Islamophobia Acquittal
It’s a sad day for Sharia law-and-order advocates everywhere as Mark Steyn is acquitted by a Canadian kangaroo court.
Steyn sneers at his own acquittal:
Mark Hemingway is right to say that free speech in Canada “does not exist in any meaningful way”. As the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal’s rambling and incoherent decision makes plain, Maclean’s and I were acquitted of “flagrant Islamophobia” for essentially political reasons - because neither the court nor its travesty of a “human rights” code could withstand the heat of a guilty verdict. Jay Currie puts it well:
The way I read this decision is that it imposes a two part test: a) are your words offensive and hurtful? b) are you a major media organization with deep pockets represented by serious lawyers. If “a” and not “b” you are a hate monger; if “a” and “b” you are engaged in political debate.
Just so. Because we spent a ton of money and had a bigshot Queen’s Counsel and exposed the joke jurisprudence and (at the federal “human rights” commission) systemic corruption, the kangaroo courts decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
It’s hard to tell which is more revolting. The gutlessness of the pandering … the gutless lack of the conviction of their pandering. Fortunately, we don’t have to choose.
Steyn has more, including lots of links, here. Malkin with more here.
Topics: Canada, Islam, moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:30 pm on Friday, October 10, 2008
2 Responses to “Islamophobia Acquittal”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
October 11th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Steyn’s disappointment at the verdict is palpable! Since neither conflicts of interest, nor an accuser’s standing as a victim seem to matter, why not lodge a complaint on behalf of the Human Rights Commission against himself? How could they avoid finding him guilty of exposing their Tribunals to hatred and contempt? Steyn could out-Kafka Kafka as accuser and defendant both. Steyn on Steyn, one one one — imagine the examination and the cross!
Failing that, I suppose a suit for demonstrably unfair use and copyright infringement might keep things going, because I seriously doubt Steyn granted his Tribunal permission to reprint his article in their decision.
October 12th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Steyn was looking forward to appealing a guilty verdict to a real court, with real rules of due process, and making the argument that the HRCs violate the Canadian Charter, that guarantees freedom of speech. He has offered to donate $1,000 to his accusers, whom he calls the sock puppets, to facilitate their appeal of this verdict to such a court. Somehow I doubt they will take him up on his generous offer. A real court and not a “people’s court “style of kangaroo court, so popular with Communists and Nazis, will not be to their tastes.
I suspect the Muslim soft jihadists will continue to bring meritless cases against many authors and journals, forcing them to expend large amounts of money and time defending themselves before these tribunals. If they must factor in the probablility of heavy extra expenses every time they want to publish something, writing offensive to jihadists will soon be a lot less common. Only the most courageous will continue to practice it. This is barratry. I don’t know if barratry is illegal in Canada. Wikipedia defines it thusly:
“Barratry, in criminal and civil law, is the act or practice of bringing repeated legal actions solely to harass.”
It could be a very effective form of lawfare.