TORONTO \u2014 As Steven Galloway concluded his testimony in his defamation trial in Vancouver, in Toronto, author Margaret Atwood reiterated her stance as a defender of due process in his case.<\/p>\n
Atwood, who was receiving an award at a Journalists for Human Rights event, spoke about her decision to sign an open letter in November 2016 calling for an investigation into how the University of British Columbia handled the Galloway case.<\/p>\n
Atwood faced intense backlash and scrutiny from the public after expressing support for the former UBC professor, comparing the online criticism to the French Revolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cLuckily, I couldn\u2019t be fired from the university or blacklisted from festivals,\u201d she said. \u201cOr if I was, I didn\u2019t notice.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also referred to Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which calls for \u201cthe right of every human being to a fair, open and impartial trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
She lamented the Canadian media\u2019s reluctance to cover the case over the last eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, the Canadian press is covering it after eight years of mostly not,\u201d she said. \u201cAs one of those attacked online, trashed and derided as a due processor for asking for an open investigation with information and evidence from the University of British Columbia, I\u2019m happy to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atwood has written opinion articles, most recently in the Vancouver Sun this week, in support of Galloway. She added that legacy media publications face growing pressures and dwindling revenue, which make it difficult to \u201cdefend against lawsuits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has made them more cautious,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Atwood also worried that social media has made the public more distrustful with a growing tendency to believe anything posted online.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a youngish place where something resembling news can appear and even be believed by the uncautious,\u201d she said. \u201cAs you know, that place is social media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Galloway, known for the award-winning novel \u201cThe Cellist of Sarajevo,\u201d is in the middle of a defamation trial against several people who he alleges published unproven allegations of sexual assault.<\/p>\n
One of the defendants includes a former student, known as A.B., who made sexual assault allegations against him that later spread on social media. Galloway was fired from UBC shortly after rumours of the accusations spread in late 2015.<\/p>\n
He was a tenured professor and the former chair of UBC\u2019s creative writing program.<\/p>\n
A report produced by a former judge for the university concluded that the accusations against Galloway were unsubstantiated.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sadeen Mohsen, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 As Steven Galloway concluded his testimony in his defamation trial in Vancouver, in Toronto, author Margaret…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-935149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}