The Imam Strikes Back! Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Al-Hayiti Speaks!

I am unimpressed by the latest CHRC "scandal", and particularly unimpressed by the comparison of Mr. Al-Hayiti's book (L’Islam ou l’Intégrisme?), which the CHRC argued did not meet the Section 13 standard, to the writings of Stephen Boisson, which were judged to have met that standard. Most of my arguments get hashed out in the comments (ignore NAMBLA-Dick) here, but the short version is that Boisson's letter to the Red Deer Advocate triggered a concrete incident of gay bashing by one of Mr. Boisson's associates, and it is pretty easy to interpret his letter in context as a concrete call to action against the local homosexual community (as opposed to Mr. Al-Hayiti's book, in which the offensive language is rather vague).

In any case, while Mr. Boisson has argued his case on various blogs and other online forums, Mr. Al-Hayiti thus far has not. So I fired off a quick email to the yahoo group he is associated with Mr. Al-Hayiti's and asked him:

Would Mr. Al-Hayiti like to respond to the claims in this and other stories that his book contains language likely to expose gays, lesbians, and jews to "hatred and contempt"?

Mr. Al-Hayiti responded as follows:

Maybe the complaint should have been against the Qor'an, the Word of God! Or maybe even against the bible also! Do you think the commission should censor God? Everything I said in my book is from the revelation, not from me! I have nothing else to say.

Thank you!

So there you have it.

Meet Salman Hossain, Poster Boy For Section 13

From The NP:

A Toronto man who had posted messages on the Internet supporting terrorist attacks in Canada and the deportation of Jews will not face criminal charges, police said on Monday.

The CJC is not happy, and has asked that the

Ministry of the Attorney General to conduct a review of statements alleged to have been made by Salman Hossain to determine if charges should be laid under section 319(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada.

They are also asking for a meeting with the AG himself (Chris Bentley) so that they might "discuss this matter in greater detail".

Interesting to see what transpires. Human Rights activists like Warman and (I believe) Abrams have long complained about the difficulty in getting charges laid under the criminal code, and argued that the HRC/HRT apparatus plays an important role of catching stuff that probably meets the cc requirement but which, for whatever reason, the police/AG combination have chosen not to pursue.

Mr. Hossain's writings would be a perfect occasion for a section 13 complaint, and we'll see if the CJC makes any moves in that direction in the coming few months, should all else fail.

Just as an aside, Dawg has a good post on similar topics from last night. I'm feeling lazy today, and in any case I might do a post on Stephen Boisson at a later date, so I'll just note that I reject Dawg's equating the writings of Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus Al-Hayiti with those of Stephen Boisson. I've given these reasons before, but here they are again:

I am unimpressed by the latest CHRC "scandal", and particularly unimpressed by the comparison of Mr. Al-Hayiti's book (L’Islam ou l’Intégrisme?), which the CHRC argued did not meet the Section 13 standard, to the writings of Stephen Boisson, which were judged to have met that standard. Most of my arguments get hashed out in the comments (ignore NAMBLA-Dick) here, but the short version is that Boisson's letter to the Red Deer Advocate triggered a real incident of gay bashing by one of Mr. Boisson's associates, and it is pretty easy to interpret his letter in context as a concrete call to action against the local homosexual community (as opposed to Mr. Al-Hayiti's book, in which the offensive language is rather vague).

Incidentally, at the time I was able to contact Mr. Al-Hayiti, and he wrote back to me:

Maybe the complaint should have been against the Qor'an, the Word of God! Or maybe even against the bible also! Do you think the commission should censor God? Everything I said in my book is from the revelation, not from me! I have nothing else to say.Thank you!

...which didn't impress me at the time, but now seems to bear out the argument made in Dawg's comments that Al-Hayiti is describing what the Qor'an says about, for example, gays--that they shall be punished by Allah, at some point--not demanding that people should run out and start beheading them. Still offensive, sure. But missing several of the properties that give something up to the S13 standard.