timeimmortal

Mohamed Elmasry wants you to shut up, O Reader. And he wants me to shut up, too.

Quoted in the National Post, Elmasry stated, “The state should act to empower those who are disadvantaged by hate speech, and that may mean lowering the voices of some in order that others may be heard.” Of course he isn’t talking about lowering voices; what he really wants is to silence them.

It’s a frightening prospect when adherents to any Religion can dictate what is and is not acceptable in public discourse. As a society we have taken strong measures to ensure that government and religion are separated, yet Mr. Elmasry wants to prevent so-called Islamophobes from speaking their mind by classifying anything they may have to say as “hate speech”.

His opposition to the repeal of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, a section that is so draconian in preventing free speech that even Alan Borovoy one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, thinks it overly intrusive.

[Mohamed Elmasry] wants to use this law to silence all critics of Islamic fundamentalism, which will impose a chilling effect on freedom of speech in this country. There are no guarantees in our democracy that anyone has the right not to be offended. Indeed, much of what Elmasry says is offensive, especially to those of the Jewish faith. Yet no one is attempting to gag his vitriol, even when he asserts on national television that killing all Jews over the age of 18 in Israel is desirable.

Now, is that a double standard or a hidden agenda on Elmasry’s part?

On the surface it seems odd that a controversial figure like Elmasry would be so eager to empower the state to censor offensive views. Elmasry himself has had issues with hateful words spilling out of his mouth. The CIC has also supported the free speech rights of Sheikh Younus Kathrada…Sheikh Yunus al-Qaradawi…Zafar Bangash…al-Jazeera…

Now, on the surface, it would seem odd that Elmasry would be so pro-censorship given that such a strategy could be self-defeating in that Elmasry and his friends could be caught in such a wide net.

Is this simply a double-standard — free speech for me but not for thee?

Maybe not.

Elmasry has been on record supporting what would be tantamount to blasphemy laws:

On February 23, Muhammad Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress and Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada told the Toronto Star they want to see changes in Canada’s Hate Laws that would make it possible to jail writers who, in their opinion, insult or mock religious beliefs.

Both Mohamed Elmasry and Syed Soharwardy are asking for changes in Canada’s hate laws “so that offensive remarks or depictions of any religious figure are considered a crime.”

Their demand has its origins in Egypt, where Islamists led by Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi of al-Azhar University have been lobbying Muslim leaders to ask the United Nations to write a law that “condemns insulting any religion, including the Holy Scriptures and the prophets.”

Obviously, Elmasry would face much more of an uphill battle if he were pushing for Egyptian-style blasphemy laws.

Maybe it’s not Elmasry who has the double-standard, but that he is merely taking advantage of the double-standard of human rights commissions to sneak in such a law through the back door.

It’s scary to think that such a thing as this — which is tantamount to advocacy for the implementation of at least some aspects of Sharia law — could happen in Canada, but there it is. And the HRCs have been co-opted into the tool of choice for this Islamic agenda.

Of course, the HRCs were already serving to undermine the human rights — free speech is a human right, and then an important one — of Canadian citizens. But at least, when it was just secular leftists and homosexual activists having their way in front of the commission tribunals, nobody was talking about implementing Egyptian legal policy on Canadian soil.

Update: Welcome, Kathy Shaidle readers!

But don’t be takin’ my word for it, O Reader. Ye has been told this staggerin’ truth by none other than Mohamed Elmasry, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

From the CIC’s Friday Magazine, IS THERE AN ISLAMOPHOBIA OUT THERE Pt. 4?

“Islamophobia also leads to discrimination in hiring and to the widespread public image-distortion of Muslims and their views, especially regarding issues such as democracy, women, and Western culture. Conversions of Muslims to other faiths (especially Christianity) have been made much easier.“

…

Elmo are you singling out Christians? Why that may expose them to hatred & contempt! That’s discriminatory!

Quick notify the CHRC Flying Squad!

Yarr! BCF be exactly right here; thar be discrimination in the words of Elmasry! He be sayin’ that conversions of Muslim folk to other religions be discriminatory and Islamophobic, and he be singlin’ out Christianity in particular. One can only be assumin’ that he means t’say, then, that for a Muslim to be convertin’ to the way of the Lord be a particularly egregious example of Islamophobia. Because, God forbid, surely nobody ever be wantin’ to be leavin’ the sexist death cult that be much of Islam in the world today.

