By Nicholas Bradley and Daliah Merzaban
the Carillon

VANCOUVER (CUP) - A radical anti-abortion group is getting ready to sue the University of British Columbia.

The Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBC), a US-based organization, intends to file a lawsuit over what it perceives as unfair demands put on it by UBC.

The militant group is also accusing the Ubyssey, the campus newspaper, of printing ³lies² about them.

This past week, the CBR was planning to bring its Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), a radical anti-abortion exhibit, to UBC.

In response, the university insisted that the CBR pay for its own security costs up to a maximum of $15,000 a day. The university also limited the group to a field beside the schoolıs recreation centre.

The demands infuriated the CBR who decided to stay away from UBC.

³Itıs very troubling to us that Canadians, in significant numbers on this campus, are having difficulty understanding that there can be no social reform unless there are rights of free speech that mean something, not just hypocritical rhetoric,² said CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham.

The university has not yet received any notice of legal action, said UBC Vice-President (Students) Brian Sullivan.

But even with the threat of a lawsuit hanging over them, the university is still defending their demands.

³The universityıs position continues to be that the process [it has] taken here and the conditions that were required were both reasonable and necessary,² said Sullivan.

³And if we canıt agree on something and they wish to petition legally, we have no hesitation on taking the matter on that basis.²

The CBR has also implicated the Ubyssey in the matter.

³The lawsuit begins with the lack of journalistic integrity with this newspaper [the Ubyssey] reporting scurrilous lies about CBR that cause the campus to feel threatened,² said Cunningham in a live interview inside the Ubyssey office.

³By leaving people under the impression that we were racist, Nazis and all of that sort of stuff, [the Ubyssey] contributed in some measure to the university overreacting and saying, Œweıre going to require some pre-payments, an enormous security charge.ı²

But Sullivan denies media reports played any part in helping form UBCıs demands.

The CBR is also likely to name the universityıs Alma Mater Society (AMS) in the lawsuit, after the AMS cancelled a room booking by the group in the Student Union Building.

Nathan Allen, AMS co-ordinator of external affairs, said the AMS hasnıt done anything wrong.

³I donıt see how making a stance for choice warrants a lawsuit against us,² said Allen.