Somehow, the UK courts are ok with a British blogger being sued by an internationally recognized terror organization.

In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas. The BBC report disclosed that Mr Sawalha “master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

British firm Dean and Dean decided that this terrorist leader had a case against Harry the blogger, and they intend to bring him down under their Sharia-loving heel.

Mr Sawalha’s British Muslim Initiative put out a press release on 2 July 2008, describing us as “racist”, “underhand”, “plainly lying” and “pure evil”. We are none of these things. Yet, instead of seeking to sue Mr Sawalha and his organisations for the serious defamation of our characters which he has circulated, or demanding an apology, we took his arguments on.

Mr Sawalha operates by invective and legal threat, because he has no other answer to the case which we have advanced. [Sounds like Warren Kinsella! - RG] This is the context within which he expects people to attend IslamExpo and other British Muslim Initiative organised events. How can there be genuine debate in these circumstances?

If you can, give Harry some help.

Denise O’Leary writes an open letter to comedian Guy Earle (enemy of thin-skinned lesbians across Canada).

Anyway, Guy, you add,

“The reader or the listener or whatever has no feeling for the environment of the comedy show that is triple-X, edgiest-show-in-town, controversial and offensive, so when you walk in there you’re making an agreement to be a party to this controversial show.”

No, but remember that human rights commissioners in BC are “experts” in publishing and in public health. In fact, they are experts in any field they waddle into. So why not experts in comedy too?

Now, here’s an interesting problem that these tribunals, the “human” face of fascism, create for someone like me (see my profile above and you will get the picture): If anyone had asked me a few years ago what I thought of your show (as per your YouTube account), I would have said, “It offends me.”

I would never say that today!

The tribunal fascists have hijacked words like “offend.” If I say your show offends me, all I mean is, I would choose something else for private entertainment - maybe March of the Penguins, for example.

It was founded on the principle, in fact.

Stephen Boisson, Alberta Public Enemy #1 and recipient of future-crime complaints because of his Christian stance on homosexuality, brings us a surreal conversation with a Human Rights Commission employee.

He said the following recommendations were the responsibility of the people who invited me, not my responsibility.

2. Ask the church to get a signed consent form from everyone, parents and children, everyone, stating that they are not forced to attend and are there of their own free will. Later he added that this consent should be drawn up by a lawyer who is familiar with the Human Rights Laws.

3. The weekend retreat is considered one-occasion situation and that a license was probably not required.

4. The church needs to contact the education people and take a curriculum of the program and demonstrate that it is an educational program that is not unwelcome by the group there and everyone is there by consent. Also, the church needs to ask the education people if a license is required. At this point Ralph was uncertain and seemed to think a license would be helpful if problems occurred.

5. The church needs to contact the police to make sure they do not view the program as bordering on criminal activity—need to show them the curriculum so they know what is going on and do not arrive on the scene.

WTF? With the exception of the occasional 8-year-old who would probably prefer to be at home playing Wii, people are usually at church or any church program by their own free will. There aren’t people herding them in at gunpoint.

I then told Ralph that the church had already distributed a CD of mine to each of their families to prepare for the retreat that had some statements on it about homosexuals. He said that they needed a consent form from each family that this was not unwelcome material and that their kids would not be talking about any of it in the schools.

He said, “You may have a problem with the CD if it is seen as gay bashing and if anyone who has it displays it before the public, i.e., talking about it in a classroom. It needs to be used by a select group who consented to receiving the material. Religious material must not be forced on anyone who is not a part of the group who consented. If a student did this, and the person complained, you would be liable and it would not matter that all the safeguards were in place.”

Again, that free will thing. But even more worrying, what is this about keeping teachings secret and not talking about them with others? Is it now official policy of the Alberta Human Rights Commission to drive Christianity underground? Are we in Iran, where Christian teachings must be done in basements and behind closed curtains, never letting the neighbors know? Is this still Canada?

This is absolutely terrifying, if you stop to think about it. Whether you are Christian or not, you must agree that it is heinous that the main religion of Canadians is being forced into hiding by these Commissions. Is this what was originally intended when our government drew up the Charter? Nowadays, kids go to school and learn about every religion except Christianity. No one is allowed to complain. But if one of these kids attending the workshop goes to school and tells his friends about it, all hell will break loose. It has to be kept a secret. The founding religion of the modern world: Now a dirty little secret for backrooms and speakeasies.

