Free speech go to hell

Gosh, what a surprise. The Canada Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has ruled that Vision TV did not violate federal broadcasting standards in allowing Isar Ahmad, a radical Pakistani Imam, to lecture on his particular brand of poison last summer on the multi-faith TV station.

---

The CBSC went on to state that while some of the things Ahmad said were of an inflammatory nature, the fact that he said them in a “monochromatic” tone and did not raise his voice made what he said acceptable. While I personally am not in favor of censoring anyone’s speech to any degree, I find it interesting how the liberal establishment pretzels itself into a frenzy of inclusiveness to protect the sacred multicultural shibboleth. The CBSC went on to admit that it was possible that Ahmad’s assertions about fighting “the enemies of Allah on the battlefield” might be interpreted in a violent way by jihadists who are particularly avid in their quest for martyrdom, the broadcast regulators’ body chose not to see his words in that way. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the concept of free speech in Canada applies differently to different people. Let’s assume for argument’s sake that History Television showed a segment during which someone like Ernst Zundel lectured about the battles in the European Theatre in World War II, would the CSBC rule that History TV had violated broadcast standards because the person lecturing was a bigot? If I were a gambler I’d lay long odds on the chances that they would, given that Zundel has made numerous inflammatory statements about the Holocaust, Jews, etc. Similar statements have often been made by Ahmad who has written books calling the Jews “parasites” and claiming the Holocaust was “divine punishment” for the Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. What’s so different about Zundel’s and Ahmad’s statements? Actually not very much, but Zundel is just a run-of-the-mill Neo-Nazi, while Ahmad is “a man of the cloth” belonging to a particularly aggrieved religion that originates from without the Judeo-Christian tradition. That makes him an untouchable in the eyes of official censors. The idea that there are regulatory bodies that have the right to censor freedom of expression is repugnant. But what’s more repugnant is the selective manner in which these regulatory bodies choose to limit free expression. Whether it’s one of the many so-called “Human-Rights” commissions or the police looking for hate speech or the CBSC, the targets of persecution and prosecution are usually fairly harmless individuals expressing what amounts to dissenting opinions. However, of late the actions of censors have become more onerous. In the recent cases of Ezra Levant being hounded by the Alberta “Human Rights” Commission for reprinting the Danish cartoons of Mohammed and Mark Steyn and MacLean’s Magazine by The Canadian “Human Rights” Commission for a factual news feature about the rise of Islam, the role of the regulatory bodies involved has shifted from controlling speech to controlling thoughts and ideas. Restrictions on free speech have been a part of the Canadian establishment for well over a century with numerous individuals facing legal sanctions for making statements that were out of the realm of the mainstream. It is deeply disturbing that a quarter century after the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted restrictions on free speech in Canada are now increasing dramatically. But more disturbing is the selective nature in which the freedom to speak freely is being curbed.