Flagrant Attack on Freedom of the Press

[scribblet]

In a flagrant attack on freedom of the press, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) has filed three human rights complaints against Maclean's magazine and its editor-in-chief, Kenneth Whyte, accusing them of spreading "hatred and contempt" for Muslims, by publishing an article by Mark Steyn on Oct. 23, 2006, entitled The Future Belongs to Islam.

For full article see:

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Columnist...714142-sun.html

In my opinion, the Canadian Human Rights courts should be abolished. They operate in such a way as to deny justice by any criteria that any rational person could defend.

Any miscreant can file a complaint and place a defendant at huge personal risk and costs to defend himself or herself in a process that has scant resemblance to any normal process of justice and at the mercy of the personal whims of judges with agendas but minimal understand of or appreciation for the rules of law.

Edited to fix the link

Edited December 8, 2007 by scriblett

[buffycat]

Well Scribblet, at least you and I can agree about the CHRC and their 'tribunals'.

That the CIC is using them just shows they have learned from those who have exploited this censored filled body before!!

While no fan of Steyn's, I support his right to be as bigotted as a wants. At least it's out in the daylight for all to see.

The problem of stifling debate is that it drives these thoughts underground, where they can fester and become truly dangerous.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant!!

[August1991]

In my opinion, the Canadian Human Rights courts should be abolished. They operate in such a way as to deny justice by any criteria that any rational person could defend.

They are not courts, they are panels and they operate under provincial and federal jurisdiction.

The Canadian Human Rights tribunals are a product of US Civil Rights legislation which was an attempt to right the wrongs of segregation and black/white relations.

IMV, the best way to deal with discrimination is to let individuals choose freely in their private dealings. We must ensure that the State itself does not discriminate and that is why the Charter of Rights applies only to the activities of governments.

A sad but little known fact about the human rights tribunals is they are swamped with work and many cases will never be adjudicated. This means that the panel members are free to pursue an agenda by choosing which cases they will expedite. I'm surprised that no one has charged that these panels discriminate when they choose to adjudicate or delay.

From link above:

.... while the chronically dithering Ontario Human Rights Commission has yet to decide whether it will pursue the matter or not.

The BC and federal panels have decided to take up the case.

Here's a quote from the federal panel's annual report:

In 2001, through a detailed review of its 24 years of operation, the Commission determined that it had been accumulating a backlog of complaints since its inception. The backlog is the number of open cases in excess of the number that would normally be open if the Commission were completing as many cases as it was taking in each year. Although the Commission has reduced this backlog at various points in its history, it has never had the capacity to deal with all of the complaints filed in a given year. For example, in 2002, the Commission received 800 signed complaints, 200 more than it is resourced to handle under its traditional business model.

----

As to this specific case, you can read Mark Steyn's opening salvo in response here:

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post’s national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian “human rights” tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada.

This what the OFL is saying:

The Ontario Federation of Labour is calling on Maclean’s magazine to meet with representatives of the Canadian Islamic Congress to try and resolve the human rights complaints arising from the October 23, 2006 Maclean’s article, The Future Belongs to Islam, written by Mark Steyn. The complaints to the Ontario Human Rights Commission are in the preliminary stages of the Commission’s process. The complaints have been accepted by the British Columbia Commission and the Federal Commission.

In its December 4, 2007 press release the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) states, “The complainants argue that the article subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and Islamophobia by representing that Muslims are part of a global conspiracy to take over Western societies and that Muslims in the West need to be viewed as the enemy”.

“The OFL has a very strong human rights mandate and a long history of activism on social justice issues,” Downey said. “The Federation represents many Ontario workers who are Muslim and a preferable resolution would be for the corporate owners of Maclean’s magazine to sit down with the representatives of the CIC to seek a resolve in this matter.”

Here's Steyn's original article that has provoked all this.

To respond to Steyn, the CIC wants Macleans to give it five pages in its magazine and full artistic control over the cover for one issue so that the CIC can present its side of the story. Ken Whyte, editor of Macleans, answered that he'd rather go bankrupt rather than let someone else have editorial control of Macleans.

On Dec. 5, Whyte issued the following statement to clarify what happened at the meeting: "The student lawyers in question came to us five months after the story ran. They asked for an opportunity to respond. We said that we had already run many responses to the article in our letters section, but that we would consider a reasonable request. They wanted a five-page article, written by an author of their choice, to run without any editing by us, except for spelling and grammar. They also wanted to place their response on the cover and to art direct it themselves.

