Mark Steyn "Not Guilty" of "Islamophobia": Human Rights Commission

Friday October 10, 2008
By John Jalsevac

TORONTO (October 10, 2008) - The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal today handed down a not-guilty verdict in the case against Maclean's magazine and its columnist Mark Steyn.

Maclean's and Steyn faced charges of "Islamophobia" in the wake of Maclean's decision to republish an excerpt from Steyn's best-selling book "America Alone." In the excerpt Steyn argued that Europe, and Western post-Christian civilization on the whole, are experiencing a civilisational exhaustion that has led, in particular, to a demographic crisis. This demographic crisis, contended Steyn, exposes the West to the ambitions of an increasingly vocal and increasingly violent Islamic minority in Europe.

Following the publication of the excerpt Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, the National President of the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), and Dr. Naiyer Habib, filed nearly identical complaints with the human rights commission arguing that the article exposed Muslims in British Columbia to "hatred and contempt."

The tribunal that reviewed the case, however, "has concluded that the complaints are not justified because the complainants have not established that the Article is likely to expose them to hatred or contempt on the basis of their religion." the rest image