Irwin Cotler

[Human Rights, May 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the decision by Burma's military dictatorship to release Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, an international symbol of freedom and democracy who has been under various forms of arrest for 12 years, is welcome. While the release might presage a new dawn, the test, as Aung San Suu Kyi put it, is whether the dawn will move very quickly to a full morning.

The indicators of that necessary transition which should guide international domestic policy include: the protection of Aung San Suu Kyi's unconditional freedom of movement and political action; the immediate and unconditional release of more than 1,000 political prisoners, including 17 elected members of parliament and one time student leader Min Ko Naing who remains in solitary confinement; an end to the practices of torture, forced labour and forced relocations; respect for freedoms of expression, association, movement and assembly and the right to a fair trial; the protection of the rights of ethnic and religious minorities; and an end to government media censorship.

Release should be seen less as a breakthrough for democracy than a test for democracy.

Television Series

[Business of the House, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the public safety act, 2002, or Bill C-55, contains some important legal prongs or features in the juridical war on terrorists whose purposive basis is the promotion and protection of human security, including the most fundamental rights, the rights to life, liberty and security of the person.

These legal prongs include the following: amendments to the Aeronautics Act to maximize the effectiveness of Canada's aviation system and thereby enhance the ability of the Government of Canada to provide a safe and secure environment for air travel; amendments to the criminal code to deter terrorist hoaxes that endanger the public or heighten public anxiety; amendments to the Explosives Act to establish tighter controls over illicit trafficking in explosives, including the acquisition, exportation, manufacture, storage or transportation of explosives; and amendments to the Export and Import Permits Act establishing controls over the export and electronic transfer of military and strategically sensitive technology.

Perhaps most important, the proposed legislation also would enact the biological and toxin weapons convention implementation act to prevent the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition, transfer or use of biological weapons by states, individuals or other entities. It will thereby reinforce Canada's existing legislation to prevent the development of, and deter the proliferation of, biological weapons. This is a particularly important legal prong in the domestication of international anti-terrorist treaty law in the anti-terrorism juridical effort.

However, the bill also contains some disconcerting features which, however well intentioned, include some errors and omissions that may result in the legislation falling victim to what might be called the “law of unintended consequences”.

The concerns are as follows.

First, while the bill seeks to circumscribe the power initially conferred upon the Minister of National Defence in the predecessor Bill C-42 to designate any part of Canada a military security zone, the scope of both the exercise and application of this power remain problematic. Admittedly, the bill improves upon its predecessor Bill C-42 in that the application of the power is limited to the protection of Canadian and allied military equipment and persons, and the exercise of power is limited to that which is reasonably necessary for this purpose, rather than, as in Bill C-42, what the minister “in his opinion” believed necessary for reasons of international relations, national defence or security.

However, the definition of a “controlled access military zone” has a certain indeterminate feature to it, which could, however inadvertently, be stretched to result in the very thing that this revised version was designed to prevent, for example, the application of this power to something like the G-8 meeting in Kananaskis, simply because the presence of Canadian military equipment or personnel or foreign diplomatic personnel with their related equipment may result in a military zone being nonetheless designated.

As well, it should be appreciated that, under present law, a military base or any property belonging to the Department of National Defence is already a military zone under its control. Clearly, then, we are speaking about the designation of a controlled access military zone that is outside our “defence establishment” on civilian territory. This power needs further delineation and clarification so that it can be clearly limited to the purposes for which it is intended.

Second, and more important, even if the scope of this exercise of ministerial power is appropriately delineated and clarified, the absence of any cabinet or parliamentary accountability is disturbing. In effect, there is no requirement for cabinet authorization of this ministerial decree. There is no requirement that it even be tabled, let alone debated by parliament. There is no express reference to the power of judicial review, though the right of judicial review would still be available even in unexpressed form. In a word, this is government by ministerial decree without the appropriate checks and balances constitutive of a parliamentary democracy.

I am not saying that a carefully circumscribed ministerial power is in no case warranted; I am only saying that the scope of its exercise still has an indeterminate character about it and that it is lacking in the appropriate checks and balances.