"We told them we didn't consider that a reasonable request for response. When they insisted, I told them I would rather go bankrupt than let somebody from outsid of our operations dictate the content of the magazine. I still feel that way."

Macleans Edited December 8, 2007 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

The linked column doesn't describe what the excerpt said. It's impossible to comment on this in a meaningful way without knowing that.

[Michael Hardner]

Thanks for the link, Auguste.

Yes, I do think there's a solid basis for a human rights complaint here, and not because it's a sprawling illogical mish mash of anecdotes masking as arguments.

Here are some excerpts:

If you were a "moderate Palestinian" leader, would you want to try to persuade a nation -- or pseudo-nation -- of unemployed poorly educated teenage boys raised in a UN-supervised European-funded death cult to see sense?

Islam, however, has serious global ambitions, and it forms the primal, core identity of most of its adherents -- in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere.

This is hate mongering pure and simple, and a continuation of a traditional of racial propaganda literature that started with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

[bush_cheney2004]

...The Canadian Human Rights tribunals are a product of US Civil Rights legislation which was an attempt to right the wrongs of segregation and black/white relations.

Really? A "product" of American legislation?

The Canadian Human Rights Act seems to offer a different and totally domestic origin. If it was just copying American legislative "product", then you get what you pay for.

[scribblet]

I should have posted the article in question sorry

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/enter..._134898_134898

[scribblet]

This is hate mongering pure and simple, and a continuation of a traditional of racial propaganda literature that started with

Elders of Zion[/url]

Nonsense, it is simply another ploy to stop discussion of radical Islam and what the fundamentalists tell us all the time - they want a global caliphate. Anyone can spout off about Israel, Zionism, Christianity you name it, that's okay, but point out facts and demographs and it's 'hate'...

[Michael Hardner]

Did you read the excerpts I posted ?

How can you call these 'facts' and 'demographs' ?

Implying a global conspiracy and calling someone's faith a death cult are opinions, smears really.

Let's not hear any more whinging about political correctness - this type of hate mongering is something else entirely.

[Wild Bill]

Did you read the excerpts I posted ?

How can you call these 'facts' and 'demographs' ?

Implying a global conspiracy and calling someone's faith a death cult are opinions, smears really.

Let's not hear any more whinging about political correctness - this type of hate mongering is something else entirely.

You obviously have never read Steyn's book. He takes great pains to point out the difference between militant Islam, moderates and those who while not violent support those that are. I never saw anything to indicate an intelligently directed "conspiracy" from any but the small minority of militants. Steyn talks in terms of demographics, which require no intelligence to exert effects.

When he talks about militants he freely admits there's only a small percentage that advocate and commit violent acts. He just takes the logical next step in doing some simple math. A few percent of millions is a fairly large group. How many does it take to set off a bomb?

He also points out a very common misconception among many western folks, that Islam is similar to other religions that accept the concept of separation of Church and State. He quotes chapter and verse to prove that Islam does NOT! This gives way to a set of values very different from that of western societies and it would be illogical to deny any conflicts.

Anyhow, Steyn is more than capable of defending himself but if you are maintaining he's some kind of anti-Islam bigot when you have never read the book in question then I would say that you are simply talking through your hat!

[scribblet]

Here you have it folks, for what it's worth:

Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, wrote in the Calgary Herald:

"During the years when my colleagues and I were labouring to create (human rights) commissions, we never imagined that they might ultimately be used against freedom of speech."

[Michael Hardner]

Wild Bill:

You obviously have never read Steyn's book. He takes great pains to point out the difference between militant Islam, moderates and those who while not violent support those that are. I never saw anything to indicate an intelligently directed "conspiracy" from any but the small minority of militants. Steyn talks in terms of demographics, which require no intelligence to exert effects.

When he talks about militants he freely admits there's only a small percentage that advocate and commit violent acts. He just takes the logical next step in doing some simple math. A few percent of millions is a fairly large group. How many does it take to set off a bomb?

He also points out a very common misconception among many western folks, that Islam is similar to other religions that accept the concept of separation of Church and State. He quotes chapter and verse to prove that Islam does NOT! This gives way to a set of values very different from that of western societies and it would be illogical to deny any conflicts.

Anyhow, Steyn is more than capable of defending himself but if you are maintaining he's some kind of anti-Islam bigot when you have never read the book in question then I would say that you are simply talking through your hat!

Who is talking through their hat when you haven't even acknowledged my post on this from before ?

