Free speech wins huge victory in Canada

Jihad Watch

At issue here was not true hate speech -- racial slurs, etc. -- which are indefensible. Rather, the aim of such laws is to crush political dissent. The Organization of the Islamic Conference is trying to strong-arm Western nations into imposing hate speech laws that will restrict speech about Islam they don't like, including explorations of the motives and goals of jihad terrorists. This was in Canada the law that snared Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn for anti-jihad statements. But now this ruling is a major setback for that effort, however, although all such a law would need in the U.S. would be an activist President without much attachment to free speech and five compliant Supreme Court justices. But that could never happen, now, could it?

"Hate speech laws violate constitution: Rights tribunal," from Canwest News Service, September 2 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that Section 13, Canada's much-criticized human rights hate speech law, is an unconstitutional violation of the Charter right to free expression because of its penalty provisions.

The decision released Wednesday morning by tribunal chair Athanasios Hadjis appears to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its controversial legal mandate to pursue hate on the Internet, which it has strenuously defended against complaints of censorship.

It also marks the first major failure of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, an anti-hate law that was conceived in the 1960s to target racist telephone hotlines, then expanded in 2001 to the include the entire Internet, and for the last decade used almost exclusively by one complainant, activist Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman....