Ironic Surrealism II

Break out the cheese, another Islamic group whine fest is surfacing.

Maclean’s Editor Prefers Bankruptcy Over Balance
TORONTO, Dec. 4 /CNW/ - The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) announced today that it has launched several human rights complaints against Maclean’s Magazine. Separate complaints have been filed in response to the Maclean’s article The Future Belongs to Islam written by Mark Steyn and published on October 23, 2006. The complainants argue that the article subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and Islamophobia by representing that Muslims are part of a global conspiracy to take over Western societies and that Muslims in the West need to be viewed as the enemy. “This article completely misrepresents Canadian Muslims’ values, their community, and their religion,” said Faisal Joseph, a former crown attorney, who represents the complainants. “We feel that it is imperative to challenge Maclean’s biased portrayal of Muslims in order to protect Canadian multiculturalism and tolerance.”

The mere fact that the Canadian Islamic Congress has launched this war against free speech is helping Steyn make his point. IMHO Their religion(?) should NOT be respected above all others or above freedoms. For them to think so could be seen as bigotry in itself.

Maclean’s Magazine responds…
The Canadian Islamic Congress has a new partner in its censorship campaign: the state

Andrew Coyne | Dec 5, 2007 | 11:23 am EST

I should declare an inter­­­­est off the top. In 2002, I was named in the Canadian Islamic Congress’s “Fifth An­­­nual Report on Anti-Is­lam in the Media.” Under the head­­­ing “How the Na­­tional Post was endangering the well-being of Canadian Muslims,” the CIC included a reference to my Oct. 29, 2001, column. I reprint the offending passage in full, with a warning that sensitive readers may wish to exercise discretion:

“… the massive backlash against innocent Muslims that failed to materialize…”

That would be, um, it: the only reference to Muslims in the entire piece. To deny, even in passing, that Muslims are being oppressed is, apparently, to “endanger their well-being.” It is for this sort of exquisite sensitivity that the CIC is justly famed in newsrooms across the land. Reporters and columnists have grown used to being accused by the CIC of anti-Muslim bias on even flimsier grounds than I was. And not only reporters. The well-known spokesman for a rival Muslim organization, the Muslim Canadian Congress, resigned his post last year after the president of the CIC, Mohamed Elmasry, accused him publicly of “smearing Islam”—a charge, essentially of apostasy, that left him fearing for his safety.

To most of us, however, the CIC has seemed little more than a nuisance. They do not speak for Islam, and they are not the last word on the subject. They are entitled to their views, of course, but so, in a free and democratic society, are those with whom they take issue.

Maclean’s editor responds to CIC allegations

Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Whyte responds to Canadian Islamic Congress claim that he “prefers bankruptcy over balance”

Maclean’s has responded to an allegation by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) that, during a meeting between several law students representing the CIC, and magazine staff to discuss concerns over an article entitled “The Future Belongs to Islam,”

On Dec. 5, Whyte issued the following statement to clarify what happened at the meeting: “The student lawyers in question came to us five months after the story ran. They asked for an opportunity to respond. We said that we had already run many responses to the article in our letters section, but that we would consider a reasonable request. They wanted a five-page article, written by an author of their choice, to run without any editing by us, except for spelling and grammar. They also wanted to place their response on the cover and to art direct it themselves.

Shocking…they did not request their name placed on the masthead as well.

“We told them we didn’t consider that a reasonable request for response. When they insisted, I told them I would rather go bankrupt than let somebody from outside of our operations dictate the content of the magazine. I still feel that way.”

In fact, Maclean’s published a total of 27 letters over two issues in response to Steyn’s piece—more published responses than any other cover story has received over the past year.

Considering those facts. It sure looks as if the law students representing the CIC wanted/demanded preferential treatment. Another heads up to their craving control.
Click to purchase.

Mark Steyn has published his own response on National Review Online. Here is the gist of it.
Dead man writing

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts.

As I say, I find it difficult to imagine. But not impossible. These “human rights” censors started with small fry - obscure websites, “homophobes” who made the mistake of writing letters to local newspapers or quoting the more robust chunks of Leviticus - and, because they got away with it, it now seems entirely reasonable for a Canadian pseudo-court to sit in judgment on the content of a mainstream magazine and put a big old “libel chill” over critical areas of public debate. The “progressive” left has grown accustomed to the regulation of speech, thinking it just a useful way of sticking it to Christian fundamentalists, right-wing columnists, and other despised groups. They don’t know they’re riding a tiger that in the end will devour them, too.

Which is precisely why we need to take the tiger by the tail before it its to late!

The plot thickens. Hold on to your hats folks.

Elmasry vs. Steyn @ Western Standard

As Adam mentioned below, Mark Steyn and Maclean’s have been taken to at least a couple of human rights commissions by the Canadian Islamic Congress.

I’m familiar with the CIC and their propaganda campaigns. (Funny enough, the news story on Maclean’s website is itself CIC baloney — they are in no way Canada’s “largest” Muslim organization, despite their pretenses. Wikipedia has a quick bio of Mohamed Elmasry, their president-for-life.)

Here’s a column I wrote about them after an encounter I had with Elmasry at a journalism conference last year. We were on a panel together, and he railed on about how the “zhoos” controlled the media. He received more than a polite response from the crowd of reporters, and a vigorous defence from a particular CBC radio producer in the crowd. Substitute a Louisiana accent for his Egyptian accent, and Elmasry’s speech could have been given by David Duke. How he continues to get kid-glove treatment — even on the Maclean’s website! — is amazing. Surely his public support for killing Israelis warrants some mention whenever he’s quoted in the press.

Western Standard are also being attacked by the Canadian Islamic Congress. Over their publishing the mo toons. Almost two years later! Somebody needs to put a well placed boot up (CIC’s) butt. Destination anywhere in the middle east.

Speaking of which, the Western Standard’s own human rights hearing is finally coming up, nearly two years after we published the Danish cartoons and were first hit with the complaints. We don’t have an exact date yet, but the formal “investigation” meeting will be in January. Though we ceased publishing the magazine, we are still a corporate entity, and it’s important to me that we see this human rights challenge through.

For your info, here’s the hand-scratched complaint against us, and here’s our reply. The whole thing feels like justice on the streets of Sudan or Saudi Arabia, more than Canada. I’m sure liberals who fight for the separation of church and state will be speaking out about this human rights complaint any moment now, as vociferously as if the Bishop of Toronto had taken a gay rights magazine to court.

H/T Kafir Canada

Update: Mark Steyn interview.
Mark Steyn talks to the New Culture Forum

Mark Steyn’s exhilarating new book, America Alone – The End of the World as We Know It, is currently riding high in the New York Times’s bestseller list, and is top of the charts too in his native Canada. We were very pleased when Mark took some time out to talk to us.

If the CIC wants to know who’s fueling prejudice against Muslims, maybe it should look in the mirror.

Spot on!

Related:
Imaginary Slander [Updated]

Gracious open trackbacks:
Open Trackback Weekend @ 123beta
OuR DaughterS in the Military and BeautY Pageants? @ Woman Honor Thyself
Book of Hate? (updated) @ Dumb Ox Daily News < --This one in particular is related to my article.

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