I’ve been following this story in Canada for a few weeks now.
When the Danish Mohamed Cartoons controversy kicked off, at least one Canadian was brave enough to publish them. His name was Ezra Levant, publisher, columnist, lawyer and conservative political activist. A Canadian Moslem decided to take offence at this and reported him to the police. He subsequently complained to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, a politically correct Provinicial Government Agency with quasi-judicial powers. This eventually led to an “interrogation” by a “Human Rights Officer” on January 11th this year and Ezra wasn’t going to just bend over and touch his toes on this one.
He recorded the interview, prefacing it with a statement absolutely tearing the process to shreds then putting them in the blender for good measure. That statement is here and worth six minutes thirty-one seconds of your time.
The Boss of the Agency wrote to the Press in a damage limitation exercise and whilst conciliatory, the tone reminded me of those statements we hear from the Police about vexatious “Hate Crime” incidents, where they assure us they are duty-bound to investigate a complaint once made (unlike, say, burglaries).
Since then, he has stirred up a Hornet’s nest and brought the freedom of speech vs freedom to not be offended debate very much into the public limelight, at least in Canada. The story continues on his blog.
(No UK Mainstream Press were brave enough to publish the cartoons, as far as I know only The Blanket in NI did.)
(Hat tip Samizdata- Canadian Fury at its most magnificent).
They took on the wrong guy there, didn’t they? I’ve been trying to listen to this for two days, but kept getting interrupted by this and that. Finally I did.
Comment by jmb — February 5, 2008 @ 6:58 am
The body language of the interrogator is pretty amazing: rolling her eyes, crossing her arms etc.
I would have loved to hear the rest of the interview
Comment by John — February 9, 2008 @ 8:21 am
John, the full interview is available in bite size chunks. Check out his website or have a look on Youtube.
Comment by Shades — February 9, 2008 @ 11:47 am