Memo To Mohammed Elmasry: Honour Killings Are A Distincly Muslim Problem

Phyllis Chesler:

On February 12, 2009, Muzzammil Hassan informed police that he had beheaded his wife. Hassan had emigrated to the United States 30 years ago and, after a successful banking career, had founded Bridges TV, a Muslim-interest network which aims, according to its website, "to foster a greater understanding among many cultures and diverse populations." Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III told The Buffalo News that "this is the worst form of domestic violence possible," and Khalid Qazi, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, told the New York Post that Islam forbids such domestic violence. While Muslim advocacy organizations argue that honor killings are a misnomer stigmatizing Muslims for what is simply domestic violence, a problem that has nothing to do with religion, Phyllis Chesler, who just completed a study of more than 50 instances of North American honor killings, says the evidence suggests otherwise.

A muslim man's decision to behead his wife or daughter for reasons of collective honour - also known as an honour killing - is simply categorized as murder in Canada and the United States. As far as the legal system is concerned, a person's motivation for murdering someone is perfectly irrelevant.

This is not only absolutely appropriate, but crucial to a fair and liberal legal system. The law must be confined to delimiting the freedom of action of individuals. One's motivation for the action of murder has no bearing on its permissibility. It is not the state's role to punish socially unacceptable thoughts.

However, the fact that no legal distinction between honour killings and murder is necessary does not exempt the barbaric practice from rational scrutiny, nor does it mean that honour killings are merely another variation of simple domestic violence.

Phyllis Chesler's study analyzes 50 cases of honour killings in North America and determines that, despite the claims of muslim advocacy organizations that honour killings have nothing to do with Islam, they represent a manifestly muslim problem to be considered as distinct from domestic violence.

Chesler's study begins:

Families that kill for honor will threaten girls and women if they refuse to cover their hair, their faces, or their bodies or act as their family's domestic servant; wear makeup or Western clothing; choose friends from another religion; date; seek to obtain an advanced education; refuse an arranged marriage; seek a divorce from a violent husband; marry against their parents' wishes; or behave in ways that are considered too independent, which might mean anything from driving a car to spending time or living away from home or family. Fundamentalists of many religions may expect their women to meet some but not all of these expectations. But when women refuse to do so, Jews, Christians, and Buddhists are far more likely to shun rather than murder them. Muslims, however, do kill for honor, as do, to a lesser extent, Hindus and Sikhs.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 5,000 women are killed each year for dishonoring their families.[2] This may be an underestimate. Aamir Latif, a correspondent for the Islamist website Islam Online who writes frequently on the issue, reported that in 2007 in the Punjab province of Pakistan alone, there were 1,261 honor murders.[3] The Aurat Foundation, a Pakistani nongovernmental organization focusing on women's empowerment, found that the rate of honor killings was on track to be in the hundreds in 2008.

As you may recall, this issue is highly relevant to Canadians in light of the Aqsa Parvez honour killing that occurred in Toronto in 2007, a murder which was dismissed by the infamous Mohammed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress as a teenager issue and not an Islamic issue.

Chesler identifies the root of the problem as follows:

The problem the West faces is complex. Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus view honor and morality as a collective family matter. Rights are collective, not individual. Family, clan, and tribal rights supplant individual human rights

As this study demonstrates, it is as clear as day that honour killings are a distinctly Islamic problem. This fact must be acknowledged before it can be addressed.

This is a highly salient topic at the moment. I very much encourage you to read the essay in its entirety.

H/t Michael Rubin

Freedom of Speech Is An American Concept: Mark Steyn & The BC HRC, Day I

Remember how much fun you had reading Mark Steyn's blow-by-blow analysis of the Conrad Black trial? Just imagine how much fun you'll have reading Andrew Coyne's sardonic updates now that it's Steyn's turn to sit before a legal body that has already decided upon the defendant's guilt.

But please remember, friends: "Freedom of speech is an American concept." So I don't want to hear any of you right-wing loonies whining about what may or may not be overtly fascist about this case. Liberty is so last century. It's passed time that we get with the times.

Coyne's liveblogging at the link.

UPDATE: And, of course, I would be remiss if I forgot to mention Ezra Levant's flurry of blog posts today regarding Steyn's trial. Every word is worth reading.

Does Levant have high hopes for the trial's outcome?

This is the same B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that has come up with such gems as a ruling that McDonald's can't force its staff to wash their hands, because it's discrimination; or that bus drivers have the right to take 118 sick days a year. They're nuts.

Levant also fills us in on some juicy details from Khurrum Awan's testimony. For instance, Awan now admits that his demands of Maclean's magazine included money as well as the right to a submission of "equal length and prominence" which boils down to a cover story. How unreasonable of Maclean's to reject this magnanimous compromise.