No, I didn't read his book. I read a few pages of the excerpt, and posted some pieces above. Read my post, then we'll talk.

[Michael Hardner]

Scriblett, you are bringing new information into this discussion without acknowledging the points I made to you above.

This is what's so frustrating about debating with the many of the anti-immigration posters here. They stop talking to you once you bring facts into the picture.

[August1991]

This is hate mongering pure and simple, and a continuation of a traditional of racial propaganda literature that started with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Hate-mongering?

I disagree with Steyn on many points but please don't misrepresent his arguments. Steyn's reference to death cult refers to the Palestinians living in Palestine, not to all Muslims. And Islam shares with Christianity the desire to proselytize so I think it's fair to say that both are ambitious.

Then again, maybe you're right MH - maybe Steyn is a hate-mongerer. Then again, maybe you're wrong. Who is to say what constitutes "hate-mongering"? You? Me? A panel of political appointees in BC?

God help us all if some panel somewhere has the power to decide what political ideas and arguments can circulate in public.

[Michael Hardner]

Auguste,

I disagree with Steyn on many points but please don't misrepresent his arguments. Steyn's reference to death cult refers to the Palestinians living in Palestine, not to all Muslims. And Islam shares with Christianity the desire to proselytize so I think it's fair to say that both are ambitious.

Then again, maybe you're right MH - maybe Steyn is a hate-mongerer. Then again, maybe you're wrong. Who is to say what constitutes "hate-mongering"? You? Me? A panel of political appointees in BC?

God help us all if some panel somewhere has the power to decide what political ideas and arguments can circulate in public.

Thank you for reading my quotes. It's not at all clear that he's referring only to Palestinians living in Palestine. It's arguable, of course, and that's why he phrased it that way. It could also easily arguable that a 'cult' is a religion-based group and therefore he was referring to Muslims in general.

I recognize that the Human Rights Commissions are a quasi-judicial and political organization, but they do provide dispute resolution services in these cases.

Whether or not you agree with anti-hate legislation, his writing may be prosecutable.

[Wild Bill]

Wild Bill:

Who is talking through their hat when you haven't even acknowledged my post on this from before ?

No, I didn't read his book. I read a few pages of the excerpt, and posted some pieces above. Read my post, then we'll talk.

A couple of excerpts taken out of context and you can pass judgement?

Read the book and then I'll listen to you.

You can dig negatives out of anything, if you look hard enough and are sufficiently biased.

[Riverwind]

Margret Wente had the best comment:

Mr. Steyn, a regular contributor to Maclean's, has probably offended 99 per cent of the readers at one time or another. That's the kind of guy he is. The offending piece is vintage Steyn: provocative, highly coloured and wildly overdrawn. It argues that the West is in demographic and cultural decline, while Islamic populations, by contrast, have high fertility rates and a new cultural assertiveness. It doesn't talk about Canadian Muslims at all.

I laughed when I read that - Steyn offends me all of the time but I would never dream of censoring him.

[August1991]

December 10th is Human Rights Day. Thousand of people will gather in Canada and all around the world to participate in Amnesty International’s largest and most exciting letter-writing event – Write for Rights

Here's what you can do to mark Human Rights Day with Amnesty International:

Sign up and let us know about your plans to Write for Rights.

Select letter-writing actions from our list of more than 20 global cases

Watch inspiring human rights videos, and tune into live coverage from amnesty's letter writig events in Toronto and Ottawa.

...

Amnesty International

Not surprisingly, Mark Steyn is not one of the 20 global cases that AI wants us to "write for rights".

OTOH, they have adopted another Canadian as a case:

Canada:

Bring Omar Khadr to justice. Bring him to Canada

[Michael Hardner]

A couple of excerpts taken out of context and you can pass judgement?

Read the book and then I'll listen to you.

You can dig negatives out of anything, if you look hard enough and are sufficiently biased.

Those quotes were not out of context. The context is obvious, and the quotes stand alone. There was no need to look hard, nor to have a bias to find examples of the offending material.

I dont need to read the book to figure out why the complaint was filed.

[August1991]

Those quotes were not out of context. The context is obvious, and the quotes stand alone. There was no need to look hard, nor to have a bias to find examples of the offending material.

I dont need to read the book to figure out why the complaint was filed.

If you want to have an argument on the merits of Steyn's argument, then fine. But that's a separate question from whether he should be allowed to make his argument in public.

