A few years back, Howard Rotberg was launching his new novel, The Second Catastrophe, at a Chapters bookstore in Kitchener Waterloo.
Some Muslim hecklers brought the event to a premature halt. The Chapters employee wearing a hijab did nothing to stop their outbursts.
Then Chapters PR issued a press release to the Toronto Star and other dailies, claiming that the Muslims AND Rotberg had uttered racist remarks during the incident.
Rotberg produced affadavits to the contrary, sworn out by local professors and other audience members, stating that the only racist (actually, anti-semitic) remarks had been uttered by the Muslim beligerents in the crowd. Chapters shrugged.
So Howard Rotberg did something almost unheard of in the recent annals of Canadian authors vs. Muslim beligerents and their apologists, who hurl “racism” charges and disrupt their lives and business:
He sued them. Both the beligerents AND Chapters, Canada’s biggest bookstore chain.
The case is finally coming to trial later this month.
Rotberg has set up a brand new blog to keep folks abreast of his situation.
For background, do check out the links at the top of this post, which include a piece by the emminent Phyliss Chesler about Rotberg’s Orwellian situation.
And I’ll be following his travails here too.