Of course, the articulation of that opinion be meaning that Elmasry himself is Christophobic, don’t it?

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Count Roland follows up on an observation he had previously made concerning the fact that Time Immortal is blocked at the Catholic high school in Lloydminster, Alberta. Apparently, I’m classified as an “advocacy organization” by the IT personnel there.

But it appears that the rabbit hole goes even deeper than that. Roland has done quite a lot of investigative work, and his conclusions are…surprising, on one hand, and yet unsurprising as well.

O Writer,

I did a more extensive perusal of a small sample of organizations that have websites.

You are still blocked as an advocay organization; FreeMarkSteyn is blocked as a message/discussion board.

I was allowed to go to Planned Parenthood, CHRC, COLF, CCCB, CCRL, and Lifesite.

Given the Catholic position on abortion, I was surprised that PP was allowed, but as a defender of free speech it must be allowed - dynamic tension that is better than simple dichotomies, no?

CHRC and CCRL are opposing legal organizations. Lifesite was to test if the Catholic organizations were only allowed because the developers were told to allow Catholic sites — it was allowed as a non-Catholic life issues site, which is good.

But I am stil surprised that they, in general, were allowed considering they are as advocative as you are, if not more.

Right away, I confess myself surprised by the level and scope of the site categorization that is in play here, not all of it accurate. Lifesite is more or less correctly categorized: it is a life issues site, though not one that takes a specifically Catholic perspective.

On the other hand, Time Immortal is very incorrectly categorized: I am just one guy, not an organization, and though I do have a couple of guest bloggers (e.g. my wife) there is no explicit advocacy done through the site, certainly not in the sense of “one cause/raison d’etre” that my being categoriezed as an advocacy organization would imply. Contrast this with the allowance of Planned Parenthood’s website, despite the fact that PP openly admits that (pro-abortion) advocacy is part of its mission.

(Note that I’m not suggesting that the Planned Parenthood website should be banned — unless the ban on advocacy groups is to remain in place: consistency is important!)

And then there’s the issue of Binks’ FreeMarkSteyn aggregator, which is not really a discussion board (not more than any other blog that allows comments is, at any rate), nor a message board (according to the normative definition of the term). It is more properly termed an aggregator; that is: a collection or compliation of links to various stories from around the internet, which may or may not revolve around a common theme.

But this is also not as deep as the rabbit hole goes, O Reader. Roland notes, in a follow-up message, that a rather peculiar, though perhaps predictable, trend has begun to emerge.

Here is a list of more sites I tried.

Blocked:
Real Women of Canada - advocacy
National Rifle Association - weapons
Stormfront - hate
Black Panther - advocacy

Allowed:
PETA
National Organization of Women
Jack Chick
Coalition for Gun Control
Canadian Islamic Congress
Jihad Watch
SteynOnline
Reverend Wright on wiki -> tucc.org
Christianity Today

From my observations so far, the blocked sites all seem to be from the “conservative” side of the spectrum. Many allowed sites, from PP to now to PETA to Gun control, are largely advocacy groups but are on the “progressives’” approved list, although it also has a fair number of ‘conservative’ sites. How, though, realwomen/nra is blocked while now/gun control is not is beyond me.

Also, how is Jack Chick or TUCC not a hate site, or at least problematic on advocacy grounds for black liberation / anti-Catholic Theology?

I am somewhat confused (although I guess the web-block company likely has a liberal bias) and dismayed. I would hope that any censorship be in favour of groups closer to Church teaching and that Censorship be minimized, or if more widespread, to be at least not in favour of non-Church teaching sites.

This is a confusing trend, to be sure. For all intents and purposes, the person or persons responsible for policing the Internet access at the Catholic high school in Lloydminster — Holy Rosary High School — seems to be operating under something of a liberal bias in terms of how he or she applies the school’s presumably extant web access policy.

