A bizarre and frightening spectacle indeed. "The court of last resort," by Brian Hutchinson for the National Post, June 3 (thanks to CGW):
VANCOUVER -In the subterranean bowels of a provincial courthouse, a bizarre and frightening spectacle starts to unfold.At issue are the pointed musings of Mark Steyn, a journalist and author living in the United States. A lengthy excerpt from his controversial book, America Alone, was published two years ago in Toronto-based Maclean's magazine, a weekly publication owned by Toronto-based Roger's Publishing Ltd.
The book excerpt ran as a cover story, entitled "Why the Future Belongs to Islam," and argued that Western democracy is threatened by the spread of Islam. In response, a human rights complaint was made here, in British Columbia, by an electrical engineer living in Waterloo, Ont.
That's the bizarre part, or one slice of it. None of the main players starring in this quasi-judicial drama actually live or work in B. C. Not Mr. Steyn, not the editors responsible for Maclean's, and not Mohamed Elmasry, a Muslim who launched a complaint to the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal on behalf of all Muslims in this province.
Neither Mr. Steyn, nor his editors, nor Mr. Elmasry were in sight when the tribunal panel began the week-long hearing yesterday. Mr. Steyn will not testify, say lawyers for Maclean's. Nor will Mr. Elmasry, the aggrieved. So why bring the complaint forward here? Because Mr. Elmasry can. This thanks to provincial human rights legislation of a breadth and elasticity not known in other parts of Canada.
Mr. Elmasry, the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, and a highly controversial figure himself -- especially among Jewish groups -- claims the Steyn excerpt denigrated and vilified Canadian Muslims and promoted hatred of an identifiable group.
He is not obliged to demonstrate what harm occurred to whom, or to what degree. Maclean's magazine and Mr. Steyn could still be found to have violated B. C.'s Human Rights Code. No proof of damage is required.
Meanwhile, if found to have violated the code, Maclean's faces sanctions, including payment to the complainant "an amount that the member or panel considers appropriate to compensate that person for injury to dignity, feelings and self respect or to any of them."...
Read it all.
Canada really is bad. It's even worse than Western Europe.
From the article,
Other than the burka clad or head scarfed woman, how is a Muslim identifiable?
Why not? Why is it incumbent upon the "accused" to answer to this sh*thead? Who is this Elmasry character? Why is HE NOT accountable?
Dhimmis all, but worse -- WHAT A BATCH OF PANTYWAISTS!
wellcome to bc aka bring cash because you will get screwed here
Ezra Levant has been posting threads step-by-step all day - filled with details about this incredible tribunal.
We Christians need to file a complaint with the Canadian court about the damage and harm that Radical muslims have done to us.
Also, someone needs to file a complaint on behalf of the young girls who were murdered by their "father".
As bad as that court is, the intention is to protect peoples' rights; therefore, lets use that court against the Muslims whenever they commit some atrocity, or when they persecute a muslim who decides to leave Islam.
"The book excerpt ran as a cover story, entitled "Why the Future Belongs to Islam," and argued that Western democracy is threatened by the spread of Islam. "
and the Muslims are denying the truth because they don't want it known.
Interesting info on why the protesters are carrying blank signs. That's Dag walker in the picture! (For those of you who remember sonofwalker here at JW/DW)
http://downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com/2008/06/protest-against-bc-human-rights.html
Sorry - Dag Walker
I would caution Christians or anyone in general from trying to use this farcical institution as a weapon in a fight for truth. In a 50 page rebuttal concerning the Marc Lemire case, after accusations were placed concerning CHRC misdeeds (all documented by Ezra Levant - his website is worth the time), the government lawyers said that the truthfulness or falseness of any statement was not the issue, but rather whether hate had been incited.
If truth is not a defense, then there is no defense. I have read Mark Steyn's book. Understand that he is being investigated for quoting Muslims, who made the statements in public media. This is not about truth, but embarassment. Muslim belief, practice, and actions are being highlighted and they don't like what is being said. And don't want to take responsibility for changing it.
