Ezra Levant to the US Congress: Put Canada On The List Of Human Rights Abusers

Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

But, it does make sense, doesn't it?

From Ezra Levant:


I had the pleasure of making a presentation as an expert witness to the U.S. Congress's bi-partisan human rights caucus today.

I didn't count, but I'd estimate that there were over 100 people there. I met quite a few readers of my blog, and even a donor to my legal defence fund -- what a warm welcome in a far away city! There were a surprising number of journalists, including Luiza Savage, Maclean's magazine's Washington Bureau Chief. And there were a lot of religious liberty NGOs, including those from the Bahai, Hindu and Buddhist communities -- including several in bright orange monk's robes.

My fellow panellists were impressive, especially the Turkish scholar whose specialty was documenting the treatment of apostates in Muslim countries, and the State Department lawyer who is the point-person in response to the international diplomatic campaign to have criticism of Islam criminalized. And -- very usefully -- the second secretary of the Pakistani Embassy was there. It was very striking to hear, directly from the source, the plans that Pakistan and the rest of the Muslim world have when it comes to censoring their critics through the twisting of Western legal apparatuses. It was like getting a glimpse at the other team's playbook -- and having our worst fears confirmed. Frankly, I was surprised that she showed up.

... it was a fascinating discussion, and the question-and-answer session was particularly clarifying. But for now, allow me to post my prepared comments. I've put in bold a few of my favourite comments. If I had to think of my most important suggestion, it would be for the U.S. Congress to add Canada to its watch list of countries that abuse human rights like freedom of speech and freedom of religion. What do you think?

My expertise in the subject matter of today’s session was not acquired voluntarily, but by unhappy experience: I have been the subject of government persecution for my political and religious views for nearly 900 days. Unfortunately, stories like mine are not uncommon in the world. But they’re not supposed to happen in Canada, one of the freest countries.

In February of 2006, I was the publisher of a Canadian magazine called the Western Standard. We published a news story about the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and the riots in the Muslim world that followed. To illustrate what all the fuss was about, we accompanied the story with pictures of several of those cartoons. It was a news story in a news magazine.

Before our magazine even hit the streets, a radical imam named Syed Soharwardy asked the police to arrest me – for blaspheming against Islam. The police didn’t, of course.

But the Alberta “human rights commission”, a government agency, accepted Soharwardy’s complaint, and then an identical one from the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities.

The government has been investigating me ever since, including summoning me to a 90-minute interrogation. According to access to information documents, no fewer than 15 bureaucrats are working on my case. I’m a major crime scene!

Since then, Canada’s largest news magazine, called Maclean’s – our equivalent to Time magazine – was sued in three different human rights commissions for writing about the demographic growth of Islam in the West. And the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, the largest newspaper in Atlantic Canada, is being pursued by Nova Scotia’s human rights commission for printing an editorial cartoon depicting a local Muslim activist in a niqab – even though that is how she dresses.

In other words, Canadian human rights commissions -- secular government organizations -- are prosecuting religious fatwas. It’s a soft jihad against any criticism of radical Islam. It’s called “lawfare”, and it’s a greater danger to our western values of freedom, religious pluralism and the separation of church and state than the hard jihad of terrorism is. Even if targets like Maclean’s eventually “win”, they lose; the process is the punishment – and the chill affects everyone else.


Go read the whole thing.

Ezra Levant is a hero of Western Civilization.

If you haven't seen it before, here is a video of his testimony before the Alberta Civil Rights Commission. It is stunning in it ballsiness.