Canada: Now with even less free speech rights.

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/fu...islamism-constitutes-a-speech-crime-in-canada

Pretty much says it all.

Link wouldn't work. Canadian site does not exist.

worked fine for me.

Barbara Kay: How long until my honest criticism of Islamism constitutes a speech crime in Canada?

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Barbara Kay
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017


Protestors hold signs at a protest against Islamophobia at Dundonald Park in Ottawa on Sunday, December 13, 2015. Patrick Doyle / Ottawa Citizen

Words matter. We’ve heard the dictum often since the Quebec City mosque massacre. Yes, they do. In fact, the statement “words matter” matters. In my experience it is either a rebuke to those who argue for the widest possible latitude in speech freedoms, or a preamble to proposing speech limitations.


Timing matters too. Because of the mosque tragedy, on Feb. 16, the House will likely vote unanimously for Motion 103, which is potentially a retrograde step for freedom of speech in Canada, at least insofar as it concerns “Islamophobia.”

Iqra Khalid

" data-medium-file="http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com/2017/02/0131_na_islamaphobia.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com/2017/02/0131_na_islamaphobia.jpg?w=620" class="size-medium wp-image-1310635" alt="Handout/Postmedia Network " src="http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com/2017/02/0131_na_islamaphobia.jpg?w=300&h=300" width="300" height="300" srcset="http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com/2017/02/0131_na_islamaphobia.jpg?w=300&h=300 300w, http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com/2017/02/0131_na_islamaphobia.jpg?w=600&h=600 600w, http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com/2017/02/0131_na_islamaphobia.jpg?w=140&h=140 140w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" style="-x-ignore: 1">
Handout/Postmedia NetworkIqra Khalid
M-103 asks for a study to determine “a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia.” Though singled out for special consideration, it is noteworthy that the motion does not define Islamophobia.

What I fear is that MP Iqra Khalid, who tabled M-103, may understand Islamophobia to mean what its original promoters, the 56 Muslim-majority bloc of the United Nations known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), say it means. The OIC wants to see the Cairo Declaration on Human rights become the template for Islamophobia policies everywhere. The Cairo Declaration asserts the superiority of Islam and defines freedom of speech according to Shariah law, which considers any criticism of Muhammad blasphemy.

The OIC is inching ever closer to realizing that goal. Many EU countries are seeking to criminalize Islamophobia by using “racism and xenophobia,” “public order” or “denigration” laws, which are essentially proxies for the Cairo Declaration. As I noted in a previous column, former French screen star and animal-rights activist Brigitte Bardot, who finds Islam’s practice of animal sacrifice abhorrent and says so publicly, has been prosecuted and fined four times for “inciting racial hatred.”

M-103 takes inspiration from a petition, E-411, signed by almost 70,000 Canadians between June and October 2016. The motion “take(s) note of House of Commons’ petition E-411 and the issues raised by it.” E-411 reads, in part: “Recently an infinitesimally small number of extremist individuals have conducted terrorist activities while claiming to speak for the religion of Islam. Their actions have been used as a pretext for a notable rise of anti-Muslim sentiments in Canada.

People gather at a rally in downtown Calgary, Alta., Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017. Rallies took place in cities across the country, in a show of solidarity following Sunday’s shooting at a Quebec City mosque

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THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshPeople gather at a rally in downtown Calgary, Alta., Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017. Rallies took place in cities across the country, in a show of solidarity following Sunday's shooting at a Quebec City mosque
“These violent individuals do not reflect in any way the values or the teachings of the religion of Islam. In fact, they misrepresent the religion. We categorically reject all their activities. They in no way represent the religion, the beliefs and the desire of Muslims to co-exist in peace with all peoples of the world.”

I don’t doubt that Samer Majzoub of Pierrefonds, Quebec, who initiated E-411, believes every word of this, yet there are many knowledgeable students of radical Islam – including in their number courageous Muslims – for whom certain key phrases in this document are, let’s say, contested interpretive terrain, and who therefore could not themselves sign this petition. Their representatives should at the least be called as intervenors in the study M-103 recommends.

Even without any law that singles out Islamophobia for special consideration, I note that, shaken by the mosque massacre, several journalists are now pledging more “nuance” in their approach to Islam-related subjects. I was surprised to hear one colleague and friend here in Quebec, who has been outspoken in criticizing Shariah law on perfectly reasonable grounds, state in an interview that she intends to be more “careful” in future.

Careful. What does that mean in this context, I ask myself. Will she no longer criticize those who seek legitimacy for patriarchal Shariah law? Looking back on my own oeuvre of Islam-related writing, I have to wonder if much of what I have written — forthrightly, but responsibly — would pass muster in a post-M-103 Canada. I have critiqued Muslim organizations with problematic links to Islamist networks. I have commented frequently on honour killings, statistically significant in Islam-dominated cultures. I have repeatedly expressed aversion for the niqab, supporting a ban on face cover in the public service.

I suppose it should go without saying, but nowadays it must be said: I harbour no animus whatsoever for my fellow Muslims citizens when I write about these issues. People are people. But there isn’t a single column I would withdraw or redact in the light of this massacre, any more than I considered softening my distaste for radical feminism’s misandry in the light of the 1989 Montreal Polytechnique massacre. Furthermore, I do not believe anyone in his right mind could possibly be incited to violence by reading them. I was not responsible for Marc Lepine’s paranoia, nor am I or my Islamism-critical colleagues responsible for Alexandre Bissonnette’s personal demons.

Nevertheless, I’m forced to wonder: will those columns henceforth be considered “careless” by those with the power to judge them? Islamophobic even?

These are no longer rhetorical questions. Much depends on how they are answered.

