They went ahead with a secret trial without us. 

The day after we were convicted we finally received an e-mail from the government of Alberta telling us we had been convicted in absentia of being a political campaign organization, not journalists. They proposed to fine us $5,500. They claim that our journalism is political campaigning and has to be regulated like a political party. 

At least I think that’s what they’ve done — because they won’t even show us the complaint or who wrote it! 

A $5,500 fine in itself won’t bankrupt us. But of course, we’re not going to stop our journalism. And the penalties for companies can be $100,000 a pop. $5,500 is just their first sucker-punch. 

We can’t survive a $100,000 fine. And Notley could fine us every single month. We’d be out of business before the election. Which is exactly their goal.

This was a kangaroo court, run by out-of-control partisans, who didn’t even follow their own laws. They didn’t show us the complaint, they didn’t let us reply, and they’re illegally prosecuting journalists. 

We’re not going to pay. But we’re going to pay a lot more to fight. I have no doubt that this battle will cost tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. And I have no doubt that Notley’s thugs will come after us with more and more fines — the next one will surely be tens of thousands of dollars. 

If you care about The Rebel, if you ever want us to live to fight another day, this is the time, my friends. Please help us with a donation for our legal defence fund — whether it’s $5 or $500 — now is the time to do it. Because now is the time that Rachel Notley and her human rights commission contract killers are coming for us. 

Please go to StandWithTheRebel.com and chip in to help us pay our legal bills and fight back against Notley’s censorship. 

Thank you and keep fighting for freedom! 

Yours truly, 

Ezra Levant 

P.S. Please forward this email to every Albertan you know and share my video by posting www.StandWithTheRebel on Facebook and Twitter. Rachel Notley is trying to censor her toughest critics to clear the way for her election campaign!

Leave a Reply

Din email adresse vil ikke blive vist offentligt.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.