Anti-Censorship Champion Jim Deva Dies at 65

Vancouver human rights and anti-censorship activitist Jim Deva died Sunday in a fall from a ladder in his home. Jim was 65.

Jim was co-owner of Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium, a thirty-year Davie Street institution. In the late 1980s, Jim, along with his partner Bruce Smyth and store manager Janine Fuller, took Canada Customs to court after the federal agency detained imported gay and lesbian books and magazines it considered obscene.  

The censorship battle, which became known as Little Sisters vs. Big Brother, reached the Supreme Court of Canada, which in 2005, ruled in favour of the bookstore.