To wit: if advocacy groups are banned, why can the websites of organizations like PETA, Planned Parenthood, NOW, and the CIC still be accessed? If weapons-related sites are banned, why can the websites of gun control groups still be accessed? Roland points out other dichotomies which would appear to exist as well.

The extent of the bias is not great, but in general this situation doesn’t pass the old “sniff test” — there does seem to be some effort that has gone in to reducing access to conservative opinion on the Internet at Holy Rosary. And since censorship in any form is unacceptable…

Holy Rosary High School

Principals
Principal: Mr. T. Brochu
Vice Principal: Mr. Vince Orieux
Vice Principal: Mr. C. Musyj

Contact Information
Address: 6611A-39 Street
Lloydminster, AB T9V 2Z4
Phone: (780) 875-3600
Fax: (780) 875-9516
Email: hrhs@lcsd.ca

Do drop them a line, O Reader. There’s quite enough censorship — especially censorship of conservative opinion — going on in this country of late as it is, without some tin-pot IT dictator adding to the list of problems. That this sort of thing is happening at a Catholic hich school, especially one which states that its mission is to “nurture spiritual, academic, emotional, social and physical growth in every individual.”

Update: Welcome, readers from Sleepy Old Bear, Walker, and BCF! And welcome, Steynians!

Mark Steyn links to an article that explains, in brief, the full implications of what a “guilty” ruling by either of the human rights commissions that Maclean’s magazine has yet to face:

Take a look at s. 37(2) of the BC Human Rights Code, where it says:

(2)If the member or panel determines that the complaint is justified, the member or panel
(a) must order the person that contravened this Code to cease the contravention and to refrain from committing the same or a similar contravention,

That is a mandatory injunction. An obligatory ‘cease and desist’ order. If the complainants win, the Tribunal has to order Maclean’s to stop running ‘Islamophobic’ articles. Not just articles by Mark Steyn, mind you; they have to stop running those articles period. Goodbye Barbara Amiel. Now, you might respond that Steyn wouldn’t be silenced, he would just have to pick his words more carefully. But think about it; the CIC is not just complaining about the excerpt from America Alone, but about a whole sheaf of Steyn’s articles. It’s pretty safe to assume that whatever Steyn has written about Islam in the last seven or so years would be considered offensive by the CIC. In the face of an injunction, then, he would either have to stop writing about Islam or stop obeying the dictates of his conscience as a writer.

The students may say they don’t want to silence Mark Steyn or anyone else. Their complaint, if successful, will do just that. It can do no other.

Just so. I’ve tried to make that point in interviews. The BC tribunal’s ruling will mean that I can no longer write for Maclean’s, and that Maclean’s itself will be highly circumscribed in what it can publish about the relationship between Islam and the west. In other words, on one of the central questions facing the world today, the editorial decisions of Canada’s largest news weekly will be determined by a British Columbia “court”.

My career in Canada will be formally ended next month.

These human rights complaints — in fact, virtually every human rights complaint filed under Section 13 of human rights law in Canada (and its provincial equivalents) — are about censorship, and nothing more. They can have no other outcome (and given the nearly 100% conviction rate of the HRCs, one could almost surely say that they will have no other outcome).

And in this great debate, that’s the line in the sand, on one (and only one) side of which each of us must fall. Either we oppose censorship in any and every circumstance, or we acknowledge that it is sometimes/often/commonly necessary. If we place ourselves with the former camp, we are on the side of freedom (which, unfortunately but necessarily, we must share with some less-than-savoury characters; but who said freedom was free from being, occasionally, ugly?). If we place ourselves with the latter camp, we abdicate any and all moral authority with which to complain, in the future, should someone else end up facing the prospect of being legally silenced by the CHRC or one of its provincial parallels.

Perhaps it will be a rock star whose music is much loved. Perhaps it will be, as someone else I read this morning suggested, a public figure such as David Suzuki. Whomever it is, let it be understood that the power of the HRCs, and their continued corruption and abuse of power, will not end when the Mark Steyns, Marc Lemires, and Ezra Levants of the world have been duly dispatched — the field of targets will not have been narrowed then; it will only find need to shift leftward.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

In the wake of the embarrassing actions of Mohamed Elmasry’s three Osgoode Hall law students (read: sock puppets) and the cowardice they displayed when faced with the prospect of having to debate Mark Steyn three-on-one, Maclean’s has responded to the attempt by Faisal Joseph and the Osgoode trio offer a non-settlement (read: shakedown) disguised as a settlement offer.

