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Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Human rights thugs try to roll a cabinet minister
Khurrum Awan is a busy boy.
When he's not filing spurious human rights complaints against pundits, he's a bit of a pundit himself.
Here's a sampling of Awan's scintillating wit and deep analysis that he posted as a comment on Garth Turner's website, when that MP was turfed from the Tory party:
Hello Mr Turner,
i noted on your weblog from July that you told the Arab community to go to
hell because of their criticism of you (& the Conservative party) for
behaving like an outpost of the Israeli Likud Party in Canada…seems what
goes around comes around…cuz you have been told to go to hell by the
Conservative Party!! LOL! Hope that was fun 
Khurrum Awan
You can read it here -- just scroll down halfway, or search for the word LOL! using your browser's find function.
(Hey, I'm the second vice president of the Calgary Southwest Constituency Association of the Israeli Likud Party in Canada, and I'm deeply offended by Awan's remarks. We would never have run Turner as a candidate.)
At least Awan didn't say what Mohamed Elmasry, his boss at the Canadian Islamic Congress, says about Likudniks (that's anti-Semitic code for Jews) -- that we are all fair game to be murdered in terrorist attacks in Israel.
Awan's writing is still infantile, as anyone who has read his submissions in the aforementioned Steyn case can attest, though Elmasry seems to have insisted that Awan eliminate the smileys. We all know how the Canadian Islamic Congress feels about cartoons.
Well, now Awan is at it again. He's sent this grammatically creative letter to Jason Kenney, the cabinet minister who has spoken out against the CIC's fatwa against Steyn.
(If you're wondering how I got this letter, it's obvious. The Israeli Likud Party in Canada is part of the "Toronto Coalition to Support the War" to which Awan sent the letter, as part of his cc list. He's not much for details, this young Johnnie Cochrane.)
Awan accuses Kenney of "undue intereference with a legal proceeding" for having publicly stood for Canadian values like freedom of speech. He also called Maclean's continuing discussion of the human rights complaints against it to be illegal "retaliation" against Muslims.
That got me thinking: Kenney's job is minister of multiculturalism, and it was recently expanded to include Canadian identity programs and domestic rights issues. It's his mandate to defend civil rights, and to inculcate those values into new Canadians, such as Egyptian-born Elmasry and Pakistan-born, Saudi-trained Syed Soharwardy, and many of the other radical immigrants who have brought illiberal foreign values into Canada.
I think Kenney shouldn't just issue a statement to the press. He should go the whole mile -- and send a lawyer, on behalf of the Canadian government, to intervene in the Elmasry vs. Steyn fight. Contrary to what Awan thinks, it's not inappropriate to take a position in legal proceedings such as this, with its public policy ramifications. If the Government of Alberta can intervene against freedom of speech in an Alberta case, then surely the feds can send a lawyer to intervene for freedom in a federal case.
It's unlikely that the Conservative government, with only a minority in Parliament, will do what it really ought to do, and pull the plug on the Canadian Human Rights Commission altogether. But until a Conservative majority comes, they can send a lawyer on behalf of the federal government, to teach the CHRC -- and Awan and his fellow censors -- that human rights in Canada mean freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the separation of mosque and state.
*******
P.S. Look at the that motley crew of lobby groups to which Awan sent his letter -- that's the coalition of censors (Mark Steyn might call it the "coalition of the chilling") that the CIC is assembling.
But what do they have in common? What does the pro-feminist, pro-abortion, pro-secular, pro-gay Canadian Federation of Students have in common with a hodge-podge of Muslim groups so strict on those matters that they make the Pope look like Liberace? (Awan himself led the CIC's charge against gay marriage).