First they came for the basement Nazis.

Then they came for the publishers and newsmen.

And now they’re coming for our laughs. No, really.

A Canadian stand-up comedian will face a human rights tribunal hearing after a woman complained she and her friends faced a “tirade of homophobic and sexist comments” while attending one of his shows.

In a decision released this week, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled there is enough evidence to hear the case of Vancouver woman Lorna Pardy against Toronto comedian Guy Earle. Zesty’s Restaurant in Vancouver, where the May 22, 2007, show took place, was also named in the complaint. The restaurant has since closed.

“Two of them started making out, flipping me the bird and saying I hated lesbians,” he said.

Basically some dumb comedian pulled a Michael Richards on some lesbians, and instead of being shamed and shunned like Richards was, these bitter broads decided to run crying to the teacher. A good public shaming would have nullified any career he might have had, but instead he will now become a free speech hero. Is that what these man-haters had in mind?

Oh well. The trial will be funny. Maybe this guy and Steyn can do a road show together or something. Have Ezra as emcee…

Which is not to say that I don’t get and agree with her point. I just think she’s reminding me a little too much of those nerdy boys we used to wedgie in school.

Instead, consider the fictitious aliens portrayed on the Star Trek television series, the Ferengi. If ever there were a group deserving of contempt, the Ferengi would be it. They are unrepentantly deceitful, scheming, cheating, money-grubbing, obsequious, obnoxious scoundrels. Their written code of conduct explicitly promotes dishonesty.

Are these hateful comments? If I wrote such things about any real group in Canada, no doubt there would be several human rights commissions breathing down my neck.

But suppose Ferengis really existed and immigrated to Canada. Nobody who had ever watched Star Trek would want them as employees, tenants or customers. But nobody would dare say why, fearing a hate speech charge.

Instead, people would surreptitiously avoid dealing with them in whatever subtle ways were possible without triggering a discrimination complaint.

There are three possibilities about the televised portrayal of Ferengis: it might be true for all Ferengis, it might be false for all Ferengis or it might be true for some Ferengis and false for others. In each case, allowing people to make disparaging comments like the ones I made above would offer benefits the Supreme Court apparently couldn’t imagine.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Muslims are not the new Jews. They are the new… Ferengi. (somewhere, Mr. Right is laughing at me for even discussing this)

Putting aside the uncomfortable geekiness of it all, she makes the point many of us have been making all along. Those who behave in a way that is not conducive to integrating into our communities should be shunned until they mend their ways. That goes for both violent immigrants and neo-Nazis. Back when we still had shame, we didn’t need commissions. But since we adopted this anything goes mentality, we need Nanny to tell us when we’re over-stepping. Shunning isn’t allowed, as it might hurt someone’s feelings. Theoretically, I couldn’t shun a neo-Nazi skinhead because his feeling would be hurt on account of me disagreeing with his belief. I can’t shun a Muslim whose religion teaches him to kill me, because I might offend his beliefs. And I’d have to hire a goddam Ferengi.

Where do we draw the line??

Ok, here goes:

Mohammed, terror, Islamism, fundamentalist Islam, race, religion, cult.

George Carlin is dead, yet none of the news articles have pointed out the dramatic reversal. Carlin was arrested for talking about the Seven Words you cannot say on television. Liberals (back when there were such things) used to praise Carlin for daring to speak about topics that had been kept away from television.

And now, people like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are being hauled before so-called human rights tribunals for speaking on topics that are no longer allowed in Canada. The dispute is getting a lot of press in Canada, but what do those people in the U.S. who used to praise George Carlin have to say about it? Nothing.

The Girl in Blue writes of Ezra on Coren:

One of my favourite parts was when Micheal pointed out that many leftists see this issue as a battle of the political sides of the spectrum. Both men asserted that this is not the case at all. Neither care whether you’re wrong–er, left, or right. This isn’t about that. This isn’t a bunch of bible-thumping Republican types ranting on about the HRCs, dabbling in little lies along the way in an attempt to ice to their white and blue free speech plea cake. (See, Canadian Cynic? I can list off dumb stereotypes and pass it off as a blog, too!)

