Hands off Salman Hossain

I have just returned from an extended sojourn in the southwestern United States.

I may blog about that experience later.

Upon my return, though, one of the first items I came across in the Canadian press was this one.

It tells of a student at York university in Toronto who has been suspended from class for posting what are described as `calls for genocide' against the Jewish people.

I'm not going to dispute that Solman Hossain's web site, Filthy Jewish Terrorist, is the work of a mind deranged by Islamic fascism.

However, as I stand up for the free speech of neo-Nazis, I must say that even Islamic fascists - who are, to my mind, a much greater threat not only to Jews, but to world peace generally - must have their speech rights protected as well.

The idea that anyone – even those who espouse vile ideas, such as Hossain – should be `investigated’ for their speech, let alone having to appear before a disciplinary hearing at his university, strikes me as quite terrifying in itself.

In the first place, it is entirely unclear to me just what this has to do with York university.

I have googled this Filthy Jewish Terrorists web site – no, I will not provide the URL but anyone can find it if they Google the term themselves. It’s off line now, but a cached page shows just how vile it is.

Nevertheless, it is not hosted by York university, as far as I can tell; it doesn’t mention that Hossain is a York U. Student (so far as I was able to tell, I didn’t read very much of it); again, as far as I saw, he threatens no Jews at York U.

Are universities now going to make it their business to police the actions, even the speech, of its students, during extra-curricular activities. That strikes me as really scary.

The news story reports that Hossain is also under investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police. This is, in itself, a legitimate exercise, because the province does have so-called `hate-crime’ laws on the books.

However, if so-called hate crimes do not apply to David Ahenakew, the Saskatchewan Indian leader who told a reporter, some years ago, that Adolf Hitler was correct in his attempt `to fry’ the Jews during the Holocaust – among many other expressions of hatred against Jews – then they certainly don’t apply to this Hossain character.

Ahenakew was acquitted – twice – on charges that he incited hatred against an identifiable group, on the absurd grounds that Ahenakew thought he was having a private conversation – when he spoke to a reporter who identified himself as such.

Objectively, Ahenakew was inciting hatred against an identifiable group – the Jews. It was my hope, though, upon his second acquittal, that the entire concept of `hate speech’ would become a dead-letter, as far as Canadian criminal statute was concerned.

Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The National Post story had an even scarier tidbit: three years ago, in response to the same or a similar web site, Hossain was also charged with inciting hatred against an identifiable group. However, he did not go to trial because the Ontario attorney-general at the time said he was “undergoing rehabilitation to correct his offensive behaviour” (hate-crimes prosecutions in Canada must be okayed by the provincial or federal attorneys-general).

Excuse me? “Undergoing rehabilitation” for “offensive behaviour”?

THAT definitely is scary.

In the first place, “rehabilitation” is supposed to be for those who have actually been convicted of a crime. According to the Ontario A-G, the whole hassle of due process was avoided in order to “rehabilitate” someone who, by definition, was not yet convicted of any crime.

Secondly, “offensive behaviour” is not a crime. Has anyone been convicted in court (true courts, not kangaroo-court `human rights’ tribunals) of being merely offensive?

Not in contemporary times, I would suggest.

Some will label me a “free speech absolutist” for my views. This term doesn’t even make sense, though. Free speech by definition must be absolute – short of direct incitement to violence or other harm AGAINST PARTICULAR INDIVIDUALS. If citizens’ speech is constantly abridged by exceptions, limitations, caveats and so on, it is simply no longer `free’ speech.

That goes for Islamic fascist such as this Hossain person, as well as Stalinists, Marxists, even anti-gay religious fundamentalists.