Freedom of the press is on trial in Canada.The trial is before a court with the Orwellian title of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. The accused are Maclean's magazine and author Mark Steyn. The crime: In mocking and biting tones, they wrote that Islam threatens Western values.
Had Steyn written that, given the Crusades, colonial atrocities in Africa and the slave trade, Christianity had been on balance a curse, he would not be in the dock. In the United States, these charges would have been tossed out by any federal judge, who would have admonished the plaintiffs that, here in America, we have a First Amendment.
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Yet, one's money ought to be on the new censors, for men who believe deeply in something, even when wrong, usually triumph over men who believe in nothing.
Today, the true believers in Islam and the true believers in diversity uber alles are making common cause against those who believe in freedom of speech and the press. As the former have the convictions and increasingly the power, they may prevail, and not only in Canada and Europe.
The above case is interesting since Canada signed the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 19.
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.
Canada proudly proclaims,
Canada and Human RightsThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights is extremely important for Canadians because it has provided us with a framework of human rights goals and standards to which Canadian legislation, institutions, and society can aspire. Since signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the Canadian government has been very successful in making universal human rights a part of Canadian law. There are currently four key mechanisms in Canada to protect human rights: the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act, Human Rights Commissions, and provincial human rights laws and legislation.