For a young chick, she has a sharp tongue! And she’s also pretty perceptive.

Without the right to a forum for discussion, there could be no discussion. Without the right to protest, there could be no political progression. These dummies complaining to the HRC have every right to complain (without free speech, they wouldn’t), just as every defendent had every right to say–or publish–what they did. That’s the beauty of the free West. Levant said “we love justice.” But the HRC isn’t a real court. There’s no real evidence needed, no real trials, no real justice. And the truth is, if these wacko complainants win their cases, it may be a feather in their cap (as my Buby would say), but it isn’t simply a loss for the defendent. It’s a loss for Canada, and the freedom we have boasted so proudly about. It’s a loss for you and your liberty. It’s the first chip in the decay of your fundamental rights, your society, and your freedom.

Who knew? Well, apparently, Ezra did. He posted on his site about last night, which I didn’t have time to read before rushing out of the house this morning to go see him in person at the Ontario Bar Association. He was being hosted by the Speakers Action Group and the Canadian Jewish Civil Rights Association.

He told us, a room full of Jews (and assorted pseudo-Jews like me, Kathy and Denise), that there really is a Jewish conspiracy. That the creation and implementation of the “hate speech” laws were created by Jews, for Jews, and were now being used to influence the media. Ergo, Jews control the media. Ergo, the Zionist Conspiracy has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. All those years that the wacky basement Nazis warned of a vast Jewish conspiracy, and lo and behold, the Jews themselves have gone and proven them right.

Farber supports the Canadian Islamic Congress in their complaint against Maclean’s. There is no other way to interpret his comments. Farber is shilling for a fascist organization that routinely indulges in anti-Semitic propaganda, whose president-for-life went on TV to declare that any adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist attack. I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising; Farber’s newest recruit to the CJC, Warren Kinsella, has provided political and media advice to the CIC’s young bigots-in-training, the “sock puppets”. Farber just verbally supports Elmasry. Kinsella — on the CJC’s legal affairs committee — actually rolls up his sleeve and helps the anti-Semites out a bit.

This is the Canadian Jewish Congress in 2008. How repulsive.

Leo Adler of the Weisenthal Centre was in attendance today, and made a very telling comment: That 13 years ago when the Centre began investigating hate sites on the Internet, there was only one. Now there are three eight thousand.

Nothing will create a bigger backlash than trying to take away someone’s speech. Which is what we’ve been saying to Steyn’s sock puppets all this time: if we didn’t hate you before, we hate you now, because you are attempting to shut down debate. Perhaps that’s what happened with the Jews when no one was looking. They shut down one website, and ten others came to the funeral? Hmmm… something to nosh on, for sure.

Kathy is on a tear.

Hey, lady! Know what makes ME cry, years later?

Actual dead people, burned alive at the hands of your fellow Muslims.

While they were at work, something a number of you seem quite allergic to. Flying planes you aren’t smart enough to fly, let alone invent, into buildings you could only dream of designing.

Screw you.

I will never forget that day. Not just that day, but your non-response to that day.

After Pearl Harbor, even though their families were being interred, Japanese men volunteered for the US Armed Forces in what became the most decorated unit in WW2.

What did you people do?

Bitch and moan about a backlash against Muslims that never materialized. Concoct fake hate crimes. Stage stunts like the “flying imams” bullshit. Take people (not coincidentally surnamed) “Steyn” and “Levant” to court as a nice little slo-mo Kristallnact.

THAT’S what you should be crying about, you silly woman — not a handful of posters on a website, simply saying stuff that your fellow Muslims write about Jews and Christians on THEIR websites every damn day.

Do you cry about that? Do you go out and protest that, with your hijab or not? I doubt it.

Please go read the whole thing, and watch the video. It really puts things into perspective. We have been way too nice. I think it’s time for a little Infidel Backlash.

Good God, the plaintiffs are quoting Martin Luther King Jr. in their summation. Well guess what? I have a dream, too. A dream that all you bastards go back to the 7th century where you belong. How’s that for a dream? No amount of multi-cult preaching from our secular gods in Canada can ever make up for the fact that you - as Muslims - are everything I believe you to be. Dangerous, conniving, thin-skinned, lying, and brainwashed by the hatred of your Death Cult. Go back to the mountain - we don’t want you here.