Third, as a response to the critique of its predecessor Bill C-42, Bill C-55 further defines and circumscribes the power of other ministers to issue interim orders if “immediate action is required to deal with a significant risk, direct or indirect, to health, safety or the environment”.

Admittedly, the government has refined the scope of these powers by reducing the period within which the minister would be required to obtain cabinet approval from 90 to 45 days after the interim order is made. An additional requirement has been added that now requires that a copy of the interim order be tabled in each house of parliament within 15 sitting days from the time it is issued, thereby instituting a measure of parliamentary oversight. Also, the interim order is expressly subject to judicial review.

However, some disturbing questions remain. Why should there be a waiting period of 45 days to submit these emergency orders for cabinet approval? Why not reduce the period to 72 hours, or a week, as the Canadian Bar Association recommends? These orders are of an emergency character; they can last up to a year. The interim is a long time. The timeframe for cabinet approval needs to be much more expeditious.

Fourth, why should the interim orders have to be tabled in parliament only after 15 sitting days? If parliament were not sitting, there would be no requirement for it to do so. Also, why should parliamentary oversight be limited to the tabling of the interim order and not also the debating of a prospective amendment or an appeal of the interim order, as is consistent with the principle of parliamentary oversight? Again, the principle of parliamentary oversight and accountability needs to be enhanced.

Fifth, both the power of the Minister of National Defence regarding designated controlled access military zones and the power of ministers to issue interim emergency orders are exempt from the application of the Statutory Instruments Act. That means, in brief, that they are exempt from the examination of proposed regulations as required by the Statutory Instruments Act to ensure that these regulations are authorized by the statute pursuant to which they are made; that they do not constitute an unusual or unexpected use of the authority pursuant to which they are made; that they do not trespass unduly on existing rights and freedoms; and that they do not in any case breach the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom.

This does not mean that such decrees or regulations are not subject to the charter but it does mean that the “scrutiny and screen filter”, the filtering out of objectionable features before the regulations are enacted, is absent. Regrettably, a judicial corrective may be necessary when a pre-emptive screening corrective could be utilized first.

Sixth, while Bill C-55, for the most part, strikes a reasonable balance between security and privacy rights, the new provisions giving RCMP and CSIS unrestricted access to the personal information of all Canadian air travellers, both on flights within Canada as well as on international routes, are also disconcerting. For example, if the RCMP can obtain and scan airline manifests in search of anyone subject to an outstanding warrant for any offence punishable by five years or more, or for an offence under the Immigration Act, this would appear to be an undue expansion of police power at the expense of privacy rights, without clear justification.

In other words, if, as the privacy commissioner has put it, proposed section 4.82 were limited to providing the RCMP and CSIS with access to airline passenger information for the sole purpose of checking against databases of known or suspected terrorists, with the proviso that all such information would be destroyed except where a match with the database was found, this could be regarded as a legitimate exercise of police power for security purposes.

Seventh, an appreciation of these three distinct exercises of executive power, the power of the Minister of National Defence to designate a controlled access military zone, the ministerial powers to issue interim urgent orders, and the power of police and security services to access aviation manifests, invite us to ask whether they comport with the proportionality principle, that is, that the remedies sought are rationally connected to the objectives sought to be secured, that they comport with the minimal impairment principle, that is, that they intrude on civil liberties as minimally as possible, and that the value of enacting these powers outweighs their cost.

Eighth, we must ask whether these authorized powers, taken as a whole, maintain the equilibrium between the related needs of security and rights protection.

Ninth, we must ask whether the legislation, taken as a whole, maintains the equilibrium among different branches of government, executive, legislative and judicial, or is there an undue allocation of power to ministers with a corresponding diminution of cabinet responsibility, parliamentary accountability and capacity for judicial review? In particular, the parliamentary role in this legislation appears to be diminished.

Finally, as a matter of parliamentary process, I would recommend that the legislation be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, for the following reasons.

