yippee i'm glad you enjoyed him grandstanding for the camera. 

You should be more concerned by the Kangaroo Court he was required to grandstand at:

EZRA LEVANT

Special to Globe and Mail Update

January 21, 2008 at 12:32 AM EST

A few days ago, I was interrogated for 90 minutes by Shirlene McGovern, an officer of the government of Alberta. I have been accused of hurting people's feelings because, two years ago, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard magazine.

Ms. McGovern's business card said she was a "Human Rights Officer." What a perfectly Orwellian title.

Early in her interrogation, she said "I always ask people ? what was your intent and purpose of your article?"

It wasn't even a question about what we had published in the magazine. It was a question about my private thoughts. I asked her why my private feelings were of interest to the government. She said, very calmly, that they would be a factor taken into account by the government in determining whether or not I was guilty.

Officer McGovern said it as calmly as if I had asked her what time it was.

When she's doing government interrogations, she always asks people about their thoughts.

It was so banal, so routine. When she walked in, she seemed happy. With a smile, she reached out her hand to shake mine. I refused — to me, nothing could have been more incongruous. Would I warmly greet a police officer who arrested me as a suspect in a crime? Then why should I do so for a thought crime? This was not normal; I would not normalize it with the pleasantries of polite society.

This was not a high-school debating tournament where Human Rights Officer McGovern and I were equals, enjoying a shared interest in politics and publishing. I was there because I was compelled to be there by the government, and if I answered Officer McGovern's political questions unsatisfactorily, the government could fine me thousands of dollars and order me to publicly apologize for holding the wrong views.

I told her that the complaint process itself was a punishment. Even if I was eventually acquitted, I would still lose — hundreds of hours, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. That's not an accident, that's one of the tools of these commissions. Every journalist in the country has been taught a lesson: Censor yourself now, or be put through a costly wringer. I said all this and then Officer McGovern replied, "You're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure."

But that's not for sure, is it? We're only entitled to our opinions now if they don't offend some very easily offended people.

One of the complainants against me is someone I would describe as a radical Muslim imam, Syed Soharwardy. He grew up in the madrassas of Pakistan and he lectures on the Saudi circuit. He advocates sharia law for all countries, including Canada. His website is rife with Islamic supremacism — offensive to many Canadian Jews, gentiles, women and gays. But his sensitivities — his Saudi-Pakistani values — have been offended by me.

And so now the secular government of Alberta is enforcing his fatwa against the cartoons.

It's the same for Mohamed Elmasry, the complainant against Maclean's magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, America Alone. Egyptian-born Elmasry has publicly said that any adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist attack, a grossly offensive statement.

Both the Canadian and B.C. Human Rights Commissions are now hearing his complaints against Maclean's.

How did it come to be that rough and, I would say, bigoted men such as Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry could, by simply claiming that their tender feelings were hurt, sic a government bureaucracy on a magazine, or anyone for that matter?

On this point, I agree with Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry: I blame the Jews.

A generation ago, illiberal elements in the "official" Je

intent is indeed highly relevant information.  it is for instance the difference tween manslaughter and murder one.  ezra is also twisting what she said you realize to suit his grandstanding.

TOTALLY irrelevant here. Free Speech is Free Speech is Free Speech,  there ARE no BUTS, if you value and cherish the long tradition of English free speech rights. Whether Levant was grandstanding or not is not important, what IS important is the unchecked Kangaroo AHRC. That is the issue you fail to address, Ehran, and concentrate on Levant's rantings, rather than the chilling nature of what the HRCs are all about. Maybe this will clarify for you, Ehran.

 

Iowahawk's been digging around in Canadian dumpsters (dirty job but somebody's gotta do it), and he's surfaced with a crumpled-up first draft of the Alberta Human Rights Commission?s report on their hearing with Ezra Levant: Filed In Triplicate....

Defendant acknowledges awareness of charges against him. He is represented by counsel but insists on opening statement and filming .... Despite warnings and brochure on self incrimination he proceeds.

Defendant states he is attending under protest and would do crime again. States belief that AHRCC has no authority to prosecute. Under eye contact, defendent?s counsel shrugs. Defendant says hearing in violation of ?separation Mosque and State? (note: potential violation of Section 118-c(a) AHRCC Innuendo Act?). Claims ?original intent? of Commission not to enforce Islamic law. Defendant apparently unfamiliar with AHRCC interoffice memo HVM-d11, ?Koranic Compliance Guidelines for Non-Muslim Associates.?

