Update on complaints against Voice of Palestine, Vancouver, Canada

Dear Friends:

We recently informed you about a complaint sent to
the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications
Commission (CRTC) against the radio show
Voice of Palestine for using the term "ethnic cleansing"
in describing Israeli government policies. The CRTC,
after receiving the response of the station Coop Radio,
decided to not pursue the complaint. We were of course
pleased to see that the CRTC had acted in a balanced
and impartial matter at that time.

However, the station is having a hearing for its licence
renewal at the beginning of March, and the same
person who sent in the original complaint, as well as
five others, took advantage of the process surrounding
licence renewals to send in interventions and once
again attack Voice of Palestine for being "offensive",
"promoting hatred", using the term "ethnic cleansing"
etc. Interestingly, out of many interventions, the only
negative ones criticizing Coop Radio were from these
pro-Israel lobbyists in B.C., five of whom sent their
letters in together as one fax transmission from Oregon,
U.S. They asked for the station licence to not be renewed,
or at the very least, for Voice of Palestine to be taken off the air.

The station has once again replied to these complaints,
and all of this is available on the CRTC website.
For both the complaints and the station's response, see
http://support.crtc.gc.ca/applicant/docs.aspx?
pn_ph_no=2007-18&call_id=66728&lang=E&defaultName=
Cramer_Hartley%20E.&replyonly=&addtInfo=&addtCmmt=&fnlSub=

AND

http://support.crtc.gc.ca/applicant/docs.aspx?
pn_ph_no=2007-18&call_id=66907&lang=E&defaultName=Eckardt_
Ziggy&replyonly=&addtInfo=&addtCmmt=&fnlSub=

As one of the complainants has been granted time to address
the licence hearing (as have five of the positive interveners),
and given the recent arbitrary moves against
Palestinian support work at McMaster University
and in other venues, we wanted to keep supporters
updated on these developments.

We are hopeful that the CRTC will once again act in
a fair and reasonable manner at the licence renewal
hearing, and will bring you the results as soon as
they are available.

Thank you for your support.

In Solidarity
Hanna Kawas
www.voiceofpalestine.ca

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