SteynOnline

On Wednesday we'll be having a special fundraiser at SteynOnline. Here's why: 

Longtime readers may still dimly recall the name of Khurrum Awan, the Osgoode Hall law student who, at last year's Steyn/Maclean's "flagrant Islamophobia" show trial in Vancouver, simultaneously played the roles of plaintiff, co-counsel, expert witness, and official representative of the Muslims of British Columbia, despite being a resident of Ontario. If this sounds like some low-budget production at a theatrical fringe festival in which Khurrum plays all seven brides in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (oh, okay, and the brothers, too), you're missing the point: in assuming the plaintiff/counsel/expert/entire-Muslim-population role, Mr Awan was demonstrating the economies of scale that Canada's "human rights" regime brings to fusty concepts like "justice".

Of course, Khurrum wasn't the "plaintiff" in any tiresome legal sense. He was merely the lead sock puppet for Mohammed Elmasry, head honcho of the Canadian Islamic Congress but a man whose public support for Jew-killing makes him a problematic frontman for the cause of a "hate-free" Canada. So Khurrum was sent out into the world as leader singer of the Sock Puppet Five, subsequently the Four Socks, then the Socktown Trio, later Socky and Cher, and finally, as Elmo's sole surviving sock, the celebrity entertainment for the launch of The Canadian Charger.

In the latest development of his solo career, Socky has now decided to sue Ezra Levant. The complaint introduces several novel legal concepts, including psychic defamation - Ezra should have known that the words that appeared in The Toronto Star under Khurrum Awan's name were apparently not by Awan but by some no-name Star sub-editor who'd whimsically decided to introduce them to Khurrum's copy. We also have the bizarre charge that, by explicitly noting that Awan told the truth under oath, Ezra therefore accused him of perjury.

Khurrum Awan may be too stupid even for employment as an identity-group grievance-monger in latterday Trudeaupia. Although the libel notice purports to be the work of Brian Shiller, the semi-literate rambling and pronoun confusion betrays its true author:

During Mr. Awan's media appearances related to the Maclean's case, he was very courteous and respectful with all the media that interviewed me.

Gee, you'd think when you hire a bigshot mouthpiece like Brian Shiller he'd have the gal in the typing pool read through the thing before they mail it out. Whatever the signature at the bottom, the provenance is clear: Mr Shiller is serving as the sock puppet's sock puppet.

Which raises many interesting questions. Mr Shiller is also the lawyer for prominent Internet Nazi Richard Warman and dinner-theatre ethnic comic Warren Kinsella in their own libel suits against Ezra. Evidently, Messrs Shiller are the one-stop shop for all your Levant SLAPP needs. Is Mr Shiller offering a group rate for suits against Ezra? Is he working up to a class-action? Whatever the reason, this is a strange coalition: two men who've respectively been employed and honoured by the Canadian Jewish Congress yoked with the youth president of a Canadian Islamic Congress whose then leader announced on TV his support for terrorism against Jews. In this freakshow alliance, you begin to see the scale of the Canadian Jewish Congress' foolish embrace of the opportunist poseur Warman.

Nonetheless, fighting off nuisance suits that are well-funded costs money. Ezra Levant has been the indispensable man in the battle to restore Canada's lost liberties, and I have been proud to stand with him this last year-and-a-half. So, as we did on Warman Wednesday last year, this week we'll be holding a Khurrum Awadnesday over at the Steyn Store to raise a little dough for Ezra's legal bills. Hope you'll swing by. As I told an audience of cabinet ministers and Tory, Liberal and Bloquiste MPs and Senators a few weeks back, in a sane world a real hero like Ezra would be the one getting fitted for the Order of Canada. Instead, it's all too easy, as Scaramouche posits, to picture a thuggish buffoon like Mr Awan being received at Rideau Hall.

Without Ezra's efforts, Canada's mainstream newspapers would not have picked up on this issue, and declared against the state censorship licensed by Section 13. Without Ezra, the Canadian "Human Rights" Tribunal would not have felt obliged to open up its secret trial of Marc Lemire to the public. Without Ezra, a "human rights" judge would not have rebuked Richard Warman for his Nazi activities, and the Commission would not have begun cutting him loose. Canadians who value freedom owe this man a lot. Ezra has shown real courage at a huge cost to a young family these last couple of years. Let's stand with him. As he says:

To battle stations!

