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Standing up for one's rights

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softwareNerd

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The Canadian government is investigating a paper for publishing the famous Danish Islam-related cartoons (under some type of anti-hate law).

LGF put up two videos (click) of someone from the newspaper, defending himself to some type of government judge (or similar agent). Both videos are well worth watching. One sees the defense categorically refusing to grant his accuser's underlying premise, and refusing to grant that the law may legitimately deprive him of his rights.

Well worth watching.

The defense argues that he has the right... "to publish whatever the hell we want no matter what the hell you think".

The defendant/publisher has a web-site where he has some more video from the hearing. Check out his opening statement. "It is especially perverted, that a bureaucracy calling itself the 'Alberta Human Rights Commission' would be the government agency violating my human rights."

(HT: TF4ARF)

Edited by softwareNerd
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This was super cool to watch, what a courageous guy! His opening statement was perfect, right down to the last sentence. After a couple videos, I had the impression that the lady didn't understand what she'd gotten herself into.

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Yes, she was out of her depth. On his web page, he even mentions how he thought he might face some zealous enforcer, but found a measly clerk (my words). Her mediocrity probably won't stop her from enforcing the law; it will just make her ignorant of the ramifications. In the final analysis, Canadian voters are responsible for her actions.

The guy's web-page also has a place where one can donate. I urge a small donation -- even a symbolic $1 -- as a vote of support. Sometimes, when going up against a bureaucracy like this, moral support is just as meaningful as financial.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Unfortunately, Canada never broke with Great Britain, as the US did, over the issue of free speech and therefore one's right to speak freely is rather limited. Section 319 is the law of the land up their, which would fortunately be unconstitutional in the US. Norway and Sweden part company on this as well -- Sweden has severe restrictions on free speech which Norway has rejected in favor of free speech (not sure whether it's as free as in the US). Interestingly, if you denounce Muslims as evil murderous scumbags as a matter of religious belief, then hate speech is legal.

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Interestingly, if you denounce Muslims as evil murderous scumbags as a matter of religious belief, then hate speech is legal.

Not in the People's Republic of Victoria, where it is illegal for people of other religions to pray that Muslims will repent. Just ask Pastor Danny Nalliah - it took a lot of effort for him to get his name cleared. The law itself - which nominally allows criticism of religion so long as it is not vilification of practitioners - is known as the law against blasphemy.

Australia didn't break with the UK, either (though I am no fan of the present calls for a bill of rights as it is mostly socialised crud).

JJM

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According to that Wiki article, "the Supreme Court of Victoria, upheld the appeal and ordered that the matter be re-decided, without hearing new evidence, by a Judge (other than Higgins) of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The Islamic Council of Victoria was ordered to pay half of Scot's and Nalliah's legal costs for the appeal."

Also, in this Nalliah there seems to have been actual "incitement to violence". This reference implies that he asked his followers "to pull down Satan's strongholds. ... brothels and gambling places, mosques and temples."

My point is not that "incitement to violence" is a valid reason to suppress free speech (I think the forum has that discussion somewhere). My point is that there is hope for Australia yet. Even though this pastor's speech was worse than the cartoon example, and was actually asking people to tear down mosques, the state supreme court stood by him.

Analogously, the Canadian HRC might be corrupt, but perhaps some higher Canadian court will still uphold Mr. Levant's rights.

An aside: David's point about Canadian law not being sympathetic to free speech may be right. It seems clear that their HRC does not think free-speech is that fundamental. After all, their task is to curtail it. Mark Steyn quotes from a transcript of a hearing berfore the Candian HRC:

MS KULASZKA: Mr. Steacy, you were talking before about context and how important it is when you do your investigation. What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate one of these complaints?

MR. STEACY (HRC Investigator): Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value.

MS KULASZKA : Okay. That was a clear answer.

MR. STEACY (HRC Investigator): It's not my job to give value to an American concept.

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An aside: David's point about Canadian law not being sympathetic to free speech may be right. It seems clear that their HRC does not think free-speech is that fundamental. After all, their task is to curtail it. Mark Steyn quotes from a transcript of a hearing berfore the Candian HRC:

It would be interesting to hear him try and give an objective reason as to why he won't give any consideration to foreign concepts. Seems to me as if he is just sticking to habits and performing under his home customs.