This strange union of the domestic left with foreign fascists has only one thing that holds them together: they all loathe Canada's western, liberal traditions.
cross-posted to www.ezralevant.com
Posted by Ezra Levant on January 9, 2008 | Permalink
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Comments
It's not just that the loathe the West's traditions, Ezra - it's that the hate the West itself and want to destroy it. With the comfort that can only be bred of physical and emotional isolation from the spirit of war and from any sort of patriotic feeling, the modern left honestly believes that every problem and wrong in the world is the fault of the West and that the human race would be better off if we were to be destroyed.
That may not even be the concious drive of all left-wing politics, but it's certianly the sub-concious one. The left, in sum:
- Wants to destroy the family, by widening its definition to include all sorts of unstable and unwieldly units as the equal of the traditional one and by sanctioning any practice, however deviant, as mainstream.
- Wants to destroy our economy, by hampering it with a heavy burden of regulation and taxation, in the name of both 'equality' and the 'environment.'
- Wants to destroy our culture, but polluting the air waves with debased trash of all sorts.
- Wants to destroy our unity, by filling up our nations with millions of third-worlders who they don't wish to force to conform to our culture, our language, or even our laws.
- Wants to destroy our history, through revisionism and through a lens which wishes to make our children root for our enemies. As part of this, they conciously seek to defame and denounce all of our heroes.
- Wants to destroy our national security, through constantly advocating appeasement and the weakening of our military.
If they left doesn't want us all dead or conquered by foreign forces in a hundred years, they're doing a damned good job of pretending they do.
Posted by: Adam Yoshida | 2008-01-09 10:49:50 PM
It's time to pressure the Tories to repeal Sec. 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act -- the Internet censorship section under which Maclean's is being harassed.
Better yet, abolish the CHRC. If it ever had a use, it was another time, another place.
Posted by: Paul Fromm | 2008-01-09 11:56:58 PM
On this issue, Paul, you're right.
For obvious reasons, I don't like you - and I'm equally sure that for equally obvious reasons you probably don't (or wouldn't) like me.
But, that being said, we probably did a bad thing when, "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it" went from being a cliche to a bold stand.
I, for one, believe in freedom of speech - even for Nazi sons of bitches.
Posted by: Adam Yoshida | 2008-01-10 12:05:46 AM
We have freedom of speech in Canada because it is part of of British heritage.
Article 2 of the Charter: 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.
Despite this Charter guarantee, Mr. Dean Steacy, Senior Investigator at the Canadian Human Rights Commission has other views on the issue of freedom of speech in Canada:
Last summer, when Steacy was asked by Barbara Kulaszka, a counsel speaking on behalf of a website being charged with "hate crimes", what value does he give to free speech when investigating a "human rights" complaint, Mr. Steacy's answer was: "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don't give it any value". Then he added: "It's not my job to give value to an American concept."
The time has come to get rid of the Canadian Commission on Human Rights because it is staffed by personnel who value "hurt feelings" over freedom of expression. All the powers of the Commission should be returned to Parliament... The staff could probably find lucrative jobs at the UN Human Rights Council under Louise Arbour.
Posted by: andré | 2008-01-10 5:05:22 AM
Rex Murphy (CBC) Human Rights gone awry:
Time was when "human rights" was a truly large and noble idea. I associate the concept with, and its birth out of, some of the great horrors of the past century: the bestial depredations of the Nazis, their 'race science' and death camps, the horrors of unbridled totalitarianism - under which, the whim of the rulers was sufficient to mutilate, torture and destroy lives, collectively or individually - send millions to arctic slave camps - the debasement of internal exile and psychiatric rehabilitation.
More currently, I associate real human rights advocacy with the case of a young Saudi woman, who very recently was repeatedly gang-raped - and then she – the victim - charged and sentenced by a Saudi court to 200 lashes and six months in jail for being in a car with a male not her relative. The sentence, after international protest, was voided --- but that young woman’s case represents a real example of the violation of basic human rights.
