It sounds like an episode of Law & Order, but for Canadian investigative writer Stephen Williams, the case is all too real. Williams is the author of Invisible Darkness: The Horrifying Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka and the more recent Karla: A Pact with the Devil. The books analyze the case of the brutal sex killings of Canadian teenagers Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French in the early 1990s. Last week, the Ontario Provincial Police filed 94 new charges of disobeying a court order and violating a publication ban against Williams because of material in the two books and on his Web site (shut down in May). The charges follow an investigation by the OPP that began in February 2003.
In both books, Williams is critical of Homolka's controversial plea bargain and the actions taken by crown attorneys and the Office of the Attorney General of Ontario in the case. The Writer's Union of Canada has called for a public inquiry into the police treatment of Williams and his wife, award-winning humor author Marsha Boulton, saying that the actions of the authorities are "an unwarranted attack on freedom of expression."
PEN Canada has also joined Williams's battle against censorship and is calling for law enforcement authorities in Ontario to explain why they have consistently treated a writer as if he were a violent and dangerous criminal who posed an imminent threat to society. In a media release, Christopher Waddell, the chair of PEN Canada's National Affairs Committee, called for Canadians to watch the case closely, because "actions taken by the authorities to date bear all the signs of attempts to intimidate and harass Mr. Williams in a conscious and deliberate attempt to curtail his freedom of expression."
These actions, which have included early morning raids of his home as well as arrest and incarceration, put Williams and Boulton in dire financial straits. McArthur & Co. planned to publish Boulton's new novel, The Sea Birds, this fall, but the author was unable to deliver a manuscript because the novel-in-progress is on her computer—which is still in the hands of the police.
The police interest extends to the book's Canadian distributors and publishers. The week the charges were filed, publisher Kim McArthur was notified by investigating officers that she was distributing a book that was the subject of criminal charges (McArthur & Co. first published Invisible Darkness in 1996). "They have yet to send me the specifics of the 28 charges relating to the book; they haven't sent them to Stephen or to the lawyers." The English-language publisher of Karla, Cantos International, received similar notice.
"I am happy to be cooperative," said McArthur. "I don't want to be distributing something that contravenes a publication ban that I and the author didn't know about, so we're all phoning one another going 'what's the problem?' We don't know. They won't tell us the specifics. I don't know how long it is going to go on. Why should someone who is a writer who is analyzing these crimes be pursued and charged with 95 criminal charges? That is very serious. We are not in China, Lebanon or Nigeria."
