Trial cites U.S. Web sites

Two American Web sites - one conservative, the other Catholic - are at the heart of a Canadian prov incial government hearing against Maclean’s magazine, Canada’s largest national newsweekly.

The magazine was brought before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal after publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s best-seller “America Alone” under the title “The Future Belongs to Islam.” The first part of the hearing began last Monday and ran until Friday afternoon.

The American Web sites introduced by the complainants are FreeRepublic, a popular conservative discussion forum, and Catholic Answers, an evangelism and apologetics site popular among young Catholics. Both American sites are based in California.

Faisal Joseph, an attorney for the Muslim group that brought the charges against Maclean’s, introduced discussions on the two U.S. sites as evidence that Mr. Steyn’s 2006 article had exposed Muslims in North America to hate. Posters on both forums had commented on the Maclean’s article, with some comments expressing strong anti-Islamic sentiment.

Mr. Joseph also cited postings from Five Feet of Fury, the Web site run by Canadian blogger Kathy Shaidle, and the Brussels Journal, a Web site that styles itself “the voice of conservatism in Europe.”

Maclean’s has no control over how anonymous Internet posters respond to articles that appear in its magazine - particularly when the Web sites hosting the discussion are outside Canada’s jurisdiction and the commentators are Americans protected by the First Amendment, attorneys for Maclean’s argued.

The defense also pointed out the complaint was initiated by Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, who is from the central Canadian province of Ontario, rather than the Pacific Coast province of British Columbia (B.C.), where the case was heard.

Numerous Canadians and Americans following the hearing denounced the case as absurd and that it is a threat to free speech that a provincial tribunal is asserting jurisdiction over the writings of a best-selling author residing in New Hampshire, based upon an out-of-province complainant offended by the response of anonymous American readers on American Web sites.

“The reason why they went after us … in B.C. is because the legislation in B.C. is so open-ended,” wrote Andrew Coyne, a Maclean’s writer covering the Vancouver hearing for the magazine. The legislation applies to any sign, statement, publication, symbol or such document that “is likely to expose someone to hatred or contempt,” he said.

Complainants do not have to prove a communication caused contempt or exposed a person to contempt, Mr. Coyne said. No specific harm or damage need be proven, either.

“They just have to show … that it was likely to,” Mr. Coyne said. “You can prove just about anything under that … ridiculously low standard.”

The introduction of the American and other Web sites also was strongly objected to by Maclean’s attorneys because the evidence was not disclosed in advance - an objection the panel rejected.

“The complainants showed up the night before the case - indeed on the day - with documents that the respondent, Maclean’s magazine, had never seen and just dumped these on us,” Mr. Coyne said.

The tribunal appeared to making up the rules as the hearing proceeded, he said, noting that the tribunal’s panelists had no prior training as judges and that a “real court” would have instantly dismissed the introduction of the Web postings that were not previously disclosed.

“In real courts, evidence is covered by rules of procedure,” said Ezra Levant, a former magazine publisher and the subject of another province’s human rights commission investigation. “This means the case against you has to be disclosed in advance.”

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