More from Jihad Watch, Pamela Geller, Jay Currie, and Wendy Sullivan.

Deborah Gyapong thinks Kathy English, The Toronto Star's orientational ombudsgal and Head of Journalistic Ethics (Gay T-Shirt Division), may be headed for bigger and better things:

If the Liberals ever get into power, I would not be surprised to hear Kathy English got appointed to head the Canadian Human Rights Commission, replacing Tory appointee Jennifer Lynch.

There's a strange similarity in the earnest, irony-challenged, humorless tone of these two gals...

Indeed. It's amazing how far you can go in Canada by being the gal who says, "That's not funny!" And, with hindsight, Bernie Farber's Queer Tee For The Straight Jew routine would almost make sense as a covert audition of Ms English for the Queen Censor role. Hmm.

The Toronto Star's leading advocate of government regulation of opinion, Haroon Siddiqui, tries to hoist a new Strawman of the Day:

The most vocal critics of human rights commissions often invoke freedom of speech. Yet they were strangely silent when Ottawa effectively blocked Al Jazeera Arabic TV's entry into Canada in 2004. And they are mostly silent now about Al Jazeera English's application before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

The Closet Conservative responds:

I am totally fine with Al Jazeerah broadcasting in Canada. If that is the way that Jew-haters in Canada want to spend their money-that's fine with me. I would frankly rather that antisemites pay private money for a private antisemitic station, rather than what we have right now, which is the legislated contribution of taxpayer's money to the CBC for similar drivel.

Me, too. I'm in favor of privatization of the CBC, and I'm in favor of Al Jazeera's English broadcasting service being permitted in Canada - on the grounds that, unlike a pro-censorship statist control-freak like Mr Siddiqui, I'm not scared of opinions that differ from mine. Bring 'em on! The more the merrier! It's always useful to know what people really think.

Oh, and a personal note, in the last three years I've been interviewed more on Al Jazeera than on the CBC, so I happen to look on this as my best shot at raising my media profile north of the border.

(See also Scaramouche.)   

The great Scaramouche takes note of another odd development in the relationship between the Canadian Jewish Congress and The Toronto Star. Last week, the CJC's PR honcho, Jordan Kerbel, sent the following missive to the Star:

First Antonia Zerbisias, then Haroon Siddiqui, now letter writer Elizabeth Pickett all speak of so-called "Jewish groups" or "Zionists" attempting to decide who or what Canadians can see or hear. There are numerous so-called "Jewish groups" in Canada, each with its own mandate and perspective on a variety of issues.

I speak only for the Canadian Jewish Congress. We never tried to censor Seven Jewish Children nor did we attempt to have British MP George Galloway banned from entering Canada. So, in the future, for your own credibility we ask that you have the decency and the professionalism to name the organization to which you are referring as opposed to lumping any number of diverse organizations together under the extremely vague title of "Jewish groups."

As Scaramouche notes, the CJC's position on George Galloway appears to have undergone some retrospective modification:

Back in March the Ceej had no compunction about letting the JDL do the heavy lifting, Galloway-wise, and then, when it worked, hailing the Canadian government "for denying George Galloway entry to Canada.”

This would seem to be the intra-Commonwealth round of Queer Tee For The Straight Jew, in which a cheap bit of bandwagon-jumping is pompously disavowed after the fact. As to the broader question of "attempting to decide who or what Canadians can see or hear", the CJC has been one of the most assiduous supporters of Section 13 and the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission and has not only been co-plaintiff with the celebrated Internet Nazi Richard Warman but has chosen to honor him with one of its most prestigious awards: You don't merely support censorship, you give out prizes for it. As Scaramouche says:

The lefties loathe you for supporting Israel, and the Jewish community is getting really fed up with your bumbling and your cluelessness.

And, while we're at it, the righties loathe you for supporting state regulation of free speech. Who does that leave? Siddiqui and the Muslims? Your idiotic position is a useful cudgel for them: Oh, nobody minded the "human rights" commissions when it was just Farber and Warman using them to go after every two-bit Judeophobe in his mom's basement. It was only when we Muslims wanted a slice of the action that everyone objected. The CJC has somehow managed to vindicate every Islamist's and every white "supremacist" loser's belief in a sinister Jewish conspiracy while being too dumb to run it with even minimal competence.