Calls Commission ?dump for junk,? cites previous cases. Calls AHRCC ?joke,? ?pseudo court,? ?Judge Judy.? Cites critical statements of Commission founder, even though he doesn?t work here any more. Says authority unlawful, unconstitutional. Counsel seems oblivious to client?s contempt, is seen reading ?Highlights for Children? magazine from waiting room.

Starts yapping about British common law, Magna Carta, Canadian law, UN Declaration of Human Rights, other documents of white male privilege, etc. Subject seems agitated. Stuff about conscience, religion, expression blah blah blah. Seems to be stonewalling because none of this has any reference in my copy of Publication AHRCC-0503(k), ?Hearing Guidelines for Human Rights Clerks.? Long diatribe about Sharia Law, radical Islam.

Sorry, I crossed my arms and kind of spaced out there for a second to look at that nice big landscape painting in the hearing room. Does the Commission gift shop have prints? Anyhoo, defendant still seems agitated, and offers thanks to (probably also racist) magazine donors. What is this, the racist Oscars?

ezra is alleged to have promoted hatred not just published something that offended people.  the matter is being dealt with despite his best efforts to martyr himself on the altar of free speech. 

 

i am a great believer in due process swhitebull which is why what's going on in the usa offends me so often.  it's not that i have any tender regard for terrorists and their ilk it's that if you abuse their rights it's a short easy step to abusing other people's rights as well. 

this illegal combatant twaddle has irked me from day one.  i don't understand what the dickens bush had in mind with it when he could so simply have cya'ed under the existing system by getting congress to pass an equivalent to war law.  that would allow him to have fired those prisoners into comfy little boxes until they died of old age and the only real proviso being the IRC signing off from time to time that the comfy little boxes were up to standard.  this would i think have been far superior to the testicular press he's created for himself with these kangaroo court military tribunals. 

 

right now we have a military tribunal dealing with that canadian kid khadr.  refusing to show the evidence against him, excluding expert testimony on his status as a child soldier under the convention the usa ratified in 2002.  you follow the story and you have to admit that kangaroo court is in this farsical case is actually a compliment.

Clinton and Bush did the same things. Clinton disappeared people too. If you say Bush is evil because of the things he's done then isn't Clinton also evil for doing the same things. When I comdemn the acts of both people get after me for putting Clinton down. To me if it's wrong when one person does it then it's wrong when anyone else does it. Wrong is wrong, it shouldn't matter if you like the guy or not.

The islamic minorities use of "lawfare" to fight their ideological foes in their host countries is now  ap attern which must be dealt with. If free speech is to survive as democratic right then the Islamists must be countered. Stifling expression under the guise of tolerance, is fatuous in nature. To be tolerant, doesn't mean you will tolerate everything...and in a enlightened society the pen is the mechanism in which to vent frustration and promote new and dynamic ways to solve problems. The muslims in these countries use the democratic means available to them in order to subvert the society as its goal. INtimidation takes many forms, and the goal here is to fin the weaknesses within domocratic culture and weild it through manipulation till you have stifled debate, knowledge and free though...all things antithetical to Islamists outlook on sovereignty, duty and progress.

 

Lawfare is just one method, after they can't get what they want through the manipulation of a system, they resort to the barbarism that colors their ideology. As was done to rushdie,  van gogh, steyn, hersi ali etc they will kill, threaten and vandalize property to attain their goals.

 

It is quite similar to the U.N. example, these ruthless autocratic regimes take part in a democratic process that insipidly they hyjack to promote their ideologies, interests and above all regimes. It is a grosse mistake of these domocracies that shirk there duty and give into the PC version of democracy, of a tolerance that inevitably promotes intolerance, encouraging a dumming down of the market place of idea through the lawyerization of  free speech. Democracy in its most crude form is a government by a people and for a people, everything else added to this definition is sensibilities imputed onto what representative government means to each nation. The islamist threat those poses the greatest challenge to representative government, the threat by its ideological nature demands that each nation determine why they should exist, what is its purpose other then preservation. The islamo-facist demands an answer frrom these democratic systems to give their liberty a purpose and if  the nation refuses this task it will surely be exploited by an enemy that knows exactly what it desires seeking by any means available to erode the host country from within it.

 

Islamo-facism has forced democratic countries to reinforce their purpose for existence, freedom without limit or discipline is not freedom, it is slavery to the instinct and the inclination.  

Shire Network News has a podcast interview with Canadian publisher Ezra Levant, who reveals that his chief ?human rights? inquisitor has asked to resign from his case: Podcast reveals resignation of....

 

 

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