So now is the time for people who value freedom of speech to write to the members of our provincial and federal governments and tell them that section 13, the hate crimes legislation in Canadian Human Rights Acts will not be tolerated any longer. It must be abolished and the current occupants of the tribunals and commissions dismissed and replaced. If we don't do it now, the many will be silenced by the few.
The Muslim who took the stand as stand in for Elamsry the bigot, admitted he wanted "rebuttal" space in Macleans Magazine and that he did not want Steyn's article suppressed, therefore, Steyn's article did NO HARM to Islam or Muslims. This case is about Muslim supremacy over the message and revenge, that is all. Unfortunately truth is not a defense in these tribunals. That's why they are so dangerous. Really, a third world dictatorship would operate the way these tribunals do. It was interesting when they put the Koran under examination using expert Andrew Rippin, a Christian Islamic Scholar, who testified:
As blogged by Ezra Levant:
"That there are indeed radical sects of Islam out there, political sects, that demand that their adherents colour their every action with their religious ideology."
No kidding.
Personofthe book wrote: "We Christians need to file a complaint with the Canadian court about the damage and harm that Radical muslims have done to us."
My sentiments exactly, only I would ammend that to change "we Christians" to "all non-Muslims."
Nor should this be limited to Canada. It needs to become a legal battle on an international scale. Those Islamists better start getting it into their thick heads that some of us actually know what's it the Koran, that we know what's being preached in far too many of their mosques and taught to far too many of their children.
It's time to give these lawsuit addicts a taste of their own medicine.
David Warren @ The Ottawa Citizen:
"Take this in:
A group of Islamist fanatics, claiming to speak for every Muslim in Canada, charged Maclean's magazine with "spreading hatred against Muslims" for having printed a lucid and reasonable (if controversial) excerpt from Steyn's bestselling book, America Alone. This is a news story that should be on the front page of every newspaper in Canada, every day until it is resolved.
Everything about this case stinks to high heaven."
Yep.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=7a0f1fad-ef43-4045-8a5f-461ff39cb6cd
If there is a light at the end of the tunnel it is that the various HRCs have so overstepped their original purpose, and their rulings/behaviour have revealed such contempt for jurisprudence, that it is only a matter of time before they get slapped down hard.
Individuals and organizations protesting about the HRCs abuse of power include:
Alan Borovoy - co-founder of both the Canadian Civil Liberties Assoc. and the original Human Rights Commission legislation;
Toronto Star - the most liberal newspaper in Canada
PEN - the international writers association
Globe and Mail, National Post and numerous other mainstream newspapers across Canada
Eye Weekly - a very left wing alternate paper in Toronto;
Rex Murphy and Rick Mercer - CBC personalities
and Noam Chomsky - for God's sake!
Furthermore, the section of the Human Rights Act under dispute was only approved by the Supreme Court by the narrowest of margins (4-3). One of the dissenting judges, Beverly Mclaughlin, is now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I can see this case heading back there.
"Julian Porter, lawyer for Rogers, scoffed mercilessly at the young man's snippy, judgmental testimony.
In particular, the nationally respected Toronto legal celebrity took delight exposing Awan's ignorance of the great library at Alexandria, Egypt, whose incredible loss and destruction by Muslims Amiel lamented.
"I haven't been [there]," Awan said sharply, as if that was an excuse for not knowing about the legendary archive, giving Porter an opening for his coup de grace.
"No," the prominent Toronto lawyer sneered, "it was burnt."
In 642 A.D., I believe.
That was a tragedy, this is a farce."
Yep.
http://tinyurl.com/6qgsox
"... claims the Steyn excerpt denigrated and vilified Canadian Muslims and promoted hatred of an identifiable group."
So the next time an islamic preacher of hate advocates killing gays or wiping out Israel, we can expect him to be taken to court and financially destroyed?!
As Islam becomes more dominent in the rest of the world, there will be many more cases like this one.
