a library, of all places

Oops, I almost forgot an important follow-up. Naomi Klein and Aaron Mate decried a Montreal library's decision to remove some photographs by Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian photojournalist who was tortured to death in Iran, after some Jewish groups complained about supposed anti-Israeli bias.

When I blogged about it here, asking for follow-up, G the LB sent me this almost immediately:

On Friday, members of the Canada Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation held a mock book-banishing ceremony in front of the Côte-St-Luc library where Kazemi's photos had been on display.

A member of the group, Lillian Robinson, used metal tongs to drop a book into a bright orange biohazard bag. It was one of several books about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that she and the Jewish Alliance borrowed from the library to make a point about freedom of expression.

"A library, of all places, is a place where all opinions, different opinions, are aired," Robinson says.

She says Zahra Kazemi's photos of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories belong in the library. She says it's absurd that a complaint about those pictures convinced borough officials to take them down.

"What are they afraid of? They're afraid of a woman who died for free expression, for freedom of the press," Robinson says.

Great stuff indeed. And for me, a little extra, as I'm always happy to see Jewish people speak up for what's right, instead of some narrowly perceived self-interest.