The lady puppets complain

June 13, 2008

Apparently, they think that the male puppet isn’t getting a fair shake from head .

And after some obligatory digs at the , and launch into a lengthy defence of themselves, fellow sock-puppet , and what they claim is their complaint against Maclean’s magazine.

But here’s the most incredible part, for me: they manage to utterly avoid any and all mention of Jew-hater , the actual plaintiff in the proceedings against Maclean’s, despite discussing in detail the reasons the complaint was brought. What is more, they have yet again wasted another opportunity to appear in a major national publication with yet another re-iteration of the same tired claims they always articulate.

They could have, you know, published an excerpt from the response they are ostensibly demanding the right to publish…which they claim is all they want in the first place. It is strange, O Reader, that they failed to do this.

They also say a few other things worthy of mention:

And that is our point; anti-Muslim prejudice is growing because of pieces like the one that Maclean’s published, and that led to our human rights complaints, in a context where there is an absence of Muslim (or other) voices to challenge the material in question.

Actually, no: what stokes anti-Muslim prejudice is not an absence of ic voices in any particular media forum, either to affirm or to challenge other printed material. What stokes anti-Muslim prejudice, more than anything else, is when Muslim themselves attempt to trample on the rights of Canadians by, in essence, demanding that the government (or, in this case, an unaccountable government agency) wrest control of the publication of a private magazine from the hands of those who are, by law, its actual owners and editors.

The limitless free speech model — that the solution to harmful and hateful speech is more and better speech — does not work for minority communities, and our complaints illustrate that: Maclean’s still refuses to publish a response to just one of over twenty articles that even the condemned as Islamophobic.

As is their right, given that they are (again) a private company.

The limitless free speech model is beautiful precisely because it does work for both the majority and the various minorities; indeed, the fact that Awan, Sheikh, and Mithoowani have managed to publish quite a large number of articles in various newspapers (notably the ) demonstrates that they, despite being members of a minority, are not being denied anything.

What doesn’t work, if anything, is the way that in this particular instance, the minority community in question is doing one of two self-ruinous things:

  1. When given the opportunity to publish an article, the sock puppets can only think to re-iterate previously-made statements for the umpteenth time, when they could be using the space they are given to…say…publish the latest installment in their witty, scathing, and comprehensive response to the Steyn article.
  2. The rest of the time, said community (or, at least, those who claim to speak for it) spend all their time demanding that the Canadian government hand over control of a private newsmagazine’s content to them.

Dear sock puppets: you’ve been given plenty of opportunities to publish your side, and have wasted them all. Also, if you claim to represent every Muslim in Canada and if, in fact, you are correct in that claim, you should have no problem raising sufficient private funds to begin your own newsmagazine in which you could do nothing but publish anti- articles to your collective hearts’ desire! That you have done nothing but repeat the same claims, which most of the rest of us now have involuntarily committed to memory, suggests that your motives are other, and then more sinister and repressive.

So please shut up about debates and responses, because you’ve squandered every opportunity to engage in or deliver both.

And yes, I’d be this mad at you even if you weren’t Muslims.

And that is why free speech is not limitless in our democracy.

And that is why it should be.

Section 1 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that all rights in our democracy are subject to reasonable limits.

And those reasonable limits are: incitement. The Steyn article was not that.

The (not a bunch of Islamists*) properly recognized that free speech is not limitless in upholding our criminal and human rights laws regulating hate speech.

Because judges, like Allah, are infallible and never make mistakes!

In imposing these limits, the Supreme Court noted that hate speech undermines the equality rights and multicultural heritage guaranteed in our Charter.

So when Mohamed Elmasry made that remark about Jews over the age of 18…?

* Islamists? Maybe not. Dhimmis? Well…

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Posted by Kenneth Filed in Canada, Censorship, Islam
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Blink

April 29, 2008

The Canadian Islamic Congress will be making a public settlement offer to Maclean’s and Mark Steyn.

CANADIAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS PRESS CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT

April 29, 2008

ISLAMIC CONGRESS AND LAW STUDENTS TO MAKE PUBLIC SETTLEMENT OFFER TO MACLEAN’S ON HUMAN RIGHTS COMPLAINTS

TORONTO - The Canadian Islamic Congress and a group of law students who recently filed complaints against Maclean’s magazine for publishing ophobic content, are planning to present a public offer to the magazine’s management to settle the matter.

Details of this offer and more information regarding the background of the above-mentioned complaints will be provided to those in attendance.

When:
10:00 a.m.: Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Where:
Fairmont Royal York Hotel, The Quebec Room, 100 Front Street West,
ON

Present at the media conference will be:

- : CIC legal counsel, former Federal and Provincial Crown Attorney, and former Chair of the Criminal Section of the ().

- , and : Three of the law
  students/graduates who were original complainants against Maclean’s magazine.

For more information contact:
Faisal Joseph: (519) 672-4510

I agree with Deb Gyapong: (editor of Maclean’s) and shouldn’t accept the settlement.

Well, it’s gone too far. Unless the CIC and the Muslim law students are willing to ante up the magazine’s and Steyn’s legal bills for subjecting them to an abusive process; unless they are willing to admit they were wrong to file complaints; and unless they acknowledge the importance of freedom of speech and , then on principle there should be no settlement.

This struggle against the s can end when and if the HRCs themselves are either dissolved or stripped of their power through the removal of from the . Apart from that, there should be no deal possible.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Posted by Kenneth Filed in Canada, Censorship, Islam, Law
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Mark Steyn: “Why don’t you sue me?”

February 5, 2008

In their latest missive to you, , and refer to the excerpt from my book published in , as a “defamatory article”. OK, if it’s defamatory, why don’t you sue me? Cue crickets chirping.

It’s precisely because the article is not defamatory that the “plaintiffs” have had to rig the game by going to (at last count) three of ’s many “” pseudo-courts. In none of their plaintive reprises protesting that they’re only looking for a chance to “start a debate” have they or their patrons at the questioned the accuracy of a single specific fact, quotation or statistic. If they wanted to “start a debate,” they could start one, via a blog, column or book. Instead, they started a “human rights” complaint, which is what people do when they want to end the debate.

This isn’t merely a “freedom of speech” issue. Canada’s Charter, much to its shame, explicitly abridges freedom of expression. However, it does not abridge the presumption of innocence, which is guaranteed by the Charter, as well as by the UN Declaration on Human Rights and Magna Carta. Yet there is no “presumption of innocence” in “hate” cases. Au contraire, there is a presumption of guilt, which is why no one hauled before the CHRC under Section 13 has ever been acquitted — with the exception of the “,” which got off scot-free on the quaint grounds that it did not, in fact, exist. (The fact that , “human rights activist” and the ’s serial plaintiff, is reduced to suing entirely fictional entities tells you a lot about how necessary Section 13 is to the Queen’s peace.)

Dr. ’s private members bill, M-446, is Canada’s last, best hope in stopping the human rights commissions, which have already gone too far. s in Canada are, by virtue of their very existence and by the manner in which they operate, violations of the Charter-ensured rights of every Canadian.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Posted by Kenneth Filed in Canada, Censorship, Islam, Law
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Mark Steyn responds to his accusers

January 4, 2008

In rebuttal:

, , and write that “some clarifications are in order” re: The ’s coverage of their complaint to at least three of Canada’s many “human rights” commissions about an excerpt from my book, , published by .

So, in that spirit, let me clarify one point of their column,”Debate denied over Maclean’s Muslim article,” which ran Saturday. They cite the following quote as an “extract from Steyn’s article”: “The number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes.”

That line certainly appears in my text, but they’re not my words. Rather, they were said by a prominent Scandinavian Muslim, , to a respectable Norwegian newspaper. The imam was boasting at how Islam would outbreed Europe: “We’re the ones who will change you . . . Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.”

This is the nub of Messrs Mithoowani, Awan, Sheikh and Simard’s complaints against Maclean’s: They’re objecting to a Canadian magazine quoting accurately the statements of leading Muslims. And at least two of Canada’s “human rights” commissions, to their shame, have accepted their absurd proposition that accurately quoting leading Muslims is somehow “Islamophobic.”

Unfortunately, Naseem Mithoowani, Khurrum Awan, Muneeza Sheikh and Daniel Simard are possessed of an at-least-decent chance of becoming high-profile lawyers, if not politicians, in this country. Of course, it comes as no susprise to see that they cannot even get their facts straight about the thing which they are complaining. To a man, they are all progressives, and if there is one thing that can be said about the Canadian progressive, it is that he (or, to be fair, she) cannot be counted upon to possess any formal understanding of reality in any objective capacity.

To Naseem Mithoowani, Khurrum Awan, Muneeza Sheikh and Daniel Simard, hurt feelings are what matter, not accuracy, reality, objectivity, or truth. And unfortunately, the has demonstrated througout its history that it agrees with them. Which is why it needs to go; no country can survive having a legal body at work within it that pronounces judgements and issues punishments solely on the basis of whether someone “feels” upset/threatened/hurt by someone else.

Relatedly:

Stop the HRC
Posted by Kenneth Filed in Canada, Censorship, Islam, Law, Politics
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