Attention photographers! Never take a picture of Muslims in Burkas. It's stereoptyping! (causes islamophibia you see) That's as per the expert witness, Faiza Hirji, they have in the BCHRT hearing.
"She (Hirji) reads a passage, says she sees a stereotype in it. Reads another, sees another. The cover is another stereotype, because it shows women wearing burkhas. The child’s face is in line with “the use of women and children as a marker of how oppressive Islam is.” "
Macleans, Steyn, you're done for.
http://tinyurl.com/6ky6q9
It's a war against free speech and freedom of the press. The cat is out of the bag:
"The letter, which Julian Porter, is quite bald in setting out the complainants’ objectives. “This case is very important to Muslim minorities who are consistently misrepresented in the media.” They cite approvingly the BC human rights legislation. “We anticipate that success in this case will provide the impetus for prohibiting discriminatory publications in the other provinces.” So there you have it."
http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/06/04/liveblogging-the-macleans-trial-iii-die-another-day/
@ 1:30 PM
The US has nothing like Rex Murphy. Just listen to the quality in his writing. He may be ugly, but his speech writing ability is better than anyone I've heard.
Listen to this: The guy is a national treasure.
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/rex_murphy/human_rights_gone_awry.html
"Canada really is bad. It's even worse than Western Europe."
That's the shortest Fjordman post I've ever seen.
you need to remeber that the HRC WAS SET up on orders of canadas most liberal pm peter waterhole akab p. e . trude and refects his distane for the magna carta that the britih laws that canada law is based on
Live blogging continues today, day 5 of the 'trial'...
http://jaycurrie.info-syn.com/
Canada's worse than Western Europe? Sheesh. First post in and we get more Canada-bashing here. Yes, these human rights tribunals are a disgrace, but:
1. They were set up under provincial law, not federal, so whine about individual provinces, not "Canada."
2. At least we've got a case like this going on. Maclean's magazine -- which is about as Canadian as you can get -- is the only newsmagazine on the planet to have carried the excerpt from America Alone, and the only newsmagazine that lets Mark Steyn write whatever he wants in a column in every issue. You won't find honesty like that in Time, Newsweek, or any publication in Western Europe.
3. I'd still rather have these "human-rights" abominations than the ACLU. Or the federal show trials in Europe like the one that just fined Brigitte Bardot for telling the truth in France.
4. I'm putting big, big money on Maclean's winning in BC. And also betting that all of the press attention on these absurd joke hearings will force provincial governments to make serious changes to how these star chambers operate. It's already happened in Ontario, where you can bet that the Liberal government told their odious toady Barbara Hall to let the Steyn case die. You can tell that somebody told her to lay off, otherwise she wouldn't have issued that snotty attack on Steyn at the same time as she was announcing that the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal had no jurisdiction in this case, or over any published material.
Anyhow, the backlash against these joke tribunals is growing each and every day. It's good to have cases like this now, because they're exposing how awful these human rights codes are to average people who never realized what could go wrong with something as warm and fuzzy as "human rights" legislation.
OutOfAqaba there is indeed a Federal Human right Commission. Macleans Magazine is charged before that body as well because the Muslims went shopping and filed in three jurisdictions.
Ontario could not proceed because they do not have jurisdiction over Magazines, yet. That's why Hall delivered her drive by sentence, trial or no trial.
Macleans will loose in BC. How could they win? You see, the Tribunals and Commissions set up across this country have nothing to do with due process or fairness or truth. That is correct, truth is not a defense. All of this is run by far left loons who believe discussion of Islam is a hate crime and a critique of Islam is a bigger hate crime. Mark Steyn discussed Islam. They will be found guilty.
The Muslims testified they were offended by a picture of women in burka on the cover of Macleans Magazine. The say that photo "demonizes Islam". Since the tribunal has no clue about Islam nor does it matter, nor is proof or truth of any value, Macleans is guilty as hell.
These Commissions / Tribunals are themselves, in violation of human rights.
Yes, I believe this is even worse than Europe.
Thank you progressive liberalism for that.