Porter: What preventive measures are you doing that’s going to curtail Bin Laden?

Joseph objects. “It’s these types of questions, assumptions, suppositions, that is exactly going to the complaint — that there’s some sort of collective consciousness among Muslims, that somehow it’s Dr. Habib’s job to stop Bin Laden.”

Isn’t it? I mean, if there is a collective Muslim consciousness to be offended en masse, shouldn’t there be one that also takes responsibility for the actions within the umma? Faisal Joseph is glad to bring for a complaint on behalf of “Muslims”, yet when that same idea of community is brought under scrutiny by Julian Porter, Joseph declares that Muslims are individuals, not a group.

So which is it?

If you are going to bleat on behalf of all Canadian Muslims, then you should also stand as responsible for their actions. So throw them in the clink with Omar Khadr.

We’re back, and the first item for business is Joseph demanding an apology for yesterday’s “scaredy-pants” outburst, which he says is causing his client “stress.”

Habib (the scaredy-pants in question) takes the stand.

2:39 PM I’ve just noticed Steyn is here. Not sure how long he’s been sitting there. I suspect things are about to get interesting.

Yesterday, I called Kathy and asked her if she was able to stay on top of all the news coming out of the Show Trial. She admitted that she had to step away from the computer to clear her head. My own noggin was spinning, my eyes nearly crossed. Reading the Lewis Carrol dispatches from Coyne and Levant, as well as Kathy’s source and whoever else Binks was linking to - it’s all too much. I doubt I would feel it weighing on me so much if it were in a real court, with a real standard of evidence, where truth is a defense. But alas, the Queen of Hearts does not work that way, and neither does the Human Rights Commission.

The fact is, our evidence is solid, our counsel is top notch, and the points we make are more than valid. But we are not in a court of law - we are on some kind of quasi-psychiatric couch, having the plaintiff talk about their feelings and emotions. How Canada ever decided to legislate based on such subjective evidence is beyond me. Somehow, despite the defendant’s case being more solid than that of the plaintiff, the plaintiff will still be awarded victory and damages. Because they were offended. Because their feelings were hurt. Because they loved themselves a little less after reading Mark Steyn’s article in Maclean’s.

I will do my best to stay on top of things, as well as to offer my own subjective opinions here at GOTR. But for the blow-by-blow, continue reading Coyne:

10:00 AM Maclean’s counsel Roger McConchie is working through her c.v., perhaps in an attempt to poke holes in her credibility. Personally, I think she’d make a fine human rights commissioner.

Her dissertation, he’s pointing out, was in Indian cinema and identity construction, and not, say, stereotyping of Muslims in Canadian national weekly current events magazines. Now going through her publications in refereed journals (sample title: When Local Meets Lucre: Commerce, Culture and Imperialism in Bollywood Cinema.) Other articles deconstruct Queen Latifah, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and … still more Bollywood.

10:20 AM He’s still working her over. Her master’s thesis, on Afghan women, looked at whether western media concerns with women’s oppression under the Taliban was merely a pretext to justify the war.

McConchie sums up for the tribunal: getting a PhD from a “reputable Canadian institution” — I believe he’s talking about Carleton — is a worthy achievement, but she hardly has the expertise claimed, particularly as she’s barely started her career.

Faisal Joseph for the complainants begs to differ. She was recommended by a world-renowned expert, Karim H. Karim, to make a presentation to a conference in Melbourne, which was supposed to deal in part with stereotyping issues. (Although in the end she only had seven minutes so it didn’t.)

The panel retires to consider.

10:55 AM They’re back, and they’ve decided they’re going to hear her evidence. Buffy scholars everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.

In other HRC news, SoCon or Bust posts a letter to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

This blog, like many Canadian news blogs, will be all human rights commission, all the time this week. Many of you may not know much about it. Others, like my lucky American readers, will be incredulous that we don’t have a First Amendment here.

I encourage all of you to stay and read this week’s coverage of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s magazine in front of the British Columbia Human Rights Commission. If these things continue to happen in so-called civilized Canada, it is only a matter of time before it happens elsewhere. It is already happening around Europe, whereBrigitte Bardot was just fined the equivalent of $25,000 for slurring Islam.

