Dov Ivry

Injustice Hits Rock Bottom Down Under: the Vakras Case Dov Ivry

This is how the book begins. This happened in Australia. It is one of the most egregious travesties of justice that I have ever encountered. I am a Canadian who lives in Israel, a journalist by trade, not remotely related to Australia. Why am I getting involved? There are two reasons: one major and one minor. The first is that it involves anti-Semitism. The second is that it goes to the question of freedom of speech on the Internet. The case involves one Demetrios Vakras, 51, an artist, and his partner Lee-Anne Raymond, 50, also an artist, who have lived together for 30 years. They reside in Melbourne. Vakras and Lee-Anne did not ask me to write this book. Nor they did commission me or offer me money to publicize their case. As a matter of fact the opposite it true. When I suggested to Vakras that he needed to get his story out to the public, he replied that they were constrained from doing so because their case was still before the courts. They have just been hit with an AUD $450,000 defamation judgment. If you add the costs, still to come, and their payments to their lawyers, this couple of limited means will have to pay out more than $1,000,000. They don?t put the kangaroo on the coat of arms of Australia for nothing. This was the kangaroo court to end all kangaroo courts. The couple did not get their day in court. Rather they were railroaded into a procedure so weird that it has been seen once before on earth and that was in fiction, when Alice appeared before the Queen of Hearts.