First, this is the second part of the government's anti-terrorism package, the first part of which, Bill C-36, was considered and debated before the justice and human rights committee. As a result, that committee acquired a certain repository of experience, if not expertise, in dealing with anti-terrorism law and policy and related issues.

Second, the bill raises fundamental questions, both about the equilibrium between security and rights protection and the equilibrium among the various branches of government that underpin a constitutional democracy, both of which are foundational legal concerns that are the natural subject matter for such a committee.

Third, the exercise of the authorities of the police and security, both under the criminal code and in surveillance matters, again is the natural stuff for a justice and human rights committee.

In conclusion, the public safety act, 2002, has important features, some of which I have described today, that are germane to an anti-terrorism law and policy and to the protection of public safety and human security. However, there are also disconcerting features, as I have also described, that taint the bill and which need to be addressed and redressed so we can promote human security without unnecessarily intruding on civil liberties.

[Press Freedom Day, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today is World Press Freedom Day, reminding us of the profound importance of freedom of expression, itself consecrated in the fundamental freedoms section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the lifeblood of a democracy.

Indeed, as the Supreme Court of Canada has put it, “liberty in freedom of expression is little less vital to man than breathing is to his physical existence”, and “it is difficult to imagine a guaranteed right more important to a democratic society than freedom of expression.”

Accordingly, Canadian jurisprudence has articulated a three-pronged purposive rationale for freedom of expression, which freedom of the press seeks to promote and protect. First, that seeking and attaining truth is an inherently valuable exercise; second, that participation in social and political decision making is to be fostered and encouraged; and third, that diversity in terms of individual self-fulfillment and the capacity for human potential ought to be cultivated in a tolerant and welcoming environment.

I am sure my colleagues will join me in celebrating World Press Freedom Day in recognition of press freedom that sustains democratic debate and fundamental values in this country, and in the hope that press freedom will yet be acquired as a feature of democratic development in countries less fortunate than ours.

[Racism, April 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday a group of students occupied my constituency office after entering on the pretext that they were constituents looking for assistance. When it turned out they wanted to protest Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East, which my staff was prepared to discuss, they rejected discussion, proceeded to occupy the office, told my staff to leave for their own security, refused to leave when the police arrived and were subsequently charged with trespass.

It is ironic than when we are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms people choose not to exercise their right to speak and give expression to their grievance but choose to enter under false pretenses, illegally occupy an MP's office, intimidate employees and effectively assault the very values that underlie a free and democratic society.

I say this because I am increasingly concerned about the importation of hatred from the mideast conflict. After September 11 many of us spoke out and continue to speak out against the singling out of any visible minority, particularly Muslims, for discriminatory treatment but we must now sound the alarm about the increasing anti-Semitic assaults on Jews and Jewish institutions and threats of “death to the Jews” at public demonstrations.

We have to make it clear that racism and hate against any individual or group has no place in our society.

[Middle East, April 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, anyone who has watched the images of human suffering, both Israeli and Palestinian, cannot help but feel the human pain, leaving aside issues of blame and moral equivalence.

What is needed at this point is the resolve and recommitment on both sides, in an acknowledgment of each other's pain, to the following: an end to all incitement, terror and violence; withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian cities and towns; proclamation of a ceasefire and termination of states of belligerency; and respect for human rights as a code of conduct.

It includes mutual confidence building measures, involving on the Israeli side withdrawal, settlements freeze and lifting of curfews and closures; and on the Palestinian side, an end to incitement and terror, an end to the glorification of suicide bombers, and education for peace.

It also includes comprehensive humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under international supervision; implementation of the Tenet plan and Mitchell proposals; revival of political negotiations with a view to the ultimate establishment of an independent, democratic Palestinian state living in peace alongside, and in recognition of, the right of Israel to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries.

[Human Rights, April 17th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today marks a rather remarkable historic convergence. It is the 54th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel and the 20th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Each have generated their own revolutions: the founding of the state of Israel as a revolutionary event in Jewish and human history with the reconstitution of the ancient Jewish people in their aboriginal homeland; and the Canadian charter of rights with its revolutionary impact on the promotion and protection of human rights in this country and its rayonnement internationally.