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It would be interesting to hear him try and give an objective reason ...
I don't know. If they were truly foreign, then -- as someone who is enforcing the law -- he can use that to say that he is not concerned with foreign law, only with Canadian law. However. I just checked and the Canadian Constitution says:

2.- Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

a. freedom of conscience and religion;

b. freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

c. freedom of peaceful assembly; and

d. freedom of association.

So, even though speech is not mentioned, "expression" is a wider term. Also, the "freedom of the press" is listed explicitly; so, that should be of some help to this particular case. Edited by softwareNerd
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I don't know. If they were truly foreign, then -- as someone who is enforcing the law -- he can use that to say that he is not concerned with foreign law, only with Canadian law. However. I just checked and the Canadian Constitution says:

So, even though speech is not mentioned, "expression" is a wider term. Also, the "freedom of the press" is listed explicitly; so, that should be of some help to this particular case.

So, he's ignoring freedom of speech, even though it IS within his own national constitution, because it's popular as an American concept? Doesn't sound to me like a guy that has earned his degree.

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So, he's ignoring freedom of speech, even though it IS within his own national constitution, because it's popular as an American concept?
You will notice, though, that the Canadian statement is whimpy. Nothing like "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances". So let's go to the top of the Canadian Constitution: "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". That was done and encoded in section 319. This same document says, on an equal footing with the freedom to speak, "Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability". But we know that this clause actually governs not just the relation of the individual to the government, but the individual to society. In fact, it also says "This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians" -- a constitional requirement for multiculturalism.

In other words, freedom of speech is allowed in Canada, as long as it doesn't conflict with other requirements such as the multiculturalism requirements.

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Yes, it's the same nonsense as the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' ("These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations."). Whenever you have a document where your rights are listed instead of a document where the government's rights are restricted your rights depend on arbitrary decisions of the government.

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  • 3 weeks later...

An update...

Yesterday, Keith Martin - MP from Victoria BC (my province) made this private motion (M-446) :

That, in the opinion of the House, subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act should be deleted from the Act.

(this is the part of CHRA which is being used in this attempt to silence Ezra Levant and his magazine.)

Edited by ~Sophia~
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  • 3 weeks later...

That's good news.

On a separate point, if I had to identify the single most important Mr. Levant has got such wide exposure it is that he had video. If he did not have it, and had blogged all the same facts, I suspect people would not have passed on his article the way they passed on the links to his video. There's probably a lesson in activism in there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Mr. Levant has been threatened with another lawsuit.

Just before the weekend, I received an e-mail from Richard Warman, the former investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, who quit the commission in 2004 to become the commission’s biggest customer. Approximately half of all complaints filed under the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s section 13 “idea crimes” provision have been filed by Warman. The CHRC has a 100% conviction rate under that section, and besides ordering the poor shleps Warman complains about to pay fines to the government, they’re often ordered to pay thousands of dollars to Warman himself, too, for his “hurt feelings”. Unlike the paycheque he got when he used to work there, the cash he gets from commission fines is tax free. Warman and his friends at the CHRC aren’t hitting me with a human rights complaint – not yet, anyways. But he is threatening me with the most bizarre defamation lawsuit I think I’ve ever encountered.

Levan't responses:

When I received Richard Warman’s legal threat, my first reaction was surprise, then amusement, then anger. But not now. Now I feel like I have been given an amazing opportunity. A duty, really: to do what our politicians so far won’t do. I want to do what it takes to shut these abusive commissions down, once and for all.

As a defamation lawyer, I know that Warman’s complaints are baseless. So, other than the nuisance and cost of defending the threatened suit – the “maximum disruption” that Warman promises – there’s nothing to fear. For me, at least.

But what about for Warman? Until now, he could beaver away on his human rights complaints while I railed harmlessly in the media. I had no impact on him, other than on his ego. But now he’s changed that. He’s threatened to lock himself into a formal legal process with me, in a real court, with real rules – not the loosey-goosey kangaroo court where he used to work.

Before, he could ignore me; now he has to answer my questions about his conduct under oath; if he sues, he will have to disclose documents touching on the many matters at hand – everything from e-mails to files on his hard drive. “No comment” and “that’s confidential” don’t work in an examination for discovery.

