Where do we draw the line?

While Free Dominion ponders how to deal with a Human Rights complaint, today's National Post reports that Vision TV aired another hour-long talk by fundamentalist Israr Ahmad on Saturday - one day after saying it regretted broadcasting a previous lecture by the Pakistani preacher, who says Muslim scripture advocates violent holy war and the "extermination" of Jews.

Amad's Saturday lecture apparently included statements comparing the Jews to "parasites", and described the Holocaust as "divine punishment" and called Jews "condemned."

"It is most troubling that VisionTV made a calculated decision to re-broadcast a segment featuring a radical Imam, whose words have the potential to incite hatred and violence," Frank Dimant of B'nai Brith Canada said yesterday.

"It is a complete abdication of their responsibility to knowingly give a platform to this individual whose calls for jihad can clearly be interpreted by his supporters as a call to engage in terrorism. B'nai Brith Canada will be launching a formal complaint with the CRTC calling for a full investigation of this matter."

The comparison is interesting because both situations deal with allegedly inflammatory third-party dissertations, but the first case is a conservative-leaning internet forum and the second is a TV channel supposedly regulated by the CRTC.

Free Dominion's Connie Wilkins was interviewed last night by Michael Coren (Suzanne has it here). Wilkins alluded to the possibility that the end goal here may be to try to shut down Free Dominion, and other Conservative blogs when the business of worrying about third-party comments becomes too complicated and expensive to handle.

Personally, I think all bloggers need to be concerned about this eventuality. Few of us can afford lawyers. Most of us are providing this service free of charge. Some have tip jars to help pay for the costs of the domain site, but few if any are making a living from blogging.

Television broadcasters on the other hand, have access to corporate lawyers and cash.

I know what you're thinking - What about that 'faceless digital entity' that used vulgarity to attack the mother of a recently-fallen Canadian Soldier? Well, I think blogs can be self-governing to a point. Once the offensive post is pointed out, the owner can then decide whether to delete and apologize or carry on, in which case they will likely lose readership in the long run. Also, remember that in that particular case, we are talking about the blog owner making an offensive comment; not a third party or guest.


I would also suggest that the remarks made by Israr Ahmad on Vision TV were far more inflammatory than those made by Bill Whatcott (Relapsed Catholic).

Kathy notes in a subsequent post:

And Coren made an excellent point: "Isn't the notion that 'radical Islam is a threat to national security' actually the official policy of the Canadian government...?"

Perhaps there's fodder here for another Human Rights complaint.

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Update: Actually maybe the next complaint will be directed at the National Post, which has dared to publish this letter complaining about the Vision programming:

"...This program must be shut down as it propagates jihadi violence against non-Muslims. We Canadian Muslims must learn from the British experience and start the crucial task of waking up from the state of denial and realize there is no shame in confronting extremism within our communities. If our beloved Canada is going to confront radicals and violent extremists, we simply cannot afford to tolerate individuals who take advantage of our liberty and democracy to harm fellow Canadians."

And at BigCityLib Strikes Back - The Ballad of Free Dominion and other news. (BCLSB provides a MSM link to the story).

Tuesday Update: Letter from Bill Roberts of Vision - An apology and clarification.

Wednesday Update: From Jack's Newswatch: Political website cited for crime of 'offending'.