Indeed, there is one generic right in the charter, article 7 which speaks of the right to life, liberty and security of the person, that also underpins the right of the Jewish people to self determination, a foundational international human right, and to individual and collective security. It underpins the corresponding right of the state of Israel to live within secure and recognized boundaries free from any threats or acts of force, at peace with her neighbours.

In Hebrew numerology the number 18, chai , means life. The number 54, connoting the 54th anniversary of the state of Israel, means life as a threefold blessing. May the right to life, liberty and human security in charter law and international human rights law resonate as a blessing for Canada, Israel and peoples everywhere, and may the prayer for peace so urgently yearned for be realized.

[David N. Weisstub, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to Professor David N. Weisstub. The holder of the Philippe Pinel Chair in Legal Psychiatry and Biomedical Ethics, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, the French government has made him a knight of the Legion of Honour.

Professor Weisstub enjoys an international reputation in ethics, law and forensic psychiatry. He is honourary president for life of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health, and directs the most important forensic psychiatry journal in the world, the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry . Francophile that he is, he has made a considerable contribution to the international reputation of the psychiatric hospital, located in east Montreal.

Professor Weisstub is one of the few Quebecers and Canadians to receive this high honour for his remarkable contribution to law and medicine, and his scientific contributions, particularly to the Francophonie, primarily via exchanges between Quebec and France.

We wish to express our appreciation and congratulations for all his excellent achievements.

[International Criminal Court, April 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in a world beset by a brooding omnipresence not only in the Middle East which we hear a good deal about, but also in the killing fields in the Sudan and the Congo which we do not hear enough about, I am pleased to share with colleagues one bit of good news.

We are on the eve of one of the most dramatic developments in the history of international criminal justice since Nuremberg with the coming into effect tomorrow of the treaty for an international criminal court when the necessary 60th state party ratification will be deposited at the UN.

The 20th century was not only the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity since few perpetrators were brought to justice. We trust that the treaty for an international criminal court will not only deter an age of atrocity in the 21st century but will ensure that all perpetrators of these atrocities will be brought to justice.

[The Middle East, April 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise to speak I am reminded, particularly because this is Holocaust Remembrance Day, of the reverence for human life. That is why I wish to begin almost by way of prologue with a statement that every person, be they Palestinian or Israeli, Arab or Jewish, is a universe, and the death of any innocent a tragedy.

I rise also to speak not only as the MP for Mount Royal but as a Jew, as one who has been engaged in the struggle for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East for over 35 years, who has family in Israel and friends among the Palestinians, and who has acted as legal counsel to both Israeli and Palestinian human rights NGOs. Accordingly, with this experience in mind, I would like to go behind the daily headlines, which cloud and sometimes corrupt understanding, to probe the real basis for conflict, the root causes, to use the popular metaphor, of conflict in the Middle East and the basis for conflict resolution.

I will organize my remarks around a set of foundational principles for understanding the conflict and for moving toward a just solution, many of which are themselves anchored in the basic principles of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East.

Principle number one, which successive Canadian governments have described as the cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy in the Middle East, is respect for the security, well-being and legitimacy of the state of Israel. Indeed, this principle is itself rooted in a related notion or principle: the existential nature of the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict. In a word, this is not a conflict about borders, though borders are certainly in dispute. This is not a conflict about territory, although territory is certainly in dispute. It is not a conflict about resources such as water, though resources are certainly in dispute. Nor is this even a conflict about Jerusalem, though Jerusalem is sometimes a metaphor for the existential nature of this conflict.

Simply put, the core of the conflict has been and for the most part continues to be the unwillingness of many among the Palestinian and Arab leadership to accept the legitimacy of Israel's right to exist anywhere in the Middle East.

Historical rejectionist evidence speaks for itself. In 1947 the United Nations recommended the partition of the Palestine mandate into a Jewish state and a Palestinian-Arab state. The Jews accepted the UN resolution. The Arabs rejected it and launched a war that by their own acknowledgement was intended to exterminate the nascent state of Israel.

