Editors of the National Review Online: Free Mark Steyn

This was posted on National Review Online earlier this week:

"Most of the media in Canada and the United States ignored the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal that took place last week in a windowless basement in Vancouver. Now, a group of provincial human-rights commissars will decide whether or not National Review’s incomparable Mark Steyn and the largest-circulating magazine in Canada, Maclean’s, will be fined or otherwise censured for printing an excerpt from Steyn’s book, America Alone. The piece argued that demographic trends indicate that Western Civilization will sooner or later be forced to confront problems associated with radical Islam. We believe that the right to free speech must be defended almost without exception, but it’s worth noting that Steyn’s article was perfectly within the bounds of reasonable opinion journalism."

"While only an administrative hearing, the human-rights travesty had the air and authority of an actual trial — except with few of the legal protections usually afforded the accused. Andrew Coyne, a journalist with Maclean’s, live-blogged the farce; his dispatches were as amusing as they were harrowing. The proceedings had no evidentiary rules — new evidence was routinely introduced without warning. Commissioners routinely recessed to determine the eligibility of evidence; legal representation would dash off mid-hearing to print Internet material to introduce as evidence; an “expert” witness was called whose chief credentials were academic papers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and still other witnesses were called under the prejudicial direction that “we anticipate that success in this case will provide the impetus for prohibiting discriminatory publications in the other provinces.”"...

"Silence only serves the cause of this miscarriage of justice. Speak up — and free Steyn, Maclean’s, and Canada."

Full editoral.