What I do not associate with this deep and noble concept is getting ticked off by something you read in a magazine - or for that matter hear on television - and then scampering off to a handful - well, three - of Canada's proliferate human rights commissions - seeking to score off the magazine: this is what four Osgoode Hall law students and graduates --- a very definition of the 'marginalized' --- under the banner of the Canadian Islamic Congress have done after reading an excerpt from Mark Steyn's America Alone in Maclean’s. The complainants read the article as “flagrantly islamophobic”.
Maclean’s magazine? Well, we all know what a hotbed of radical bigotry and vile prejudice Maclean’s magazine has been. Go away … for what seems like a century Maclean’s was no more "offensive" (that is the cant term of choice these days) than a down comforter on a cold day and if Mark Steyn's article offended them: so what? Not every article in every magazine of newspaper is meant to be a valentine card addressed to every reader's self-esteem. Maclean’s published a bushel of letters following the article's appearance: some praised it: others scorned it. That's freedom of speech: that's democracy: that's the messy business we call the exchange of ideas and opinions.
But where does the BC Human Rights Commission, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the Canadian Human Rights Commission come into this picture? Has anyone been publicly whipped? Has someone or some group been hauled off to a gulag? Is there a race frenzy sweeping the land?
Why is any human rights commission inserting itself between a magazine, a television show, a newspaper and the readers or viewers? Is every touchy, or agenda-driven sensibility now free to call upon the offices of the state and free of charge - to them - not their targets - to embroil them in "justifying" their right to write and broadcast as they see fit? The Western Standard magazine, during the so-called Danish cartoon crisis got hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the cartoons that all the world was talking about. The action drained the magazine’s resources - but it was free to the complainant.
Meantime real human rights violations - threats of death against Salman Rushdie, riots after the cartoons, death threats against the artists, the persecution of Hirsi Ali, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, neither inspire nor receive human rights investigations.
Maclean’s and its columnists - especially of late - are an ornament to Canada's civic space. They should not have to defend themselves for doing what a good magazine does: start debate, express opinion, and stir thought. And most certainly they should not have to abide the threatened censorship of any of Canada's increasingly interfering, state appointed and paradoxically labeled human rights commissions.
Posted by: andré | 2008-01-10 5:33:35 AM
I'm not sure how a quasi-judicial government body went from being an advocate for minorities being denied housing and employment opportunities to the Thought Police, but it's time we axed this Star Chamber. With such laughably low standards of proof, a de facto reverse onus on the defendant (especially if he's white, male, and has money), the government paying all the plaintiff's legal costs (and none of the defendant's), not to mention the fact that they are stacked with loopy moonbats who think property is theft, it's a stain and a disgrace.
I'll tell you what's an even greater disgrace, though--the fact that these tribunals have been allowed to evolve to this point without a murmur of complaint from either the government or the people of Canada. Never has it been more truly said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2008-01-10 7:30:21 AM
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights says ...
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
I wonder what Mr. Steacy thinks about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (sarcasm)...
The federal government should immediately terminate the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Posted by: André | 2008-01-10 8:56:43 AM
Of course it should be terminated, it's only use is to perform in the theater of the absurd.
Posted by: Liz J | 2008-01-10 12:06:37 PM
The description Adam gave of what these groups have in common is spot on. I wager that another thing they have in common is being subsidised by our tax dollars.
I hope that concerned Canadians are not limiting their actions to commenting on blogs concerning this latest attack on our traditional right to free speech, and they are contacting their political representatives about it. Many of us have signed the petition to the PM and I have also written twice to my MP and MLA expressing my views.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-01-10 2:57:34 PM
Ezra, why in heaven's name do you not launch a complaint with the CHRC against the CIC and that Elmasry character? He clearly hates those of the Hebrew persuasion, making that point on the Coren show.
I'd do it, but I'm not a Jew, the CHRC website infers that YOU have to be "discriminated" against. Being an egregiously lapsed Catholic rules me out. If you're willing, I'm willing to help.......
Posted by: Hoser | 2008-01-10 8:52:03 PM
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