One has to agree with Riverwind's post above. If you don't like Steyn's argument, stop reading when you find it offensive. Refuse to buy Macleans in the future. But I fail to see how, in a civilized society, a government panel should have the right to silence him or even oblige a magazine to publish a contrary opinion.

I think that the CIC and the BC and federal Human Rights panels have pushed too far in this case. There will be a backlash, if not with this case, soon enough.

BTW, this is not the first such case. The Western Standard has also been hauled before this Chamber of Political Correctitude:

Speaking of which, the Western Standard's own human rights hearing is finally coming up, nearly two years after we published the Danish cartoons and were first hit with the complaints. We don't have an exact date yet, but the formal "investigation" meeting will be in January. Though we ceased publishing the magazine, we are still a corporate entity, and it's important to me that we see this human rights challenge through.

Link

In addition, the Canadian Muslim Congress has stated that it disagrees with this complaint and feels that Steyn has the right to say what he wants:

But Sohail Raza, a representative of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said Maclean's had the right to publish the article.

"This is Canada, not Sudan, Egypt or Pakistan, where the press is stifled," he said. "There is absolute freedom of expression and people have an opportunity to voice their opinion."

CBC

----

As to Steyn's argument, let me quote the final paragraph of his piece since MH you no doubt didn't get that far:

"We're the ones who will change you," the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "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." As he summed it up: "Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

Now then, is Steyn saying anything different than this Imam?

Edited December 9, 2007 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

A,

If you want to have an argument on the merits of Steyn's argument, then fine. But that's a separate question from whether he should be allowed to make his argument in public.

I was responding to Bills complaint that I passed judgment through out-of-context quotes.

This complaint is framed, in the first post, as a flagrant attack against freedom of the press. It seems to me that Steyns comments are possibly in contravention of the law. As such, I think its misleading to say that this complaint is an attack against freedom of the press.

It would be the law that restricts freedom of the press in that case.

One has to agree with Riverwind's post above. If you don't like Steyn's argument, stop reading when you find it offensive. Refuse to buy Macleans in the future. But I fail to see how, in a civilized society, a government should have the right to silence him or even oblige a magazine to publish a contrary opinion.

As to Steyn's argument, let me quote the final paragraph of his piece since you no doubt didn't get that far:

QUOTE

"We're the ones who will change you," the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "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." As he summed it up: "Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."

Now then, is Steyn saying anything different than this Imam?

This is a standard trick of propagandists, of course. Quote something offensive from a single member of a group that youre targeting. Kind of like if I took MikeDavids posts and quoted them everywhere as proof of Conservative thought patterns.

I guess what we should be talking about is whether hate literature should be banned in Canada or not. In the mid 1990s, I changed my mind and decided that society would be better off if hate literature were allowed. After 2001, I changed my mind again after hearing commentary on American radio that I felt was incendiary.

[August1991]

I guess what we should be talking about is whether hate literature should be banned in Canada or not. In the mid 1990s, I changed my mind and decided that society would be better off if hate literature were allowed. After 2001, I changed my mind again after hearing commentary on American radio that I felt was incendiary.

That strikes me as a useful topic of discussion.

On a separate thread, we have discussed whether a painter should have the right to portray Bobby Orr without clothes. In the US, the First Amendment is limited by local community standards and so it doesn't extend to child pornography. Bobby Orr is fair game however.

----

The issue in this thread extends beyond the freedom of speech. I wonder whether we should have Human Rights panels in Canada at all. They have become backlogged and arbitrary. Their caseload is far larger than what they can handle. This means that they can select according to whim. They choose cases according to their own agenda and ignore other cases they don't deem important. They are a law unto themselves without proper oversight. Anyone with a complaint of any sort about any private dealing can file a representation. This is an invitation to abuse. Politicians don't want to get involved because "human rights" is one of those "politically correct" terms that spells political danger.

What politician wants to go down in history as the guy who fired the human rights people or abolished human rights panels?

[When the history of the late 20th century is written, political correctness will be viewed as the religious canon of atheists. Human rights panels only lack the power to excommunicate. In Canada, Trudeau used American Civil Rights law to create them and then applied his famous theory: "Create counterweights" to justify them. In Trudeau think, the human rights panels create an alternative power to the State and hence protect individual rights.]

If two people engage in an activity, or one of them refuses to engage in an activity, why is a government panel involved in deciding the correctness of these individual choices? If there is criminal activity, then charge someone under the criminal code.