UPDATE II: Jay Currie catches us up on Chair of the Tribunal Heather MacNaughton's specs as well as provides some excellent information about the lawyers on both sides.

"But It's So Much Easier To Demand A Debate Than To Actually Have One!"

Via Ezra Levant

In December of 2007, four law student sockpuppets for the Canadian Islamic Congress filed a Human Rights complaint against Mark Steyn and Maclean's Magazine. To justify their complaint they whined:

True to Canada's tradition of free speech, we decided to engage Steyn in a debate about his views... we asked Maclean's for an opportunity to debate Steyn... It's about ensuring that our media outlets provide a forum for open debate and argument.

And so Mark Steyn has agreed to a debate.

...we've put in a request to let me go mano a mano with the Sock Puppets. Don't care how many there are: One, two, or all three. If Daniel Simard wants to come out of his hiding place, he's welcome to join in for a grand reunion of the original Sock Puppet Four. I'd much rather go mano a mano with the real complainant, Mohamed Elmasry, but his mano is stuck up the Sock Puppets so I guess it's unavailable.

And how did the sockpuppets respond? They refused, of course.

Their main reason is that this is not what they have initially agreed to and that they would not have the time to prepare for such a debate. The other reason they offered is that their complaint is with Macleans' magazine and not Mark Steyn personally.

So the problem is that they wouldn't have enough time to prepare. Perhaps they shouldn't have been calling for a debate since December of 2007 then. And how about that line that their complaint is with Macleans and not with Steyn himself. My only response is to refer you to Ezra's list of quotations in which the sockpuppets explicitly demand a debate with Mark Steyn personally.

Hmm. It's almost as if they have no interest in exchanging views in the "marketplace of ideas." It's almost as if their intention was to strong-arm a magazine and a best-selling author into obeisance to their radical views and not to engage in any manner of liberal dialogue on the subject of Steyn's writings.

Pay attention, would-be abusers of section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. This is what happens when you bite off more than you can chew. Macleans didn't capitulate, Steyn is as truculent as ever, and the sockpuppets are left looking craven and petty. I couldn't be less suprised that they declined the offer to debate. If they aren't completely humiliated already by the public reaction to their complaint, an hour or two spent discussing the issues with Steyn would certainly be enough to send them scurrying with their tail between their legs.

It's only right that Mr. Levant be given the last word on the matter:

These aren't liberals, interested in an exchange of ideas. These are bullies, interested in not only one-way multiculturalism, but a one-way "debate": they talk, and Canada obeys.

What a bunch of cowards.

Reflections On Mark Steyn & The HRC

At the age of 63, I feared I would find some trace of defeat, or at the very least fatigue, in Conrad Black after the drawn-out process of his trial. And so I was pleased to see the continued health of his pomposity in his December 14th column in The National Post. The article, along with Black's public statements since the verdict was read, has convinced me once and for all of the supreme resilience of his character. As a result of my resurgent confidence in his prospects for survival in the slammer, I was left in a relatively good mood leading up to the holiday season. And as December 25th drew nearer, I even dared to hope, fool that I am, that my Christmas would go untroubled by abuses of the legal system for reasons of shadenfreude or revenge. And then I was linked this article by Terry Glavin.

Yes, it has finally happened. Let us all feign surprise that the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) has decided it would be a dandy idea to drag Maclean's Magazine and columnist Mark Steyn before three human rights tribunals for - you guessed it - "hatred and Islamophobia." Predictably, we've seen the mobilization of a number of conservative media outlets for Steyn's defense, most notably The National Review. Less predictably, we've also seen several moderate and leftist outlets in Britain, America, and Canada showing him support as well. Although the response is far from a united front in defense of our basic human liberty of free speech, Mark Steyn must still be pretty happy with the support he has attracted.

The Glavin article, which summarizes and contextualizes the case beautifully, isolates precisely why we should feel so uncomfortable about this case:


"The Criminal Code prohibits any incitement of hatred against any identifiable group that is likely to result in a crime. It also prohibits the willful public promotion of hatred against any identifiable group. Break this law and you could find yourself in prison for up to two years.

But the Canadian Islamic Congress isn't using the Criminal Code to go after Maclean's and Steyn. Any reasonable person who reads the 70-page brief that forms the basis of its complaint will see why the case is being taken to human rights tribunals instead. It's because there's absolutely no way a criminal charge would hold up.

The Criminal Code's hate-speech provisions make plain that you can't be busted for statements that are true or for the expression of an honest opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a religious text. Statements relevant to the public interest and for the benefit of the public, and reasonably believed to be true, are free and clear of the hate-crime law.