Seems like this is about a vote that hasn't happened yet to start a study on different ways to tackle racism.

So not what @Dinner thinks.....he just saw the word Muslim and shit his pants as usual.

Yep, same old same old. We must restrict speech we don't like because... Reasons.

No, thanks. I prefer free speech. Hell, objectionable speech is the only type of speech which needs protection and the answer to objectionable speech is more free speech not less. The liberals up north are showing their true authoritarian colors by trying to censor free speech.

Yeah except no one's done anything and I'm free to say Fuck Islam if I want.

I'll let you know if Justin Trudeau's sexy anti-Islamophobia Hit Squad knocks on my door

Yep, them pore buggers up there in the Great Canadian Goulag.

Practice of animal sacrifice?

I know dozens of Muslims... never heard anything about animal sacrifice. A bit about Halal, and how in a pinch, Kosher is acceptable as "basically the same thing".

You want "islamophobia"? there it is right in that quote... Ritualized slaughter isn't animal sacrifice any more than saying grace after it's been cooked.

Serious question: what's the difference?

On the surface, not much that I could cite. I really don't know much about Kosher or Halal ritual other than the claims of minimizing cruelty.

I'm mainly of the position that blessed butchery is no better or worse than regular meat production and it doesn't really affect me in a significant way.

The notable difference would be that we're talking about food animals rather than using them as divination tools... after that, you get into the morality arguments of vegans/vegetarians over whether we should eat meat at all. As an omnivore, I'm not interested in taking much of a side in that beyond humane treatment before they're killed.

I believe that halal and kosher were given a "special dispensation" from the Ontario Animal Welfare Act.
Which pretty well tells you all you need to know.

Who the hell said this? As I noted in a previous column, former French screen star and animal-rights activist Brigitte Bardot, who finds Islam’s practice of animal sacrifice abhorrent and says so publicly, has been prosecuted and fined four times for “inciting racial hatred.”

Brigitte Freaking Bardot has close links to the National Front. Seems to me if she was ever prosecuted for "inciting racial hatred", it has more to do with something she said about homo sapiens rather than any other species.

I think the special dispensation is because the animal is exsanguinated as a method of slaughter, rather than a bolt through the skull or electrocution. THere's also something about the raising practices certification, but it's not something I know much about...

Bardot's charges for incitement seem a logical progression if she's calling Halal and Kosher out in light of the ties to the NF.

OK. I was curious because there is the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, in which slaughtered animals symbolise Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.

"Animal sacrifice" seems like a fair description to me.

I believe they now have more humane methods (at least for large mammals) than a bolt or electricity. Pigs, for example, are smart animals and when bolt time rolls around they're already terrified by the smell of blood and general panic. That's what's cruel.
I have a friend who knows something abou this. May get back to you.

This is maybe a chicken-or-egg thing. Is she (1) outraged at Semitic ritual slaughter because she's a fucking racist or (2) anti-Semitic (and therefore digs the NF) because she's an animal-lover?
Or are the two issues entirely separate in her mind?

I'd guess she hates Arabs (and probably Jews, and Rastas, etc.) anyway, and is an animal-lover, which probably just fuels her hate.

I should have asked her all those times we were in bed together.

Where's @Dinner

definitely not being ritually sacrificed for my meatloaf

@Nono I honestly don't know for certain either what the current methods are. I had a cow skull in my collection from a local slaughterhouse and the bolt to the skull method was pretty obvious, but that was 20 years ago.

THere have been a few recent articles about the shitty way we treat pigs and other livestock here... most dealing with transport methods.

Then you do not know very much.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sacrifice

Says the guy who made this abortion of a thread

So enlighten us, what free speech is being censored?

read your own link, fuckstick

Is it too soon for me to point out that, among the numerous things wrong with this thread, the title should be “fewer” (even though it isn’t) rather than “less” (even though it isn’t that, either)?

I put the question to the Sage of Flamborough, who's in agriculture, and got the following reply:

Fearman's, the largest pig slaughter house in North America, uses a "carousel", a round spaceship-like device that has individual compartments that the pig goes into and is then gassed. They use various combinations of CO2, nitrogen and argon. It is then stunned and the carousel turns some more and the stunned pig is ejected onto a killing line and, I assume, is bled out. The now-empty compartment is turned around and goes back to the "live" line where another pig enters the compartment. This may not be pleasant but it's a hell of a lot more humane than hoisting a live pig up on a tripod by its back legs and slitting its throat - sometimes referred to as "the good ol' days".

So the pig is kept separated, while conscious, from the "killing line". That has to be more humane even than the bolt.

Oh, that's like trying to get people to stop robotically saying "amazing" and "awesome" every five seconds. Never happen.

Dinner spelled all the words correctly, at least.

I call that progress.

Bought hisself a spell-check.

Coming in late on this DST, but if you actually read through the lines and not take the columnist's overblown rhetoric at face value, this is a motion being made in Parliament.

A motion has no force of law. It's not a bill. All she's asking for is a study. She may or may not get it.

Also, it's funny @Dinner thinks Canada has little free speech. Despite the fact that we don't have a "first amendment", in almost every regard we are a freer nation than the United States. Pretty much every international study on freedom of speech, religion and the press ranks us way ahead of our American neighbours.

I always ask Americans in what respect they're freer than citizens of Finland, New Zealand, Belgium ..... and the list goes on. And on.

To me the main difference is that Americans are freer than all those people to die of gunshot wounds inflicted by some wingnut at McDonalds or whatever.
No denying that.

The very fact that they are proposing restricting any speech in the name of stopping made up fake "Islamaphobia" means less free speech rights. That some of you apologists won't acknowledge that simple truth is utterly unbelievable and a sure sign of your dishonesty in this discussion.