If a gay bar owner doesn't want to serve beer to a woman, then let the woman go across the street to another bar. The State should not be involved in this at all. If the State gets involved in such private affairs, then we wind up with cases such as this one against Steyn.

Keep in mind that Canada has only had these panels for about 30 years. Imagine how much mischief and then ultimately sheer hell they could create if we allow them to continue for another 100 years or so.

So, in short Michael, maybe we should have a thread about abolishing Canada's Human Rights panels.

Edited December 9, 2007 by August1991

[August1991]

This is a standard trick of propagandists, of course. Quote something offensive from a single member of a group that youre targeting. Kind of like if I took MikeDavids posts and quoted them everywhere as proof of Conservative thought patterns.

Single member? If that were the case, then maybe you'd have a point.

But this guy's an Imam in Norway - Norway - and this is what he thinks. An Imam in Australia has said about the same. So too another in the UK. And then there's what happened in September 2001.

Other than the Vatican, the only explicity religious states in the world are Muslim. eg. The Islamic Republic of Iran. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a fundamentally religious state.

So, I don't think that Steyn's choice is an arbitrary single unrepresentative member of the group.

In this vein, returning to you "Elders of Zion" reference. At the time this was published, there were about 20 million Jews in the world. To anyone with any critical thinking, the Russian claim was laughable. Steyn's argument faces a far more sophisticated audience - modern western society. Let his arguments live or die there, freely.

[Michael Hardner]

A,

Single member? If that were the case, then maybe you'd have a point.

But this guy's an Imam in Norway - Norway - and this is what he thinks. An Imam in Australia has said about the same. So too another in the UK. And then there's what happened in September 2001.

Other than the Vatican, the only explicity religious states in the world are Muslim. eg. The Islamic Republic of Iran. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a fundamentally religious state.

So, I don't think that Steyn's choice is an arbitrary single unrepresentative member of the group.

In this vein, returning to you "Elders of Zion" reference. At the time this was published, there were about 20 million Jews in the world. To anyone with any critical thinking, the Russian claim was laughable. Steyn's argument faces a far more sophisticated audience - modern western society. Let his arguments live or die there, freely.

Is that not the case ? Is the quote from more than one person ? I don't care if he finds a single person or a handful of people - it's still a dirty propaganda trick designed to make people distrust all people from that religion.

As for your claim that the 'Elders of Zion' was laughable, the Nazis made it required reading so somebody took it seriously. To claim that we're more sophisticated today than we were then is to say you've never read the worst posts on this web board.

[Michael Hardner]

A,

That strikes me as a useful topic of discussion.

On a separate thread, we have discussed whether a painter should have the right to portray Bobby Orr without clothes. In the US, the First Amendment is limited by local community standards and so it doesn't extend to child pornography. Bobby Orr is fair game however.

----

The issue in this thread extends beyond the freedom of speech. I wonder whether we should have Human Rights panels in Canada at all. They have become backlogged and arbitrary. Their caseload is far larger than what they can handle. This means that they can select according to whim. They choose cases according to their own agenda and ignore other cases they don't deem important. They are a law unto themselves without proper oversight. Anyone with a complaint of any sort about any private dealing can file a representation. This is an invitation to abuse. Politicians don't want to get involved because "human rights" is one of those "politically correct" terms that spells political danger.

What politician wants to go down in history as the guy who fired the human rights people or abolished human rights panels?

[When the history of the late 20th century is written, political correctness will be viewed as the religious canon of atheists. Human rights panels only lack the power to excommunicate. In Canada, Trudeau used American Civil Rights law to create them and then applied his famous theory: "Create counterweights" to justify them. In Trudeau think, the human rights panels create an alternative power to the State and hence protect individual rights.]

If two people engage in an activity, or one of them refuses to engage in an activity, why is a government panel involved in deciding the correctness of these individual choices? If there is criminal activity, then charge someone under the criminal code.

If a gay bar owner doesn't want to serve beer to a woman, then let the woman go across the street to another bar. The State should not be involved in this at all. If the State gets involved in such private affairs, then we wind up with caes such as this one against Steyn.

Keep in mind that Canada has only had these panels for about 30 years. Imagine how much mischief and then ultimately sheer hell they could create if we allow them to continue for another 100 years or so.

So, in short Michael, maybe we should have a thread about abolishing Canada's Human Rights panels.

Your criticism of Human Rights panels as politically based is understood.

But the paradigm of "don't get the government involved if one or two parties are okay with it" is a slippery slope to no code at all.