Roger Kimball has an excellent piece today on the growing threat from “libel tourism.” Kimball leads with the story of a libel case brought in Britain against the book Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, by Robert O. Collins. The plaintiff, Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker, has already won similar judgments against three other books, but this time, the American author has successfully challenged the ruling in American courts as “contrary to the First Amendment and hence unenforceable on an American citizen.” Kimball also raises the issue of the ongoing Canadian suit against Macleans, which had the audacity to publish an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s bestselling America Alone:
Kenneth Whyte, the editor of Macleans, published 27 responses to Steyn’s article, but he was quite right to reject a demand that he publish, unedited, a five-page article by Muslim students. “I told them I would rather go bankrupt than let somebody from outside our operations dictate the content of the magazine.” Let’s hope it won’t come to that.
Kimball links to this piece by Stanley Kurtz at NRO for background on the Steyn case:
I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian “human rights” tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada. As I say, I find it difficult to imagine. But not impossible. These “human rights” censors started with small fry – obscure websites, “homophobes” who made the mistake of writing letters to local newspapers or quoting the more robust chunks of Leviticus – and, because they got away with it, it now seems entirely reasonable for a Canadian pseudo-court to sit in judgment on the content of a mainstream magazine and put a big old “libel chill” over critical areas of public debate. The “progressive” left has grown accustomed to the regulation of speech, thinking it just a useful way of sticking it to Christian fundamentalists, right-wing columnists, and other despised groups. They don’t know they’re riding a tiger that in the end will devour them, too.
Both pieces are well worth your time.
