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The news of the "human rights" complaint over the Maclean's excerpt of my book has been out there a week or so now, and I've had a lot of queries from folks seeking clarification of this and clarifications of that. I think the easiest way to answer them is to put the actual complaints out there. The Canadian Islamic Congress has sought relief from three bodies so far: the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Commission and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. These are all in PDF form, so you can tell they're the real deal. We'll start with the shortest, just in case you're in a motel in Mexico on a slow dial-up:
Here's Mohamed Elmasry's complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Dr Elmasry is the President of the Canadian Islamic Congress. There are four other plaintiffs - law students at Osgoode Hall in Toronto - whose complaints are identical. The Ontario HRC has not yet decided whether it intends to hear the case.
Here's Mohamed Elmasry's complaint to the British Columbia Human Rights Commission. Dr Elmasry is not a resident of British Columbia, but apparently that doesn't make any difference. Presumably he's free to petition HRCs from Newfoundland to Alberta to Yukon to Nunavut. The more the merrier. The British Columbia commission has agreed to hear the case. Because the pages of checked boxes go on forever on the BC form, we're also posting the substance (such as it is) of his grievance separately: you can find it here.
Finally, here's Mohamed Elmasry's complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The federal HRC has also agreed to hear the case. We've redacted the commission's original letter to Maclean's, but I have included the questions the magazine was obliged to answer (within two weeks). They include:
What is the intent of the article?
How did it come about in one of the oldest settled democracies in the world that government agencies were given powers to require a "free" press to justify the "intent" behind a particular article?
Also of note, Grievance #16 on page 6:
The number of Muslims in Europe is expanding like "mosquitoes".
Either Dr Elmasry is making the same mistake as Jim Henley and attributing to me the words of Mullah Krekar, or he believes that it's "Islamophobic" to quote accurately leading European Muslims. To be honest, I don't mind which it is. I'm happy for the good doctor to be as Judeophobic and homophobic and Steynophobic as he wants. I'm just concerned to maintain a level playing field for all phobias, and the biggest obstacle to that are these cockamamie Human Rights Commissions which are an abomination to any free society.
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