Indeed:
Quote:
The writings of Canada's most talented journalist, Mark Steyn, went on trial in Vancouver on Monday, in a case designed to challenge freedom of the press. It is a show trial, under the arbitrary powers given to Canada's obscene "human rights" commissions, by Section 13 of our Human Rights Act.
I wrote "obscene" advisedly. Before Canada's "human rights" tribunals, a respondent has none of the defences formerly guaranteed in common law. The truth is no defence, reasonable intention is no defence, nor material harmlessness, there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind. The commissars running the tribunals need have no legal training, exhibit none, and owe their appointments to networking among leftwing activists.
I wrote "show trial" advisedly, for there has been a 100 percent conviction rate in cases brought to "human rights" tribunals under Section 13.
Quote:
Another crucial point:
While media attention to Mark Steyn's show trial is inadequate (it is getting more attention in the United States than up here), it is nevertheless the best publicized case ever to come before our "human rights" bureaucracies. Most of the victims of these neo-Maoist tribunals have been "little people," with nothing like the resources Maclean's magazine has put in play to defend itself and Steyn, and no media reporting whatever. They have been persecuted, stripped of their livelihoods and savings, demonized among their neighbours, made to endure humiliating "re-education" programmes -- without lawyers, without assistance of any kind -- all for exercising rights that any Canadian would have taken for granted a mere generation ago.
I want justice for Mark Steyn. But I also want justice for all these little people, who have been crushed under the jackboot of "political correction."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/show_trial.html
Not exactly free speech. I know France has something similar if not worse. And these countries are considered part of the "free" world.