Brad Love Out of Prison: 1,000 More Days Gagged/CAFÉ Mounts Successful Demo for Love
SCARBOROUGH, April 17. Two dozen supporters of the Canadian Association for Free Expression (CAFE), supported by the Canadian Heritage Alliance and the Northern Alliance protested outside the Metro East Detention Centre today, demanding the release of Brad Love, Canada’s second most famous political prisoner. "Mr. Love has been denied bail and held in prison since March 3 for writing letters to MPPs on immigration,” CAFÉ Director Paul Fromm told the protesters. These letters were non-threatening and merely expressed his unhappiness with poorly screened immigration that has led to such criminal behaviour as marijuana grow-ops."

Mr. Love was convicted, in July, 2003 of "promoting hate", in connection with dozens of letters he'd written over the years to federal MPs. One of his probation conditions, on his release in March 2004, was not to write "hateful or scurrilous" letters. Mr. Love has been gainfully employed and faithfully kept his appointments with his probation officer. He was arrested leaving the probation office on March 3 and charged for having written 30 more letters to MPPs.

For some reason, the Ontario Justice system has a hate on for Brad Love," Mr. Fromm said. "His lawyer, Peter Lindsay, knows of persons charged with murder released on $100,000 bail. The Crown initially agreed to a $200,000 surety -- an extraordinary sum for charges that do not involve violence -- and then reneged on the deal. Keeping a non-violent letter writer in prison is an abuse of process," Fromm added.

"Police from York Region, Peel, Metro and the OPP have acted like political police in Mr. Love's case, " said Fromm. "Officers from all four police forces sat through two and a half days of bail hearings in early March. Yet, police often fail to show up for the bail hearings of violent offenders, who then are released with low bail and few conditions," he charges. "We believe that Mr. Love's outspoken opposition to the government's immigration policies have made him a target of the increasingly politicized policing in this province."

"It's a waste of taxpayers' money keeping this letter writer in prison," Fromm added.

TORONTO. April 18, 2005. Reaction to a letter-writing campaign and protests was not long in coming. Today Brad Love was released from prison after a courtroom appearance in Toronto’s Old City Hall. “Mr. Love was released on time served with strict conditions,” Love’s lawyer Peter Lindsay announced this afternoon.

While free, after a hasty plea bargain, Mr. Love becomes a gagged political non-person. For the next 1,000 days, he explained from his Etobicoke house this evening, “I am to have no contact with any elected political official or Jewish organization. If there was a political meeting with an elected official, I couldn’t attend,” Mr. Love said.

“It’s pure bullshit. It’s unprecedented anywhere in Canada. That’s what they do when they have you between a rock and a hard place,” he said of his six weeks in jail for writing letters.

He had two years of his original three-year probation to serve and another one was tacked on today. He pleaded guilty to four breaches of probation and was given time served, plus the new Orwellian gag order.

“CAFÉ will assist Mr. Love in appealing his court decision which strips him of his rights as a Canadian and free citizen to contact and lobby his elected officials,” Paul Fromm announced this evening from his Rexdale office.

Ironically, the Crown in Mr. Love’s draconian plea bargain was Michael Leshner a homosexual crusader for same-sex marriage who, soon after the judicial revolutionaries on the Ontario Court of Appeals made such arrangements legal, married his longstanding “partner.” So, here was an activist who had long campaigned for his rights, stripping Mr. Love of the fundamental right to speak to politicians. “Mr. Love is red-flagged with every police force in Southern Ontario,” the Crown persecutor warned.