But at the mercy of the human rights tribunals where the Canadian Islamic Congress wants them summoned, Maclean's and Steyn are not assured of any recourse to the defences the Criminal Code's hate-speech provisions provide.

The Canadian Islamic Congress isn't engaging in an entirely groundbreaking strategy -- tribunals have been used in hate-speech and incitement cases before, to useful effect, against Nazis, white-power lunatics, holocaust deniers and gay-bashers. But filing these sorts of complaints with human rights tribunals is a growing trend, and it's pushing the tribunals into terrain they weren't built to traverse."


Emphasis mine.

In a law class I once took, my professor remarked that Canadian courts have historically resented being used by the state or by organizations as a medium for revenge. Certainly a number of cases can be cited to substantiate this claim (R. v. Lalonde [1995], for example). What's so troublesome about this case, though, is the CIC’s transparent effort to circumvent the Criminal Code of Canada to revenge themselves on a writer who has clearly operated well within the bounds of Canadian hate speech laws. And also the impotence of the courts to address this obvious problem. If an appeal is eventually brought before the Supreme Court, which, judging by the CIC's historical tenacity is far from unlikely, their ruling will be confined to the facts of the case and the provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Code, with no recourse to the Criminal Code whatever.

Andrew Coyne, a favourite of mine from the National Post, explains, "The [human rights] commissions have been allowed to stray, far from their original purpose of preventing discrimination in employment and housing, into the nebulous world of expression." The Canadian Islamic Congress seeks vengeance against Steyn. Rather than recognize that living in a liberal democracy requires allowing your enemies to speak freely, providing that their actions comply with the law of the land, the CIC has decided to drag a century-old magazine and an eminent conservative pundit before tribunals on blatantly illiberal charges. And, worst of all, I wouldn’t even be surprised if the charges stick.

Again, Glavin puts the threat this case poses well:


"This entire escapade is not just a threat to Maclean's and Steyn specifically but to journalists generally, and also to pamphleteers, bloggers and just about anyone who might occasionally express a public opinion on a subject of public interest. It also threatens to invite the wrath of the Supreme Court of Canada, which should be expected if Maclean's and Steyn find themselves forced to fight this all the way up. The result could cause great harm to the credibility and the legal clout of human rights tribunals across the country."


Coyne adds context to the uproar quickly surrounding this suit:


"The case is not without precedent. Two years ago, the president of yet another Muslim group, the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, brought a similar complaint against the Western Standard before the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission (AHRCC), after the magazine published the famous "Danish cartoons," a collection of mild satires on Islamic extremism that offended some, but by no means all, Muslims. The commission begins hearings next month. Nor are Muslim groups the only complainants to seek the human rights commissions’ aid in suppressing speech they find offensive. Just last week, the AHRCC ruled a pastor from Red Deer, Stephen Boisson, was—is guilty the word?—of writing a letter to the editor of the local paper that said rude things about homosexuals. The chairwoman of the commission said she found “a circumstantial connection” between the letter and the beating of a gay teenager two weeks later."


Is anyone else beginning to feel indignation, so familiar after the Black case, boiling up again?

We can break it down this way. I know the charges are beyond weak. You know the charges are beyond weak. The Canadian Criminal Code damn well knows the whole situation is ludicrous. But what it worrisome is that the CIC clearly isn't concerned that this will affect the results under the Canadian Human Rights Code.

In the end, Mark's response says it all:


"I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to."

"If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post’s national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian “human rights” tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada.

"The "progressive" left has grown accustomed to the regulation of speech, thinking it just a useful way of sticking it to Christian fundamentalists, right-wing columnists, and other despised groups. They don’t know they’re riding a tiger that in the end will devour them, too."


I encourage anyone who opposes the current Canadian trend towards curtailment of our right to free speech to add the "I Support Mark Steyn" button to their blog, website, or facebook page (available from The Conservative Hipster’s blog) and to go out and buy Steyn’s controversial book “America Alone,” if you haven’t already.

In his article about the Steyn case, Coyne observes the complete absense of criminal culpability in Steyn’s writing and remarks incisively, "To deny, even in passing, that Muslims are being oppressed is, apparently, to ‘endanger their well-being.’” This is the basis of the charges against Steyn. Let's remind the CIC that this is not how a liberal democracy operates. As this spectacle unfolds, we must ask ourselves a crucial question: "How serious are we about defending our right to free speech?" If our basic liberties are to survive into the future, it is imperative that we respond with conviction: "We are very serious." Let's not let this be another "Danish cartoons" incident.