EclectEcon

During the past year or so, Mark Steyn has published a book and several columns which have provoked the ire of some Muslims. In his book, a portion of which was excerpted in Maclean's Magazine on October 23rd, he quoted a Norwegian imam as saying that Muslims would "breed like mosquitoes" and eventually take over the western world.

In response, several Muslim law students from Osgoode Hall Lawskool objected, asserting that that particular comment and the article in general were defamatory. They sought redress from Maclean's, which suggested they should write a letter to the editor. That response was unsatisfactory to them. Instead, they brought a complaint to the Human Rights Commissions of several provinces and at the federal level as well.

Some of these commissions had the good sense to reject the complaint, but some provincial and the Canadian federal HRCs all agreed to hear the case. What stupidity. For an excellent summary, see this in The Economist, which takes a swipe at both Canadian media and its HRCs, saying,

Much of Canada's press and many broadcasters are already noted for politically correct blandness. Some fear that the case can only make that worse. Mr Steyn and others hope it will prompt a narrower brief for the commissions, or even their abolition. As he put it in his blog, “I don't want to get off the hook. I want to take the hook and stick it up the collective butt of these thought police.”

This isn't the first time the HRCs have given in to Islamophobia phobia. Two years ago, Ezra Levant published the Danish cartoons in the Western Standard (two of which were posted on this blog as well; also see this) and was brought up before the Alberta HRC. He is understandably dealing with the situation brilliantly, but he does not need either the angst or the threats or the wasting of his time for such attacks on Canadians' freedom of speech.

Mark Steyn has a pithy, witty account of Ezra Levant's trials and tribulations here. It also
provides a gripping account of the conditions under which Canadian William Sampson suffered while in a Saudi jail. Read the whole thing.

Two more points:

• Someone has begun a group on Facebook, apparently based in Alberta, "Ezra Levant is a piece of shit JEW", though that group appears to have been shut down now. To see its page, check out the material, including the screenshot on Small Dead Animals. And the group's members?
  Ali Zee - Admin (Calgary)
  Usher Ahmed (Calgary)
  Super Samer (Calgary)
  Issam Zeineddine (Forest Lawn High School)
  Khalil Jeha (Calgary)
  Hussien Abdulbaki (Calgary)
  Abe Rafih (Calgary)
  Bassam Youssef (Lebanon)
  Issam Khalil (Calgary)
  Manal Abdallah (MRC CA Alum '07).
  
  John Mueller of the University of Calgary has written,
  

  Freedom of speech means, among many other things, that these guys get to post whatever they want.
  
  And that I then get to share their work with you!
  
  One of those "win-win" type thingies...
  

• Speaking of John Mueller, I have seen copies of many of the things he has written recently, criticizing Human Rights Commissions. In response, he has received some pretty astoundingly conflicted hate-mail:
  

  in regard to harassing
  e-mails I've begun to receive, the second last night, with
  the subject line ... "Do you belong to the KKK? You should
  be in jail for what you said about the HRC!"
  
  Message 1: "Kiss your job good bye! No teacher can be this
  ignorant. You have shown your true colours, racist."
  
  Message 2:" We got Terry Tremaine from uni of Sask fired for
  much less than this. Your insane/racist attack on the Humans
  Rights Commission violates everything that it is to be
  Canadian. Terry Termain , former math prof, Is now working
  as a janitor. I bet there is not one single colleague or
  student at uni of Calgary that thinks you are anythng but a
  full blown Nazi. Crawl back under the rock, my friend. You
  are destroying your career and reputation.
  

Who is the racist? Who is the Nazi? Surely many of the recent actions of the thought police .... nazis... HRCs are much more antithetical to freedom than the criticisms of the HRCs.

How ironic that this decision was handed down yesterday.

By the way, be sure to check out Ezra Levant's website.