The madness won't end

The Western Standard is being dragged before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Mohammed cartoons. Ezra Levant is confident the case will be dismissed in the end, but I wouldn't put anything past a provincial human rights board, whose members must be salivating at the chance to stick it to one of Canada's few conservative publications. You can contribute towards the magazine's legal defence fund here.

Following the lead of Canadian bookstore chains who wouldn't stock the offending issue of the Western Standard, two major American booksellers are declining to carry the latest issue of a secular-humanist magazine, Free Inquiry, for the same reason:

Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

The magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism in suburban Amherst, includes four of the drawings that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse. [emphasis added] (via LGF)

And according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, NYU is ordering a student group to seal from the public an event at which the dreaded cartoons will be shown:

Earlier this month, the NYU Objectivist Club decided to hold a panel discussion entitled “Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons,” at which the cartoons will be displayed. Similar events, sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), have taken place on several other campuses. Like previous NYU Objectivist Club events, the discussion was to be open to the public.

However, on Monday afternoon, NYU Director of Student Activities Robert Butler sent an e-mail requesting a meeting with the leaders of the Objectivist Club the next day. He also informed them that NYU would now “require that this event be open only to members of the NYU community.” Butler cited “the campus climate and controversy surrounding the cartoons,” ordering the students to inform the “non-NYU people” who had already registered that they “should not plan on attending.” He concluded, “This is not negotiable.”

Following the meeting, Butler sent another e-mail clarifying that the students have two choices: they must either not display the cartoons, or not allow anyone from off campus to attend the event. Approximately 150 off-campus guests are currently registered to attend. (via The Volokh Conspiracy)

Our commitment to freedom of expression is being challenged, and our universities and bookstores - who you'd think would have a particular interest in making sure this precious right is protected - are falling over themselves to surrender.

Posted by damian at March 30, 2006 07:27 AM