5 Feet of Fury

Barbara Kay: paving the way for soft jihad

My co-defendant’s mom writes:

Ayatollah-prescribed fatwas are so pre-9/11. Nowadays, as liberal elites rush prophylactically to ward off charges of tolerating “Islamophobia,” the fatwas (in all but name) against damn good books like Mark Steyn’s America Alone aren’t bruited in mosques; they issue forth from human rights commissioners.

(…)

One way or another we must stop the fatwa industry in its tracks. Begin with removal of speech-regulation from the HRCs’ legal mandate. Build on that with legislation that imposes costs and damages on litigious third parties who seek to chill journalists.

Canada should also pass legislation imitative of the U.S. Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) law, presently active in 24 U.S. states, which disallows harassment of those writing on matters of “public concern,” as well as the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, a New York state initiative that will combat libel tourism.

The HRC crisis is not a tempest in a teapot. Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, says: “I don’t think it’s too strong to say that the [HRC] complaint against Mark Steyn is a totalitarian document.”

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Levant and Steyn are fighting for the defining ideal of Western civilization which, once lost, would spell the beginning of the end of all our other freedoms.