Author Faces Canadian Tribunal For Hate Speech

An anonymous reader writes "A Seattle Times editorial notes that the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal will put author Mark Steyn on trial for his book 'America Alone,' which has angered Muslims in Canada. Steyn is a columnist for the Canadian magazine Maclean's. According to the editorial, British Columbia bans all words and images 'likely to expose a person... to hatred or contempt because of race, religion, age, disability, sex, marital status or sexual orientation.' Steyn is unapologetic, and is advertising his book as a 'Canadian Hate Crime' and daring the tribunal to 'pronounce him bad.'" The Canadian tabloid the National Post has coverage of what it calls "a media storm."

Comments

Rights and Demands

[pipingguy]

This whole thing is about the right to not be offended. Most important is the fact that any individual can file a complaint and legally go after (paid by the government) anyone they think has slighted or defamed them or said nasty words against them. Of course, the defendant has to foot all his/her own legal expenses.

It's actually a free speech issue and I'll leave out my own prejudices and let readers decide for themselves.

Re:He SHOULD Be On Trial

[cupiditas]

It was not Steyn who said that Muslims are "breeding like mosquitoes," it was a Muslim -- and he said it in order to celebrate what he believes to be the inevitable demographic triumph of Islam. Steyn just quoted him. Apparently you find accurate quotation to be offensive speech? Moreover, those who claimed to be offended by Steyn's writings did not ask to "offer a rebuttal," they asked for -- or rather demanded -- near-total control over an issue of the magazine, including what would appear on the cover. These facts are easily discovered by people who don't mind having their opinions contaminated by reality.

Re:He SHOULD Be On Trial

[Attila Dimedici]

3. Mark Steyn's thesis is that muslims are taking over the west, "breeding like mosquitoes," and that they plan to replace our western legal system with Sharia law. And he is pretty offensive in the way he argues it. But the REAL issue of why he's on trial is because McLean's magazine (Canada's largest circulated magazine) has him as a regular contributer while refusing to let anyone offer a rebuttal. So, people complained. Specifically, they refused to publish an article written by the complainants without editing it. The group that filed the initial complaint demanded that McLean's publish a lengthy response that they had written without making any changes to it. McLean's responded that if they submitted the article they would like published, McLean's editors would edit it and place it in the magazine. The complainants refused this counter offer.

Re:Hate Speech?

[Klaus_1250]

There is a subtle difference between disliking/disagreeing/etc and hating/hate speech. But looking at the topic of the book (haven't read it)

Steyn predicts in his new book, "America Alone," that Muslims will swarm over Europe, ban alcohol and put women in veils it just seems to me it is misguided political gesture to certain groups at the cost of freedom of speech. I'm a European and I occasionally worry about it too.

We have a politician in the Netherlands (Geert Wilders, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders ) who has some of the same ideas, and made a short movie about it, Fitna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitna_(film) It caused an outrage here even before anyone knew anything about it. Even to the point the government contemplated banning the movie, without actually having seen it.

Re:Hate Speech?

[Klaus_1250]

I'm not sure what this writers' expertise is here... but it seems like a leap to think that 10s of millions of Europeans will convert to Islam over a period of a few years.

That will not be hapening. The number of Europeans that convert to Islam won't be large and nothing will happen in just a few years.

The issue at hand is more that many European countries have accepted a large number of immigrants in the past (and still do sometimes), thinking that it would be temporary and they would return to their original country. Except they didn't. They brought over their families instead. No real problem yet, except for two things. 1: A large portion did not integrate into/adapted to the mainstream society. 2: They have more children on average, which are not always integrating properly too. This is already causing tensions within the society and the problem is not expected to get better anytime soon.

if they're in the majority, they can work that democratic magic to pass the laws they want. That's what a democracy is all about

But that is the whole problem. If you procreate fast enough as a group, you can get your democratic majority. Not in a few years, but it still within a century. (especially with whole native babyboom generation dying in the next 40 years)