The Devil made me do it

Saskatoon Crown Prosecutor Terry Hinz said after reading the Klassen sex abuse file he received from Cpl. Brian Dueck. "I was completely floored when I read the documents". "It made me feel I was transported back into the 17th century reading about the Salem witchcraft complaints."

Author Paul Johnson, in his book, A History of the American People, Phoenix Giant, said on page 82 “The ostensible facts of the Salem case are not in dispute. Early in 1692, two children in the household of the vicar of Salem, Samuel Parris - his daughter Betty, aged nine, and his niece Abigail, eleven - began to be taken with hysterical fits, screaming and rolling on the floor. Their behaviour affected some of their friends. Neither girl could write and they may not have been able to read. They were fond of listening to the tales of Tituba, a black female slave who formed part of the household. When the girls’ behaviour attracted attention, they were medically examined and closely questioned by their credulous father and local busybodies. The girls finally named Tituba as the source of their trouble and she, under pressure to confess witchcraft, admitted she was a servant of Satan, and spoke of cats, rats, and a book of witchcraft, “signed by nine in Salem.” Two names of local women were screamed out by the girls, and this set off the hunt.”

In Saskatoon, children, some with health problems aged nine and eight were looked after in a special foster home run by the Thomson’s. Their foster home was not special because anyone in the Thomson home had any expertise in dealing with children with special health problems. It was special because they had expertise in dealing with children processed by the Devil. The children were encouraged and rewarded by the Thomson’s and the interrogators of the children who were anxious to hear about devilish activity to confirm their preconceptions , the children intuited their needs and supplied it.

In Salem a special court was set up. Its proceedings were despicable. the court was finding innocent people guilty to justify its existence. Innocent people who pleaded guilty were released, those who pleaded not guilty or refused to plead were hanged or pressed to death. It was an open court as one would expect in the land of the free. The rule of law broke down.

In Saskatchewan there was no special court set up. The courts excluded the public and media and accepted the evidence of children who any parent hearing what they were saying would have told them, “if you keep talking like that I will wash your mouth out with soap.” Innocent people were being charged and sent to jail. The rule of law broke down.

Salem is not just famous for the hysteria that left people unable to think for themselves in the summer of 1692, it is also a story of the American peoples resolve for justice and truth. The lead witch hunter believed if the trials were pursued the work of the Devil would be exposed and this would benefit mankind. Author Paul Johnson, in his book, A History of the American People, said on page 85. “The Salem trials, then, can be seen as an example of the propensity of the American people to be convulsed by spasms of self-righteous rage against enemies, real or imaginary, of their society and way of living.” “We have here a phenomenon by no means confined to the 17th century. Perhaps the best insight into the emotional mechanism which got the Salem trials going can be provided by examining some of the many cases of child-abuse hysteria, and cases in which children were alleged to have been abused by Satanist rings, occurring in both the United States and Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. The way in which children can be encouraged, by prosecuting authorities, to “remember” imaginary events is common to both types of case. The Salem of the 1690s is not so far from us as we would like to think.”

What lead up to the Salem and Saskatoon hysterias is strikingly similar. The similarity ends there. A community leader returned to Salem from England in 1692 and he said that it was the hunting of witches that was the work of the Devil and it was the Devil that led foolish men to do the work of the Devil by hanging innocent people. The court in Salem was abolished. The General Court of Massachusetts passed a motion deploring the action of the judges. Jury members signed a statement of regret. Indemnities were paid to family members of the victims hanged. Some of those who made false statements later confessed. It was over in Salem in about a years time. This is outstanding, in 1692 the people confessed to unlawful activity, paid compensation and searched for the truth. The rule of law was restored. This was the result of leadership, Christian values and a society that valued good old common sense in doing what was proper, it was the right thing to do.

In Saskatchewan the people did not know what happened, when the authorities came to their senses the people responsible in government and the courts did just the opposite to what happened in Salem. A good number of people in authority were not capable of coming to their senses, they live in their world of hysterical delusions year round, to this day they believe that they saved the people of Saskatchewan from clever cultists who were baby killers, drinking blood and eating eyeballs and worked with "brood mares" -- women who breed children specifically to sacrifice them.

For over ten years the government of Saskatchewan and the courts engaged in the cover-up. The media and reporters who published information about the cases were charged and off to the court with them. People discovered that two eight year old girls making the accusations were in fact being sexually and physically abused and it was not being done by the people who were charged. They picketed to let the people know that the girls were being raped with the full knowledge of the court and officers of the court. They were charged and off to jail with some of them. In a way there was a special court set up in Saskatoon. It did not deal with the sex abuse cases, it was set up to deal with the cover-up of the child-abuse hysteria, the brake down of the rule of law and the worst case of child abuse at the hands of government officials and courts in Saskatchewan history.

The appeal of the Baynton Judgement is nothing short of a government protecting itself, the court and the people responsible. As we have seen with Mr Dueck, no one is going to be held accountable. Brad Wall, the Leader of the Official Opposition, said in his Christmas interview that the scandal of the century in Saskatchewan has to do with potatoes. There is a lack of a credible Official Opposition in Saskatchewan. The people have no voice in Regina. If the NDP party feels a need to protect the people of Saskatchewan from the Devil and Satanist rings the good Reverend Lorne Calvert and his coalition church at work gang need to stop using government agencies and the court, resign and build a church in Riversdale.

Richard Klassen is being encouraged to run in the next civic election in Saskatoon for the mayor’s chair. Open a bank account in Riversdale for donations to his campaign fund, I encourage Mr Klassen to run in the next provincial election in Riversdale. The people of Saskatchewan and Riversdale need a voice in the Legislative Assembly. The campaign platform could be an independent inquiry into the administration of justice in Saskatchewan. He could say to anyone that ask him why if he decided to run: “The Devil made me do it”.
James Hunter