David Warren on the Mark Steyn show trial

“This is a disaster also for Canada’s Muslims, for the views of fanatical Islamists are being presented as representative of them all. No single person has done so much to advance contempt for Islam in this country as Mohamed Elmasry, president of the ‘Canadian Islamic Congress,’ the complainant in this case — whose public assertions have included e.g. the view that every Israeli citizen is a valid target for Palestinian hitmen.

“The bland acceptance of this jackass, by mainstream Canadian media, as the definitive spokesman for Muslim interests in Canada, cannot be blamed on the Muslim community. Innumerable Muslims have disavowed him, and yet are entirely ignored. Indeed: Mark Steyn has been among the few journalists distinguishing between camps. He would be: for he has plenty of Muslim supporters.

(…)

“Another crucial point:

“While media attention to Mark Steyn’s show trial is inadequate (it is getting more attention in the United States than up here), it is nevertheless the best publicized case ever to come before our ‘human rights’ bureaucracies. Most of the victims of these neo-Maoist tribunals have been ‘little people,’ with nothing like the resources Maclean’s magazine has put in play to defend itself and Steyn, and no media reporting whatever. They have been persecuted, stripped of their livelihoods and savings, demonized among their neighbours, made to endure humiliating ‘re-education’ programmes — without lawyers, without assistance of any kind — all for exercising rights that any Canadian would have taken for granted a mere generation ago.

“I want justice for Mark Steyn. But I also want justice for all these little people, who have been crushed under the jackboot of ‘political correction.'”