A fragment of a letter he received recently:

Dear Mr. Levant;

I am a Canadian soldier currently deployed in Afghanistan. Yet even here, I keep abreast of events back in Canada. Upon learning of the possible upcoming lawsuit you may face for your stance against censorship and soft tyranny, I felt I had to somehow help out.

Therefore, today I have donated one thousand dollars to your defence fund. As you may know, our Risk and Hardship allowance (and a portion of our pay) is non-taxable, so don't worry; even though I'm pretty much a middle-class Joe at the rank of Sergeant, that sum isn't going to cripple me financially.

The reason I decided to give you some of my Risk and Hardship allowance is because you too are faced with hardship and risk. My brothers in arms and I are not the only ones trying to defend our freedoms and improve the lives of others. I see these qualities in yourself as well.

So, I've decided that some of the money that the federal government is paying me to defend people's freedom should be spread a little more evenly around to someone who's doing a job that is ultimately just as important as mine.

another letter:

My cousin, Cpl. Jordan Anderson was killed in [Afghanistan] last year. When I read

the e-mail you posted today from another brave soldier, I could only think

of Jordan and how he too believed in protecting our freedoms...

I am embarrassed that this man is risking his life to protect the freedoms

that our grandfathers fought for, and back here in the comfort of our

suburbs, our politicians are allowing these kangaroo courts to destroy our

will to think for ourselves...

I will make it my mission to raise as much money for your fund as possible,

so that our men and women in Iraq can concentrate on their mission, and send

their absurdly hard earned paycheck back to their families.

I'm looking forward to watching you "fight like hell", although I strongly

suspect your adversary is a straw man, and will go away long before you

reach the courtroom steps.

Godspeed Mr. Levant.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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  • 2 months later...

An update:

I just received an e-mail from Mr. Levant thanking me for my donation. I took sNerd's advice and donated $5 for moral support. Mr. Levant indirectly says that it worked! I haven't been following his cases at all, so I am glad for his letter, and in case others have been out of the loop, too, here it is:

Dear James,

I wanted to take a moment to say thanks to you for your generous contribution towards my fight. I'm sorry I didn't write back sooner -- we had a little baby just two weeks after my January human rights hearing, so I've been busy on diaper duty! -- but permit me to give you an update on how everything's going.

Forgive me if some of this is old news to you -- I'm not sure how closely you've been following this growing battle!

The thing that dragged me into this mess in the first place -- the human rights commission complaint against me, for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed -- is still slouching forward. There were two identical complaints filed against me, actually. A radical imam named Syed Soharwardy abandoned his complaint against me in February, after receiving an enormous amount of bad press for trying to bring Saudi-style censorship to Canada. But the second complaint, filed by the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities, still proceeds against me. Right now, I'm waiting to hear back from the human rights commission as to whether or not they've decided to formally prosecute me. It's been more than three months since their interrogation of me, and they still haven't made a decision, so I'm in legal limbo. That's one of the frustrating things here: these commissions move extremely slowly. I've been stuck in this system for more than two years now, and if they formally prosecute me, it could be another three years of grinding. The taxpayers pay for my prosecution -- I've had to rely on the generosity of the blogosphere for my defence.

Last month, my battle grew bigger when I was sued by a former Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator, Richard Warman. He's also the CHRC's number one complainant under the section 13 thought crimes provision, accounting for roughly half of all such complaints in Canada. He's suing me and several other leading Canadian bloggers for criticizing his "investigative" techniques -- including his practise of going online, under a fake identity, and posting bigoted comments on websites. We're going to fight his lawsuit all the way, and I think we're going to win -- though it's another set of legal bills.

Finally, just last weekend, I received another threatened lawsuit, this one from Giacomo Vigna, another CHRC lawyer. He, too, is suing me for criticizing his prosecution techniques. It would clearly be a nuisance suit, but nonetheless, nuisance suits have to be defended against.

I'm not demoralized by all of these suits. I think I would be, if they were crushing me financially -- which is clearly the strategy of the "human rights" set that's attacking me. But because of contributions like yours, I haven't been bankrupted, and in fact I've been able to hire excellent lawyers. I truly believe we're going to win all three actions -- the human rights complaint, and the two lawsuits. Because of your financial support I've been able to focus on fighting, instead of worrying. I've been writing up a storm about these fights on my website. And, partly because of my continued fight, hundreds of other bloggers have joined in too.

