By LifeSiteNews (Politics) | Created at 2024-10-31 22:52:16 | Updated at 2024-11-07 02:48:23
6 days ago
Thu Oct 31, 2024 - 6:00 pm EDTThu Oct 31, 2024 - 4:48 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — On this episode of The John Henry Westen Show, Australian freedom activist and author Monica Smit joins me to discuss her latest legal battles and campaign, Candace Owens being barred from entering Australia, and more.
I began the episode by asking Smit about Candace Owens being denied entry into Australia. Smit said she was “very triggered” by this decision and highlighted her government’s hypocrisy.
“Not long ago, we fought against drag queen story times in libraries, and an innocent child of any age could accidentally walk into a library and be confronted by a drag queen reading a very inappropriate book to them. However, adults can’t willingly pay for tickets to see someone that they want to see,” she said.
Smit then emphasized that she finds this precedent dangerous and is concerned about how this decision might affect her and other activists’ travels.
“If Candace Owens can’t come to Australia to see willing audiences, I’m worried that if I leave Australia, can I come back? The same reasons that they’re denying her entry to Australia would be the same reason they wouldn’t want me here,” she said.
Still, Smit said she was sure Owens would fight this dangerous precedent and offered to help her from Australia in any way she could.
Turning to her situation, I asked Smit for an update on her court cases, reminding listeners that she was arrested three times in one day back in 2020 for violating COVID lockdown rules, then a year later was arrested and held in prison, and has recently been back in court.
Smit explained that her first arrest came almost four years to the date, on October 31, 2020, while she was legally working as a journalist, and how she sued the Victoria police for unlawfully arresting her. “On that day, the police weren’t listening to me, I said, ‘I’m working,’ I even had a permit to be there, [I said,] ‘I have a real job, I have a real organization, I’ve got a real audience,’ and they just ignored me. So to be in court and be heard was really good, and it was livestreamed as well, so a lot of people were watching.”
Smit then dove into the results of her case. “So I had three arrests, and the judge ruled two out of the three arrests were unlawful. … So I was pretty proud of myself. I was pretty happy with that.”
Despite the win, Smit explained that the police offered her $15,000 during mediation to avoid trial, but she countered that it wasn’t about the money and just wanted a public apology. The police refused, and so they went to trial.
“After the trial, I got what I wanted: public vindication for at least two out of the three arrests. But the judge only awarded me $4,000 for two unlawful arrests because, apparently, I wasn’t distressed enough. And because I’m a mentally strong person, I gathered myself together quickly on the footage, and so [the judge] said, ‘You’re basically okay, so we’ll just give you $4,000.’”
Smit explained that that’s an unprecedentedly low amount of money to be awarded in this type of case, so despite winning the case, this was a major financial loss because she could’ve received $15,000 by not going to trial. To make matters worse, despite winning the case, the judge ordered her to pay the police’s legal costs of over $240,000.
“It sends a really dangerous message for two reasons. One, it emboldens police to be unlawful because, hey, even if they act unlawfully and someone takes them all the way to trial on their own, that person’s still going to lose anyway, so no one’s going to do it. And the police are just like, ‘Oh cool, no worries, I got away with that even though I did the wrong thing,” Smit said.
“Then, for everyday people like myself, why would you take on the police? [They’d say,] ‘Look at what happened to Monica Smit; she won her case and lost everything in the process.’ It’s a very dangerous precedent. So for those reasons, I’m appealing the ruling.”
Watch or listen to my full interview to hear more from Monica Smit.
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John-Henry is the co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com. He and his wife Dianne have eight children and they live in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada.
He has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout the world. John-Henry founded the Rome Life Forum, an annual strategy meeting for life, faith and family leaders worldwide. He is a board member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family. He is a consultant to Canada’s largest pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and serves on the executive of the Ontario branch of the organization. He has run three times for political office in the province of Ontario representing the Family Coalition Party.
John-Henry earned an MA from the University of Toronto in School and Child Clinical Psychology and an Honours BA from York University in Psychology.
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