Category: free speech

Free speech and Steyn win one in Canada

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve discussed on several previous occasions that author Mark Steyn and Macleans magazine were recently dragged before the so-called Candadian Human Rights Commission to answer charges that Steyn and the magazine voiced extremist views when Macleans published an article by Steyn based on his best selling book, America Alone.

Now comes word that Steyn and Mcleans have won.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed a complaint by a Muslim organization against Maclean’s, ruling that the views expressed in one of the magazine’s articles were not “of an extreme nature.”

The Canadian Islamic Congress had alleged that the article written by Mark Steyn entitled “The Future Belongs to Islam” and posted on the magazine’s website in October 2006 discriminated and spread hatred against Muslims.

The article, an excerpt of a book authored by Steyn, talks about Islam being a threat to North American institutions and values. It used statistics to show higher birth rates plus immigration mean Muslims will outnumber followers of other religions in Western Europe.

Steyn begins his announcement of the decision on his website on June 27th:

On Thursday, the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission (very quietly) dismissed the Canadian Islamic Congress complaint against Maclean’s re America Alone – and without even giving the Socks the consolation of an Ontario-style drive-by verdict.

So what is a ‘sock’?   That is short for ‘sock puppet’ which is the term used widely to describe the Muslims who filed charges against Steyn.  See the blog, Free Mark Steyn, for a photo of a sock puppet here.  You gotta laugh!

Read Mark Steyn’s America Alone.   Judy and I have included it at the top of our list of recommended books here.

Note to all those who wish to silence us in North America—we aren’t European or British!

 

Spencer: Islamists killing free speech at UN

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch), an authority on Islam,  writing today at Frontpage magazine reports that a discussion about practices sanctioned by Sharia law, such as female genital mutilation, child marriage and stoning as punishment for adultery, was squelched at a recent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council. 

As more Muslim immigrants enter the US through refugee resettlement and other immigration programs we have been fearful that brutal practices such as these may creep into America—indeed may already be here!

We have written often about polygamy and honor killings being practiced among immigrants from Islamic countries as well.  See our categories, health issues and women’s issues, for more on all these affronts to human dignity.

Spencer begins: 

The war against free speech is advancing rapidly: Associated Press reported Thursday that “Muslim countries have won a battle to prevent Islam from being criticised during debates by the UN Human Rights Council.” Council President Doru-Romulus Costea explained that religious issues can be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense…This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it.” Henceforth only religious scholars would be permitted to broach them.

“While Costea’s ban applies to all religions,” AP explained, “it was prompted by Muslim countries complaining about references to Islam.” The ban came after a heated session on Monday, when the representative of the Association for World Education (AWE), in a joint statement with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, denounced female genital mutilation, the penalty of stoning for adultery and child marriage as sanctioned by Islamic law. Egypt, Pakistan and Iran angrily protested, interrupting the AWE speaker, David Littman, with no less than 16 points of order, and succeeding in getting the Council’s proceedings suspended for over half an hour. In the course of this contentious discussion, the representatives from the Islamic countries made numerous revealing statements – statements that are well worth examining as Islamic nations and organizations call with increasing insistence for restrictions on free speech in the West.

Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, the representative from Pakistan, echoed the ever-echoing refrain of all Islamic apologists in the West, when he complained that Littman’s initiative on genital mutilation, stoning and child marriage amounted to an “out-of-context, selective discussion on the Sharia law.”

Read the whole Frontpage article here.

Canadian blogger says its not too late to reform immigration and save Canada

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

You should all visit this blog from Canada entitled:  “Canadian Immigration Reform Blog.”   Paxcanadiana today quotes from a column published in the Vancouver Courier about the Macleans trial/Mark Steyn and then makes further comments of his own. 

A realistic solution to Canada’s woes is to limit Canada’s immigration intake while initiating policies that encourages the growth of the nation’s birth rate. The natural birth rate is the most effective means of population growth, not mass immigration. To have to solely rely on immigration is an embarrassment and a symptom of a dying society that sees no worth in it’s self preservation. This is cultural suicide. Do we Canadians and our government see no worth in ourselves that population replacement via mass immigration is more preferable to self preservation? If so then maybe Canada is not worth saving after all. 

Many of you may have followed Steyn’s inquisition before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.  He got in trouble for simply saying that Muslim immigration to Europe and the high birthrates of those immigrants would one day turn Europe into a Muslim continent.  

Today’s Washington Post ‘Storm’ story made me laugh

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This isn’t a story about refugees or immigration, it’s about blogging, addiction and some serious things too.  The Post article I could laugh about this morning is entitled “Storms’ Fury Cuts off Data lines that bind.”

Yes, I could laugh moments after the power came back on this morning.   I was reading the Washington Post on the porch with my convienence store cup of coffee in hand, just as I’ve done for a couple of mornings this week, ever since we lost the power in a freak storm on Wednesday.   

I wasn’t laughing as I tripped and stumbled up our farm lane that first afternoon—a lane that had become completely impassable with downed trees and saw our storm ravaged farm.   I wasn’t laughing either when I had to figure out how to haul in hundreds of gallons of water for livestock in ninety degree heat.   And, I can assure you I wasn’t even giggling a little when I packed garbage bags full with our food from the refrigerator and freezer to take to the dump.

All I could think of was how to survive day to day.  Yes, I know it was only two and a half days!    It felt like two and half years without the computer.   That was what was so funny about the Post story.  One more night and I would be checking into a hotel room (like the family in the article) just to have internet service and get back to the news and your e-mails and of course, researching posts for RRW.

It all seems very funny now.   But, it isn’t.   It really hit me this week how vulnerable we are.   My whole town was not affected by this not-quite-tornado and certainly I am not comparing our situation to those who have lost much more in recent real tornados.     I could still get in the car and get what I needed (like my morning cup of coffee), and neighbors not hit so hard came with chainsaws and a bobcat to help clean up, but imagine if our power system was destroyed on a large scale.    (I’m not telling terrorists anything they don’t already know!)  Chaos would follow.

For two and a half days I can assure you I wasn’t thinking about immigration or Iraq, or the latest from the Hillary-Obama-McCain show.   I was cut off from my addiction to the world wide web’s minute by minute news and the security it appears to provide—somehow just knowing what is going on helps one feel somehow in control (I know that doesn’t make sense). 

So, just give it all some thought and prepare your families a little.  It might not be much worse for you than me—trying to figure out what food wasn’t spoiled and could go on the backyard barbecue grill—but then again it could be very very bad and we need to be sure we are ready.  Back in January I wrote about how we all need to get a blog to save free speech and a gun to keep America safe.   To those two essentials I’ll add—-get a grill.

Muslims hold strategy session to shut us up

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well, not us directly anyway (yet!).    I’ve been away so this article may have been thoroughly discussed this weekend elsewhere, but thanks to blulite special for sending it our way.

DAKAR, Senegal – The Muslim world has created a battle plan to defend its religion from political cartoonists and bigots. [who me?]

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Concerned about what they see as a rise in the defamation of Islam, leaders of the world’s Muslim nations are considering taking legal action against those that slight their religion or its sacred symbols. It was a key issue during a two-day summit that ended Friday in this western Africa capital.

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The Muslim leaders are attempting to demand redress from nations like Denmark, which allowed the publication of cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in 2006 and again last month, to the fury of the Muslim world.

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Though the legal measures being considered have not been spelled out, the idea pits many Muslims against principles of freedom of speech enshrined in the constitutions of numerous Western governments.

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“I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy,” said Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. “There can be no freedom without limits.”

Huh?