But now, it seems that on the other side of the Atlantic, in the liberal, tolerant bastion of Canada, where quotes from the Bible have in the past been deemed hate speech, merely linking to a "far-right website" can form part of a $500,000 lawsuit ...
From BlazingCatFur-
About 18 months ago everybody's favourite Ex-Canadian Human Rights Commission employee Richard Warman launched one of his many, as in very many, SLAPP suits against yours truly for, among other dastardly deeds, linking to the "far-right web site http://www.steynonline.com/". Sheesh everybody knows Mark Steyn is controversial.This referring to a post on a newsletter from the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The offending part?
Fifty-nine years ago, on this day, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, creating a foundation of equality, fairness, compassion and respect for all. (But not for the law and only so long as their our kind of people, Lucy Warman tells us who we should hate. Pie anyone?).Apparently what caused the offence was that the words "our kind of people" led to an article by Canadian commentator Mark Steyn, in the words of the lawsuit a "far-right website".
Note that Richard Warman, the CHRC plaintiff in the case, has not sued Mark Steyn for the article... yet goes after a lone blogger linking to it. But this is not his first "hate speech" case -
In Warman v. Lemire, 2009 CHRT 26, Athanasios D. Hadjis held that the respondent's right to freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression should not be infringed by s. 13(1). Accordingly, the adjudicator did not penalize the respondent for his controversial postings to the Internet.
In Warman v. Northern Alliance, 2009 CHRT 10, Edward Peter Lustig held that the respondent's website was in violation of s. 13(1) because the website carried controversial remarks about Roma, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, blacks, Arabs, and others. The adjudicator made an order pursuant to s. 54(1)(a) to ensure that the impugned website, which is defunct, remained inactive.
In Warman v. Winnicki, 2006 CHRT 20, Karen A. Jensen found the respondent had posted messages to the Internet which were "vicious and dehumanizing". The adjudicator ordered the respondent to cease and desist his discriminatory practices and to pay a penalty of $6,000.
He has also sued Kathy Shaidle of FiveFeetofFury.com, Kate McMillan of SmallDeadAnimals.com, FreeDominion.com, Walker Morrow, Michael Veck, Jonathan Kay and the National Post. So why bother going through the courts with so many cases? In Warman's own words, he implements a "maximum disruption" approach...
I’ve come to the conclusion that I can be most effective by using what I like to describe as a “maximum Disruption” approach … I’ll look at all the potential targets and file complaints against them starting on a “worst offender” basis, although sometimes if I just find people to be particularly annoying this may move them up the list a bit. The “maximum disruption” part comes in because wherever I think it will be most helpful, or even if I just feel it will be the most fun, I strongly believe in hitting on as many of these fronts as possible either at the same time or one after the other. I say this because it keeps them off-balance and forces them to respond to things that focus their energies on defending themselves.In other words - go after bloggers he thinks have too little funding to defend themselves, and make them spend all their resources on doing so - even if the case is unsuccessful. As part of his "maximum disruption" approach, he has allegedly also himself made racist comments on posts, while including the same posts in his lawsuits. So much for these posts being "offensive", or containing anything which a comission interested in real human rights could find of interest. Such is the great service to human rights made by laws such as section 13 of Canada's human rights act.
BlazingCatFur should win this lawsuit, but needs funding to fight it - a donation can be made by "feeding the kitty" on the right here.
