Reader Mail: Mitra Kermani
tagged Canada, Censorship, Extra Foods, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, HRC, Islam, Loblaws Companies Inc, Misom Halal Food Products, Mitra Kermani, No Frills and Real Canadian Superstore
The ambiguously-named muslimperson writes in concerning Mitra Kermani — the owner of Misom Halal Food Products, a supplier of halal (that is: conforming to Islamic religious dietary requirements) foods that Loblaws Companies Inc. cut ties with a couple years ago.
Since that time, Ms. Kermani has been harassing and threatening workers and executives of Loblaws’ — the company that owns the Real Canadian Superstore, Extra Foods, and No Frills (if memory serves). She is discussed in this post.
How come you support freedom of speech and talk on otherhand you support…ban Mitra to talk by ocurt order…this is look like HRC acting on other side of story how justice can hear if one party has no right to talk? Mitra Kermani got helped from Italian Canadina and German Canadian did not like her and steal her business Mitra likes Catholic Italian alot.
It’s a bit difficult to sort out the gist of the message from the atrocious grammar, but I think that the first question basically distills down to this: how can someone who supports freedom of speech support, at the same time, Loblaws’ “ban” on Mitra Kermani.
The answer is simple: that’s business. Mitra Kermani is a business owner, a supplier of products of specific nature. Loblaws is a retailer, and is in essence a re-seller of the products that companies like Misom produce, procure, or otherwise make available. As such, Loblaws is free — and has every right — to choose whether or not to do business with business owners like Mitra Kermani.
We don’t have all the details as to why Loblaws’ decided not to renew its contract with Ms. Kermani — perhaps they were simply not making money off of the halal foods she was supplying (poor return on investment is a common reason why business arrangements of that nature are ended). Regardless, Loblaws’ is not “banning” Ms. Kermani — they are simply, for whatever reason, choosing to no longer do business with her company. She has not been prohibited, in any way, from continuing to sell halal foods in other markets, or at all.
Ms. Kermani does not have an intrinsic right to see her products sold by Loblaws-run stores. Indeed, the rights in this case rest with Loblaws, which is free to choose which suppliers it chooses to do business with, and which suppliers it chooses not to do business with. Perhaps her prices were too high, or perhaps her product quality had fallen — whatever the reason, Loblaws made a decision to no longer procure halal foods from Misom. It means Misom loses a large client, but that’s business for you — it’s how the market works in the West, more or less. And it works well, generally speaking. It’s not about “banning” — it’s about the bottom line, return on investment, and getting the best product possible for the best price possible.
Evidently, Mitra Kermani and her company did not meet some aspect of that metric, and so Loblaws decided to stop using Misom as a supplier. And that’s Loblaws’ right — nobody, and no business, can be compelled to purchase products from someone it no longer wishes to do business with. And that’s not Censorship…that’s freedom, including the freedom to run one’s own business, or to spend one’s own money, as one chooses, rather than being told where, and upon whom, to spend it.
Yes, the loss of the contract kind of sucks, but there are other markets, and Ms. Kermani should have sought those out. Instead, she embarked upon a lengthy campaign of threats, intimidation, and harassment against Loblaws, its executives, and its employees — a campaign that included the use of death threats.
She is in the wrong, here, in other words.
Upon a second reading, it seems that what muslimperson is actually saying is that Loblaws’ act of having hired a lawyer to procure a restraining order against Mitra Kermani is more or less the same thing as the censorship of the HRCs — she is being, muslimperson asserts, “banned” from speaking.
This also is untrue.
I don’t know what jurisprudence says in Islamic states, but in Canadian law there is a provision made whereby a person who behaves in a harassing or threatening manner toward another person (or group of persons) can be ordered to cease and desist that behaviour. This is not the same thing as censorship, because the harassment in question must meet certain criteria. In the specific case of Mitra Kermani, those criteria were met the moment she uttered death threats against Loblaws executives.
I’ve talked in the past about how there is a difference between freedom of expression, even hateful expression, and incitement to violence. Death threats and stalking haraassment, of the sort uttered and enacted (respectively) by Mitra Kermani, are analogous to incitement, and under Canadian law are considered criminal. It is thus entirely consistent to simultaneously support freedom of speech and the restraining order issued against Ms. Kermani. She isn’t being banned from speaking — she’s being told not to utter death threats.
There’s rather a large difference there, O Reader.
I’m not sure what Italian Catholics and business-stealing Germans have to do with the issue.
Update: Welcome, Steynians!