On American campuses, there are “free speech zones”, and anywhere else on campus your speech is restricted. You can’t wear or say what you want anymore. Debate is being stifled on both sides of our border. I urge you to stay here at Girl on the Right (and other Canadian blogs who are covering this) throughout this week, and educate yourselves about what is happening here. The more you know, the less likely you will be to allow this to creep into your own country. Arm yourself with this knowledge. And know this:

We did this to ourselves. We allowed this to happen. When these Commissions were going after neo-Nazis, we ignored the news. It was easy. After all, who cares if some skinhead gets his just desserts? Who wants to defend a Holocaust denier? But now it’s us. We are the ones being rounded up. We can’t expect sympathy from those Nazis and skinheads - some of them must be sneering at our ignorance right now. Yet even as members of the press, like the publishers at Maclean’s, are being hauled in front of the thought police, there are others now who are turning away from the news. Many bloggers and journos who have different views from those of Steyn, or Levant or any of us, are saying we are either barking at the wind, or they are actually cheering for the HRC’s. You know what? I’m ok with that. We did it. We cheered for the Ernst Zundel’s of Canada to be prosecuted. And now those who are ideologically opposed to Steyn and Levant are cheering for their demise. I suppose what goes around comes around, right?

And so it will go, and someday, ten or twenty years down the line, it could be one of them. There are many Thought Crimes - misogyny comes to mind immediately - that come from those opposed. How long before they are hauled before these Kangaroo Courts and tried for their views, their words? Asked to defend themselves for speaking their truth? It could be a blogger who refers to women as “cunts” or one who says “fuck the Jews”. It may be one of their rabid commenters who puts them in hot water. Or it could be an anti-Semitic journo from the Toronto Star. It could be Toronto City Councilor Adam Vaughn for calling Americans “gun toting Yanks”. And they will look back on the cases of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, and wonder why they didn’t speak up. Just as we are doing now, with Zundel.

I can only hope that when that day comes - and it will, if we lose our chance to make changes to the law - we on the right side are willing to set aside our differences and defend them as we did not do for others before us. And as our opponents are not doing for us. I hope, but I really doubt it will happen. We, too, will most likely sneer from the silent sidelines, watching those we dislike be brought under heel.

Khurrum Awan isn’t praying. He is trying desperately to remember which lies to tell. What a tangled web we weave…

I would need three heads, 10 arms and several computers to keep up with all the delights on offer from the Mark Steyn show trial in front of the British Columbia Human Rights Commission.

Binky is just such a mythical beast, somehow managing to keep up the pace and deliver the links directly to you. Go there. Go there now.

Coyne continues to live-blog.

Ezra also live-blogs, though he may be in such a state of rapture and glee at this point that his keys may begin to stick. Just sayin’.

11:45 AM The hearing now turns to readings from various blogs I’ve never heard of: The Brussels Journal, some Catholic blog and… oh, the late Western Standard! Not obscure, just obsolete! (The mag, I mean — the website is still in business.) The Western Standard reference: a blog post by Ezra Levant, the defunct magazine’s former publisher, dated Dec. 2 2007. This is slightly surreal: he’s sitting in front of me as I write this, laptop in hand, writing about being spoken about with reference to something he’d written about … this case. This is getting so meta I’m losing track…

McConchie on his feet. Leafing through some of the other bloggers in the complainant’s file; ConradUSA, Holographic, Templar… I think they left out the Raelians and the guy outside the liquor store who swears he invented Silly Putty, [but] I’m not sure.

The winner for weirdest Steyn/free speech post of the week (and it’s only Monday) goes to Iowahawk for this drama.

From the Maritimes to the Yukon, the Great White North was once a lawless land where cruel and offensive opinions roamed free - until one man stood up and brought them to justice. One mighty masked man, clad in the scarlet breechcoat of the Royal Canadian Mounted Human Rights Police, astride a golden disabled lesbian steed, with his faithful transgender Indian scout at his side. Together they rode from Yellowknife to St. John’s, keeping Canadians safe from the spectre of multicultural insensitivity.

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation invites you to return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear as we tell the tales of that legendary singing Human Rights Mountie. It’s time for excitement - it’s time for lawsuits - It’s time for… Warman of the Mounted!