A club at U of T is fuming after Canada Customs seized pamphlets destined for an Oct. 6 lecture.

The Objectivist Club, a student society that promotes the philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand (author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead), was importing 350 copies of a pamphlet titled “In Moral Defense of Israel” from the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California. The documents were intended for a lecture by Dr. Yaron Brook, the executive director of the institute, at the Medical Sciences Building on the St. George campus.

But Canada Customs intercepted the shipment at the U.S./Canada border. On Oct. 2, they notified the U of T Objectivists that the material was being held because it may constitute “obscenity or hate speech,” according to the club’s president, Ray Girn.

Girn said he had “no idea” why Customs would think the pamphlets constituted hate speech.

“I’ve asked them and they haven’t gotten back to me,” Girn added.

Canada Customs refused to comment on the issue, saying they never comment on specific cases.

While Customs said the pamphlets have been released, they still had not arrived at U of T as of Saturday. “We’ll have photocopied pamphlets at the event,” Girn said, noting that the availability of the entire document on the Ayn Rand Institute’s website in PDF form made the seizure “kind of pointless.”

The 10-page document contains several articles that may have triggered the Customs seizure. “We stand for individual rights and freedom. In the name of justice, of defending the good, we support Israel. In a region dominated by despotism and totalitarian dictatorships, Israel alone upholds rights.”

The pamphlet contains articles entitled “Israel’s suicide: the land-for-peace compromise will lead Israel only to self-destruction,” “U.N. call for Palestinian state spells suicide for Palestinians” and “Allowing Israel to destroy the PLO helps defend the U.S.”

“I have read through it and am hard-pressed to understand how it could be classified as hate mail,” said Anita Bromberg, the human rights co-ordinator for B’nai Brith, a Canadian Jewish lobby group. “There is a bit about allowing Israel to destroy the PLO.”