Thank you.
My thanks to the chair and the members of the committee for inviting the Armenian National Committee of Canada to provide evidence to you today. My name is Shahen Mirakian and I am the President of the Armenian National Committee of Canada. I apologize for not being able to join you in person today.
As representatives of a community that has suffered genocide, the ultimate expression of hate-based violence, we are more familiar than most with the consequences of the promotion of hate. Similarly, as a community that has routinely advocated for positions that run counter to the status quo, we are fierce defenders of freedom of expression. In our view, there is no contradiction in these two positions. Hate propaganda is a means of infringing the freedom of expression of the targeted group by delegitimizing or vilifying identifiable groups. Hate propaganda makes it impossible for members of those groups to be heard or participate in civil society in a meaningful fashion.
Canada's history of protecting freedom of speech and freedom of expression while criminalizing the willful incitement of hate or advocacy of genocide has been a powerful example for the international community. Now Canada has to apply the lessons learned from nearly 50 years of combatting hate in the real world to the virtual world and develop a national strategy to address online hate.
As you are aware, on April 24, 2015, the House of Commons adopted motion M-587, calling upon the government to recognize the month of April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month. The Armenian National Committee of Canada has worked with various other non-governmental organizations, particularly the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, and the Humura Association, to ensure that each year the government recognizes April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month.
However, this April, recognition alone will not be enough. Over the past year the ANCC has worked collaboratively with a broad coalition of human rights advocacy organizations to ask for action as well. An important part of that effort was to ask the government to combat online hate. In December 2018, the ANCC joined with 17 other organizations, many of whom are providing evidence today, in sending a message to the Minister of Justice asking that a national strategy be launched to combat online hate.
This year, for Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month we are working with a broad coalition of communities that have experienced the horror of genocide to ask all Canadians to join us in requesting that the Government of Canada adopt policy solutions to the problem of online hate. We would encourage all Canadians to visit itstartswithwords.ca. At this site, Canadians can read all about what can be done to combat online hate and learn what other actions Canada can take to do its part to prevent future genocides and properly recognize those that have already taken place.
We also want to go on the record today as strongly supporting the four policy recommendations proposed in November 2018 by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs as the basis for a comprehensive national strategy for combatting online hate. Those four policy recommendations are: defining hate, monitoring hate, preventing hate, and intervening to stop hate. We also agree that there needs to be a greater use of existing tools to address online hate as well as consideration given to implementing new tools to assist authorities in responding to online hate.
One specific area of concern we would like to highlight is law enforcement, which we believe must make hate-motivated cyber-attacks or website-hacking a priority. Since 2008, websites of Armenian community organizations have been subjected to three separate incidents of cyber-attacks. The websites of Armenian-Canadian newspapers, churches and community organizations have been replaced with anti-Armenian propaganda, including, but not limited to, denials of the Armenian genocide. Despite publicizing these incidents and reporting them to law enforcement, we are not aware of any active effort to identify the perpetrators or bring them to justice. While many cyber-attacks will never lead to actual violence, it is very possible that the perpetrators are linked to groups that either advocate for or actually engage in violence. If law enforcement prioritized identifying the parties who engage in hate-motivated cyber-attacks, they would be able to obtain intelligence on potentially violent groups and prevent hate-motivated physical attacks.
We also believe that the regular surveys conducted by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics should specifically track hate-motivated cyber-vandalism and not just track victimization by individuals who have received hate-motivated messages online. Hate-motivated cyber-vandalism is a criminal act, just like hate-motivated physical vandalism, and law enforcement resources should be equally allocated to both. Canada should work with the international community to bring the perpetrators of these incidents to justice, whether or not the perpetrators are physically located in Canada.
In this regard, Canada's signing in 2005 of the additional protocol to the convention on cybercrime specifically concerning the criminalization of acts of racist or xenophobic nature was an important step, but the domestic tools must be implemented to allow for the extradition of suspects and co-operation with international partners.
Finally, law enforcement needs to provide communities with the tools to properly report these crimes and obtain updates about the investigation. As it stands right now, we are not clear on to whom these crimes should be reported and if they are actively being investigated or how we can find out if they are being actively investigated.
The harm done to communities by hate-motivated cyber-vandalism can be in some instances just as severe as the harm done by hate-motivated physical vandalism. This study being undertaken by this committee today and in upcoming days is a very important first step in combatting online hate.
We are very grateful to this committee for making room on its agenda during Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month to bring attention to this issue and to do its part in preventing future genocides. We are hopeful that this study will result in an effective national strategy to deal with the pressing problem of online hate promotion.
Thank you very much.