And, after about two months of the blogosphere carrying this fight on their own, Canada's mainstream media have begun to really dig in, too. Maclean's, the biggest news magazine in Canada, writes about these human rights commissions almost every week. The National Post writes about them almost every day. And just about every other newspaper across the country has now weighed in -- unanimously opposed to the abusive political censorship of these commissions.

And, now that public opinion is beginning to mobilize, it looks like some of Canada's political leaders are putting their shoulder to the wheel, too. Keith Martin, the independent-minded Liberal MP from Vancouver Island, put forward a Parliamentary motion to abolish the "thought crimes provision". Other MPs have publicly supported his motion. And just last weekend, Jason Kenney, the cabinet minister in charge of multiculturalism, publicly blasted the human rights commissions for treading on Canadians' free speech. Taken together, there is cause for optimism.

I won't make this letter any longer! Before any more time passed, I wanted to say "thank you" for your donation. I have been truly overwhelmed by the generosity of support I've received, from complete strangers. I've been flummoxed by what to say or do in return, and I think I have the answer -- the only answer.

In return for your help, I promise I'll keep on fighting as hard and as smart as I can, until we win this fight.

Thanks again, and again, apologies for the delay in writing back.

Yours gratefully,

Ezra Levant

How cool to be able to directly support a man like this! I am donating more!

Edited by JASKN
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No fair, I didn't get a letter!

Seriously, thanks for posting. I too will contribute again. (Anyone who came late to this can check Levant's web-site.)

The practice of individual "prosecutors" suing Levant is rather strange.

Edited by softwareNerd
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  • 1 month later...

I just got a letter from him as well:

Dear Ifat,

I know a lot of time has passed since you generously donated to my legal defence fund, but I wanted to take a moment, now that I have a chance to catch my breath, to let you know how grateful I am for your contribution.

I've really been running at full speed for six months -- fending off two human rights commission complaints (one was dropped, but the other continues), and a bunch of nuisance suits from lawyers in the human rights industry. (The fact that we had a little baby right in the middle of everything has been the biggest reason I've been so busy!) I've also tried to fight back hard in the court of public opinion, stirring up opposition to the kind of censorship that has trapped me.

Please forgive me for my delay in writing to you -- I'm sorry.

I don't know if you saw it on my blog, but I attended a few days of Mark Steyn's show trial in Vancouver last month. As you know, he and Maclean's magazine were charged with illegal "discrimination" for publishing an excerpt of his book, "America Alone". It's the same law I've been charged under for publishing the Danish cartoons. I was charged in spring of 2006, but I still haven't had my trial, so it was interesting to see what Mark's looked like.

Frankly, it was an embarrassment. I cringed, not only as a lawyer, but as a citizen. I couldn't believe the kangaroo court antics of the prosecution. They really brought our legal system into disrepute. The tribunal actually spent an hour arguing over whether or not a particular joke made by Mark Steyn was funny. As the Vancouver Sun wrote, the human rights tribunal "murdered their own reputation". That's true. But they don't care. As long as they have the power to censor political ideas they disagree with, they'll keep doing it. I was so proud of Maclean's for fighting back. I promise to, as well.

Because it's not just about my case, or Mark Steyn's. It's about weeding out these un-Canadian laws altogether, and protecting freedom of speech.

Your contribution has been essential to me. Maclean's magazine is part of a large company that was able to send in Canada's best lawyers to fight on Mark Steyn's behalf. But without your donation, I'm afraid I would have been crushed under the legal onslaught a long time ago. Between the human rights complaints and the nuisance suits, I'm receiving bills of $5,000 to $10,000 a month from my lawyers. The human rights commission is clearly trying to break me -- I have received several "plea bargain" offers, where if I just "admit" that I'm wrong, and pay a fine, it will all go away. That would certainly be cheaper and quicker. But there is no way I could live with myself if I did that. If anything, that would only embolden them.

My goal is simple: I want to stop these commissions dead in their tracks.

Thanks for letting me give you an update. And, once again, please accept my sincere apologies for being delinquent in sending you a thank-you note. I have been meaning to do so for a while, and I'm sorry I left the impression that I took your support for granted.

Yours gratefully,

Ezra Levant

P.S. I promise I'll keep fighting as hard and as smart as I can.

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