Monday, February 4, 2008

Rights commissions are stifling our rights

[Canada {for now}]

... But some of them, at least, now appear to have lost their way, and are using their mandate to undermine such basic democratic principles as free speech and a free press. And they seem to be following this dangerous course in the name of nothing more than bland civility.

What possible excuse, for example, other than a desire to make us all "be nice," can there be for the Canadian and British Columbia human rights commissions even to entertain a complaint from the Canadian Islamic Congress about a Mark Steyn column in Maclean's magazine in October of 2006? And there seems to be little, except too much willingness to soothe hurt feelings, to justify the Alberta Human Rights Commission's decision to summon publisher Ezra Levant to answer for reprinting the controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed...
It's preposterous that anyone should have to waste money and effort to defend such decisions before a government body that's supposed to protect rights. The very fact that they have to do so will surely have a chilling affect on the editors and publishers of other publications. That may be the intention of the complainants, but it should not be the intention of anyone who really cares about freedoms.

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