To sum up, Maclean’s has basically said thus: “we’ll tell you where to shove that offer.”

Ezra Levant has an excerpt of the text of Maclean’s response to the offer:

The time to discuss reasonable replies to Mr. Steyn’s piece was after the article was published and before the human rights actions were launched. For Maclean’s to agree to any “settlement” with quasi-judicial proceedings under way would be tantamount to an admission of wrongdoing on our part when we have done nothing but practise responsible journalism.

It would also be improper and damaging to the integrity of Maclean’s, and a troubling precedent in Canadian media, for us to agree to negotiate the content of our magazine in return for the withdrawal of quasi-judicial legal actions and relief from punitive costs of defending those actions.

Moreover, any settlement at this point would have to be approved by human rights authorities in Ottawa, and would thus involve an implicit acceptance on our part of the jurisdiction of human rights commissions to regulate the content of print media publications in Canada. That is an unacceptable precedent.

We believe that a sincere attempt to settle this matter would have involved a direct and timely approach to Maclean’s rather than a press conference and public ultimatum eighteen months after the publication of Mr. Steyn’s piece. But rather than approaching this magazine for the purposes of conciliation, Mr. Joseph and his clients publicly impugned our journalists at a press conference, tactics sharply at odds with their stated goal of reaching an amicable resolution.

While we have no interest in negotiating with the CIC for the withdrawal of its complaints, we remain committed to fostering free and open discussion of important public issues. Maclean’s would be pleased to host a public debate at a neutral venue between Mr. Steyn and Mohamed Elmasry, head of the CIC and the complainant in both the B.C. and federal investigations. The debate would cover issues raised by Mr. Steyn’s original article as well as the CIC’s decision to resort to human rights commissions. We are sure that such an event would be interesting and informative, and we would publish a transcript of the debate either in the magazine or on our website.

Of course, Mohamed Elmasry is never going to accept the challenge to a debate, lest he again be exposed for what he is: a hateful, anti-Jewish bigot and apologist for terror. Still, it’s a pleasant pipe dream to imagine Mark Steyn tearing in to the man the right-of-centre blogosphere has come to know as “Elmo.”

This is a good, principled stance that Maclean’s has taken: they refuse to be intimidated by the human rights apparatus in Canada, and refuse to recognize the authority of the abrogation of basic human rights that the HRCs in Canada truly are. Likewise, they’re calling the bluff of Elmo, his sock puppets, and his flashy lawyer. It’s a “come and get us” attitude that I think Colonel Maclean, especially, would be very proud of.

Certainly, I’m a little bit prouder to be Canadian for having read it.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The Muslim Canadian Congress, though pleased that the decided not to pursue the complaint against Mark Steyn and Maclean’s magazine, is nevertheless concerned that members of the OHRC may in fact be closet supporters of sharia law.

In a statement, the Vice President of the MCC, Salma Siddiqui said, the OHRC decision had the finger prints of its pro-Islamist commissioners who have close association with the Canadian Islamic Congress. It is not just the commissioners, but we have reason to believe that there are staff on the OHRC that support Sharia law and endorse the CIC’s positions.

Had the OHRC restricted itself to the legality of the issue, the MCC would have no problem with its decision. But in editorializing and coming out to bat for Canada’s Islamists, the OHRC is sending a very dangerous message to moderate Muslims who reject Sharia and do not take inspiration from overseas Islamic countries or groups.

…

The OHRC decision must be cause for celebration in Osama Bin Laden’s cave and among the soldiers of the world Jihadi movement that love to spread the falsehood that Canada is at war with Islam and that Muslims in Canada live under a cloud of Racism and persecution. Nothing can be further from the truth.

That’s a serious allegation, although in a sense it is not that surprising. Modern liberals and progressives, with their inherent fear of seeming judgemental or condemnatory, have provided a curious weakness in the structure of Canadian law that Islamists of a very intolerant bent are only too quick to exploit.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!