It should be noted that at the time of this first rejection of a Jewish state there were no Palestinian-Arab refugees, no occupied territories, no settlements. Indeed, this was the beginning of a pattern of double rejectionism: the Arabs rejecting a Palestinian state if that meant having to countenance a Jewish one.

From 1948 until 1967 the West Bank was under the occupation of Jordan, and Gaza under the occupation of Egypt, so that only Arab occupation prevented the emergence of a Palestinian state during this period. In June 1967, again with no Israeli occupation or settlements in occupied territories, Egypt, Syria and Jordan waged a war against Israel, not to establish a Palestinian state but to once again extinguish the Jewish one.

In the Israeli exercise of self-defence, which the UN acknowledged, Israel gained control of the Sinai, the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Israel's offer in the immediate aftermath of that 1967 six-day war to return these newly obtained territories for a peace treaty was met with the triple “no” of the Arab Khartoum declaration: no recognition, no negotiation, no peace with Israel.

The pattern continued through the launching of yet another war of aggression against Israel on Yom Kippur until the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1979 resulted in the return of the Sinai and peace between Israel and Egypt, just as a peace treaty was to be completed with Jordan in 1994.

In a word, therefore, and this is the reading of the Middle East history, fast forward now to the year 2000. It is not the Israeli occupation that has been the root cause of the conflict; rather, it is the rejection of Israel, even at the price of rejecting thereby a Palestinian state, that led to the initial occupation in 1967 and still sustains the less than 5% of the territory yet occupied by Israel as a result of the six-day war. In a word, over 95% of the territory captured by Israel in the exercise of self-defence in the six-day war has been returned within the framework of peace treaties with countries that were prepared to recognize Israel and, in the initial stages of Oslo, which have given Arafat control over 98% of the Palestinian people.

However, in the year 2000 in the Camp David talks and then again in Taba, Arafat rejected a Clinton and Israeli initiated proposal that would have ended what remained of the occupation and would have established an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. This would have given the Palestinians almost everything that they themselves had been asking for, save for the right of return which, as Palestinian leader Sari Nusseibah put it, would have meant a second Palestinian state in place of Israel.

This would have required of Arafat and the Arab world to finally accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state in the Middle East alongside the 22 Arab states in the region. Arafat not only rejected this proposal, which recalls the refrain that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, but as the Arab scholar Fouad Ajami recently put it, Arafat launched a war of terror in the heartland of Israel of which the recent Passover massacre was a real life metaphor.

Principle number two and related existential principle which has emerged as a basic tenet of Canadian foreign policy is that the Palestinians are a people who have legitimate rights and needs, including the right to self-determination and the right, as I myself have been maintaining for more than 30 years, to an independent, democratic, rights protecting state in the Middle East. Only a democratic Palestinian state will protect the authentic Palestinian right to self-determination while affording the best security for Israel.

Israelis have acknowledged their willingness and readiness to negotiate an independent Palestinian state. The core question then is not whether there will be an independent Palestinian state on which Israel is prepared to agree. The question is whether the Arab world is prepared to make room for a single Jewish state alongside 23 Arab states.

Principle number three refers to UN security council resolutions 242 and 338 agreed upon for conflict resolution in the Middle East, a formula sometimes known as the land for peace resolutions. These UN security council resolutions have been further refined and built upon by the Madrid and Oslo process, including the importance of a just solution to the refugee question.

Principle number four is an end to any Arab or Palestinian government sanctioned incitement to hatred and violence. It is this government sanctioned teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this culture of incitement, is where it all begins. In the words of Professor Ajami:

The suicide bomber of the Passover massacre did not descend from the sky; he walked straight out of the culture of incitement let loose on the land, a menace hovering over Israel, a great Palestinian and Arab refusal to let that country be, to cede it a place among the nations, he partook of the culture all around him--the glee that greets those brutal deeds of terror, the cult that rises around the martyrs and their families.

