David Warren . The show trial begins (Mark Steyn)
The Ottawa Citizen ^ | June 04, 2008 | David Warren
Canadian laws that were passed a few years ago that made the bible hate literature, made churches and pastors criminals that speak against homosexuality and Islam have struck now where the laws and Canadian Human Rights Commission were never supposed to reach – The Canadian National Press. While churches, preachers, teachers, and all commoners in Canada were supposed to bow the knee to the CHRC the Media and the Press were supposed to be immune in order to produce the news. Well that turns out to be not so. This is actually a good thing that the Press now has to put on and wear the same shoes that it has called for everyone else to where, and that it suffers the same loss of liberties that it called for being removed from all the irresponsible “everyone elses” in business, churches, and among the common unwashed people.

This trial will no doubt be the turning point of the CHRC having seemingly unlimited powers to arrest, prosecute, fine, and even jail Canadians for voicing their thoughts opinions reading the bible or quoting what has already been published. We understand that there is an inquiry underway on the CHRC and that its powers will be reined in, and maybe the commission will be dismantled all together.

In England and the EU there are nations being strangled by the same thing but it is Muslims that are driving this kind of legislation and malicious prosecution of people for freedom of speech and freedom of press. And we repeat here that just a few months ago in the UN the UN human right commission stacked with Muslims passed a body of law making it illegal to speak against Islam, the Koran, Allah, and Mohammad concerning even their questionable practices between different sects, or the abusive, inhumane, and /or criminal activities, of radical and extremist fundamentalists within their ranks.

We try to avoid politics here, but when we are speaking to these issues in the US, Canada, England, and the rest of the EU politics has been the cause and is the center of all the evil that is going on in these nations. The laws did not enact themselves, these Muslim Colonists did not simply float over into these countries, homosexual and feminist activists did not simply empower themselves and make themselves as super citizens over the rest of the population – all of these have had help, great help and support from the liberal left in all these nations, all of these have had great help and support from the press, from politicians and unnamed unknown liberal bureaucrats -- and as sure as such a mess can be made, it can be dismantled and removed but it becomes increasingly more difficult the longer these problems are allowed to grow, the longer they are allowed to fester, and the more rights and free government money and assistance they are allowed to devour.

As bible believing Christians Christ demands of us to obey His Words and Commandments, we can not hide and pray in our churches as our parents and grandparents did – We must reach out and become lights each and everyone, on our housetops to all of those in our own households, our greater households (Extended family) and to our neighbors in our neighborhoods. We MUST preach Christ daily, speak Christ, walk Christ daily, Jesus Christ can not be hid under a bushel, we must shake off our imagined fears and speak up. Speak up of what? Speak of that which our eyes have seen that which our ears have heard that which our hands have handled of the word of life – The Gospel has to be in you, it has to be functional, it has to be experiential before you can be witnesses of His Glorious Acts today.

Back in the early 1970’s it was preached over and over that if every believer went out and spoke to just three people – really spoke to them over days weeks months to do the job right not just witness and run, or slip a tract in someone’s hand and retreat – the world could be won in three and half years. I may have heard that said or something like that 10-15 times in my life but instead of an increase of Christians since 1972 we have seen a decrease among members of the press, among teachers and collage professors, among politicians all of these are at all time lows. And it is not because we were electing Christians in the 1960’s and 1970’s into office – they were just more plentiful in that day so they were elected in greater number in the mix. – The time of slumber is over. The time of action is now, not by surrogates on TV not by surrogates as in your pastor or teacher or evangelist – it is time for you to wake up and you to act. The time of slumber and hiding is over. Arise, Arise, Arise.

Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 9:19:27 AM by fanfan

The writings of Canada's most talented journalist, Mark Steyn, went on trial in Vancouver on Monday, in a case designed to challenge freedom of the press. It is a show trial, under the arbitrary powers given to Canada's obscene "human rights" commissions, by Section 13 of our Human Rights Act.

I wrote "obscene" advisedly. A respondent who comes before Canada's "human rights" tribunals has none of the defences formerly guaranteed in common law. The truth is no defence, reasonable intention is no defence, nor material harmlessness, there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind. The commissars running the tribunals need have no legal training, exhibit none, and owe their appointments to networking among leftwing activists.

I wrote "show trial" advisedly, for there has been a 100 per cent conviction rate in cases brought to "human rights" tribunals under Section 13.

Take this in:

A group of Islamist fanatics, claiming to speak for every Muslim in Canada, charged Maclean's magazine with "spreading hatred against Muslims" for having printed a lucid and reasonable (if controversial) excerpt from Steyn's bestselling book, America Alone. This is a news story that should be on the front page of every newspaper in Canada, every day until it is resolved.

Everything about this case stinks to high heaven. It was brought before three different "human rights" tribunals simultaneously. The British Columbian venue was openly "jurisdiction shopped" because the province's human rights tribunals have an especially egregious record for ignoring respondents' most basic Charter rights. The charges were brought more than a year after the article appeared. There was an open attempt at extortion, when representatives of the complainant called a press conference in which an offer was made to retract the charges for unspecified considerations.

The case is the more ludicrous because the allegations brought are semi-literate (for instance, Steyn's quotations of lunatic Islamist imams are confused with Steyn's own assertions). The remedies sought keep changing; the arguments keep changing; the explanation of why the complainant has brought the case and what he hopes to gain from it has kept changing. And now the show trial has begun, the prosecution is presenting a parade of entirely irrelevant testimony. (Has Steyn properly understood the Koran? Etc.)

A farce, but a farce that has huge consequences for Canada: for by such methods free speech and free press are being snuffed out. The Left may think they have found the ideal method to silence anyone who challenges their insane, "politically correct" ideas, but have instead created a monster that can as easily eat them next.

This is a disaster also for Canada's Muslims, for the views of fanatical Islamists are being presented as representative of all. No single person has done so much to advance contempt for Islam in this country as Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, the complainant in this case, whose public assertions include, for example, the view every adult Israeli citizen is a valid target for Palestinian hitmen.

The bland acceptance of this man, by mainstream Canadian media, as the definitive spokesman for Muslim interests in Canada, cannot be blamed on the Muslim community. Innumerable Muslims have disavowed him, and yet are entirely ignored. Indeed: Mark Steyn has been among the few journalists distinguishing between camps. He would be: for he has plenty of Muslim supporters.

There is some good news. It appears the Harper government has finally been goaded into calling a public inquiry into proceedings of at least the federal "human rights" commission. Some good may come from public confirmation of the outrageous, often sick behaviour of its members and hangers-on, which Canada's leading bloggers have been documenting.

But the problem is at once more urgent and much broader than any carefully-focused inquiry can present. For what radical activists have achieved through "human rights" commissions is now endemic, in all kinds of "star chamber" and "kangaroo court" operations, in everything from the tax system to provisions of family law.

Another crucial point:

While media attention to Mark Steyn's show trial is inadequate, it is nevertheless the best publicized case ever to come before our "human rights" bureaucracies. Most of the victims of these neo-Maoist tribunals have been "little people," with nothing like the resources Maclean's magazine has put in play to defend itself and Steyn, and no media reporting whatever. They have been persecuted, stripped of their livelihoods and savings, demonized among their neighbours, made to endure humiliating "re-education" programs - without lawyers, without assistance of any kind -- all for exercising rights that any Canadian would have taken for granted a mere generation ago.

I want justice for Mark Steyn. But I also want justice for all these little people, who have been crushed under the jackboot of "political correction."