SteynOnline

A couple of things to bear in mind just ahead of this morning's press conference by the Canadian Islamic Congress' fetching young sock puppets and their lawyer.

First, they're not the plaintiffs in either of the two cases. The complainants in the British Columbia case are Dr Mohamed Elmasry and Naiyer Habib. The complainant in the federal case is Dr Elmasry alone. Any decision to withdraw the complaints can only be made by Elmo and Habib. So will they be at the press conference? And, if not, why not? And will any of the eagle-eyed journalists wonder why they are, in effect, watching a piece of theatre? Imagine iff, during the run-up to the Conrad Black trial, Conrad had stayed holed up at his pad but had found a spindly seven-year old Dickensian chimney sweep to go out and play the "accused" at press conferences. That's what's going on here.

Unlike the gullible types at the CBC, NPR, The Toronto Star, etc, we here at SteynOnline go to the sources. You can see the original court documents here. The plaintiff is Elmo. So will he have the guts to show?

Secondly, I dissent slightly from the premature conga lines of Jonathan Kay et al. This is a potentially perilous moment. In the first four months of this story, the Canadian Islamic Congress have won no sympathizers and the broader "human rights" establishment have lost almost all the ones they previously had. So this press conference is a critical attempt to reposition themselves, not as Islamist bully boys trying to shut down all debate on the perfectly legitimate topic of Islam and the west, but as "victims" of a powerful Islamophobic media. Presumably they will offer to shut down the case in return for a more modest right of reply without some of the more absurd demands they made last time round. It will sound "moderate" and "compromising" and "reasonable", all the things mainstream Canadian opinion likes. But, if Maclean's were to accede, it would be setting a very dangerous precedent: it would reward the CIC thugs for their bullying. As David Warren said way back when, the process is the punishment. Maclean's doesn't fear a modest fine, which is all the commissars can do. What we fear is a world in which the editorial choices of private publications are destabilized by bullying lobby groups who represent nobody using the "human rights" process to hijack our pages.

As I said, they'll be sounding "moderate" and "reasonable" today, but it doesn't change what they're trying to do - which is use the state as a lever to kidnap the content of privately owned magazines for their propaganda purposes. Why not get some bigshot Saudi to bankroll your own?