Principle number five is the danger of the escalating globalizing genocidal anti-Jewishness. It is a tragic irony that on the occasion of today's International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where Jews in concert with our fellow citizens remember the worst genocide of the 20th century, international holocaust and genocide scholars warn once again of a genocidal anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head. In particular I am referring to the state and terrorist sanctioned public calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of the Jewish people which I have documented elsewhere.

Principle number six is terrorism. The deliberate maiming, murder and terrorizing of innocents can never be justified. It is important to recall and reaffirm the foundational principles of international and Canadian counterterrorism law and policy as they apply also to the Middle East. These include that terrorism from whatever quarter for whatever purpose, as the Prime Minister put it, can never be justified; that the transnational networks of super terrorists with access to weapons of mass destruction constitute an existential threat to the right to life, liberty and security of the person; and that freedom from acts of terror, freedom from fear of terror constitute a cornerstone of human security. In the words of our Prime Minister:

There is nothing in our experience that can capture the fear that Israelis live with every hour of every day.

They further include that there is no moral equivalence or similitude between terrorism and counterterrorism, between deliberate acts of terror against civilians and acts of self-defence against terrorists; that support and sanctuary for groups responsible for terrorism, as the foreign minister has put it, is unacceptable; and that counterterrorism must always comport with human rights and humanitarian norms.

Principle number seven is respect for human rights and humanitarian law as a cornerstone for the protection of human security. If human security were an organizing principle of Canadian foreign policy then it is human insecurity which is the most serious dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today. What is needed therefore is a culture of human rights in place of a culture of hate, a culture of respect in place of a culture of contempt. As the foreign minister put it recently at a meeting of the UN commission on human rights in Geneva, “security is sustainable only in an environment where human rights are protected” including in particular the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

Principle number eight is support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon. In accordance with UN security council resolutions Canada supports the progressive extension of the Lebanese government's authority over all of its territory and the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon.

Principle number nine is the implementation of the Tenet security work plan and Mitchell commission recommendations. Close to a year ago I described in this place a tenuous Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire that hung on a thread and threatened to explode into violence and stated that it was more necessary than ever that the parties adhere to the recommendations of the Mitchell commission. I reiterate these words today with all the urgency that today's situation commands.

The Tenet security work plan and the Mitchell recommendations are a carefully calibrated set of procedures and substantive requirements to end the incitement, terrorism and violence, to proclaim a ceasefire, to enter into mutual confidence building measures and to proceed to negotiations leading to a political settlement.

Principal number ten is confidence building measures, the parliamentary and people to people contributions. I want to associate myself with the initiative represented and mentioned earlier by my hon. colleague from Cumberland--Colchester of an Israeli-Palestinian-Canadian parliamentary peace forum.

Principle number eleven is the end game. UN security council resolution 1397 states: “the vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders”. For this vision to be reached, the culture of incitement, hate and terror will have to end, as stated by Professor Ajami.

Indeed, that is the core of what Tenet and Mitchell seek to build upon. For that to happen we must realize that saying yes to Palestine means also saying yes to Israel. Otherwise we will have learned nothing from history and will never realize the vision of a peaceful future for all peoples in the Middle East that we all desperately yearn for.

[Holocaust Remembrance Day, April 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today we commemorate the 85th anniversary of the bravery of Canadians at Vimy Ridge. It is also international Holocaust Remembrance Day where Jews in concert with our fellow citizens remember the worst genocide of the 20th century, crimes too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened.

It was a genocidal anti-Semitism where, as Elie Wiesel put it, “not all victims were Jews but all Jews were victims”. The murdered 6 million Jews and 11 million non-Jews were not just an abstraction, a statistic, but unto each person there was a name, there was an identity. Each person was a universe.

As scholars of the Holocaust recently warned, we once again see an eliminationist anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head. As the supreme court reminded us, the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers. It began with words.

We trust that the legacy of Holocaust Remembrance Day, of never again, of justice for all, will be the universal testament and legacy for all peoples everywhere.