Human Rights Complaints Against Maclean's Magazine - British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal

British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal heard the case over a five-day period beginning on June 2, 2008; Mohamed Elmasry was not present. The co-complainant in this case is Naiyer Habib, the BC board director for the Canadian Islamic Congress, who filed the complaint on behalf of all Muslims in British Columbia.

Joseph Faisal, legal counsel for the Canadian Islamic Congress opened his arguments by stating that the article Maclean's published presented Muslims as "a violent people" who hold traditional Canadian values "in contempt," and depicted Islam as "inhuman" and "violent." He also argued that the cover image that Maclean's chose to run, the image of two Muslim women, along with the magazine's cover line, "could have been the picture of a horror cult movie." Faisal criticized 20 other articles that ran in Maclean's, beginning in January 2005 that he claimed were offensive to Muslims and criticized Maclean's for publishing letters from readers praising the magazine and Steyn. Faisal added that "We're prepared to deal with those articles piece by piece, paragraph by paragraph, and those things that we find objectionable."

Faisal and Habib's complaint claims that Maclean's and Steyn, who wrote the article, violated Section 7-1 of British Columbia's Human Rights Code, which stipulates that a person must not publish or cause to be published anything that discriminates against a person or group, or exposes them to hatred or contempt. Under the BC Human Rights code, the complainants are not required to prove harm, or malicious intent; all that is required is a reasonable determination that the excerpt did express hatred and contempt toward Muslims, and likely caused it to spread.

Faisal implored the BC Human Rights Tribunal to take action, arguing that it is "the court of last resort. You are the only opportunity to right a terrible wrong to a clearly identifiable group numbering hundreds of thousands in this great country, and tens of thousands in the beautiful province of British Columbia. You are the only thing between racist, hateful, contemptuous Islamaphobic and irresponsible journalism, and law-abiding Canadian citizens."

Mahmoud Ayoub, a historian of religion with a doctorate from Harvard University, testified that Steyn's claim in his article that Islam is "an underground movement trying to take over the world" has no basis in Islamic scripture or tradition. Ayoub disputed Steyn's interpretation of the word "jihad," asserting that the word has a variety of meanings unrelated to violence. Ayoub also disputed Steyn's portrayal of Islamic extremism as mainstream saying that the extremist fringe represented less than one million of the total 1.5 billion Muslims.

Lawyers for Maclean's argued that publication of the article is part of free speech and open debate. Julian Porter, the lead counsel for the magazine, asserted that the Steyn's article "does not meet the standard of hatred or contempt, and that's what we'll argue later in the week". The lawyers for Maclean's did not call any witnesses during the week of hearings and instead argued against the complaint on constitutional grounds.

In his closing arguments, Faisal stated that "There has never been a case in this country that has had such clear, concise evidence, ever. There will never be any more demonstrable evidence of hatred that has been perpetrated by this article." Faisal also sharply criticized Julian Porter, one of Maclean's lawyers, stating that:

If had his way, each and every Muslim in the country also bear the additional albatross that, apparently, we as Muslims in the country are responsible, personally, for Osama Bin Laden. How ridiculous - this is the type of mindset that prevails in the media.

The Canadian Association of Journalists and the BC Civil Liberties Association presented a joint submission asking the tribunal to refine its interpretation of hate speech saying that previous rulings have been "overly expansive" and "have consequently brought the institutional legitimacy of the (tribunal) into question."

If Maclean's is found to have violated BC's Human Rights Code, it could face sanctions, including payment to the complainant "an amount that the member or panel considers appropriate to compensate that person for injury to dignity, feelings and self respect or to any of them." However, Faisal has stated that he only wants the Tribunal to order Maclean's to publish "an appropriate response." The Tribunal's hearing concluded on June 8, 2008.