Muhammad Cartoon fallout continues

I was gonna sum up the Ezra Levant story for you, but he beat me to it this afternoon:

1. Two years ago, the now-defunct Western Standard magazine reprinted the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. I was the publisher.

2. In response, a radical Muslim imam named Syed Soharwardy asked the Calgary Police Service to arrest me. They didn't, of course. So Soharwardy complained to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, a government agency. Here's his hand-scrawled complaint; here's my reply. For two years, using government lawyers and taxpayers money, they have been pursuing me, infringing on my natural rights of free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion.

3. On January 11th, a government "human rights officer" interrogated me for 90 minutes. Instead of bowing my head, I used the opportunity to challenge the moral and legal basis of the complaint, and the human rights commission itself.

4. I recorded the interrogation and posted video clips to YouTube. In the past week, they have been viewed nearly 400,000 times and were at one point the fifth most watched videos on all of YouTube. Though Canadian talk radio shows and op-ed columnists have covered the story well, I have seen only one newspaper report on the subject. I can't understand why mainstream reporters and editors do not think it's newsworthy that a publisher can be summoned by a government bureaucrat, and grilled as to his political thoughts. I'm pleased, though, that the support from pundits has come not just from the right, but from the enlightened left.

5. I've got some ideas of what people can do. Although my case is being prosecuted by the hapless, lame-duck provincial government of Alberta, it is politically more likely that change will come first to the federal Canadian Human Rights Commission. That commission is currently hounding columnist Mark Steyn on similar thought crime charges.

Not a lot I can add to that. The Western Standard is only defunct in the world of print; it's just been net-exclusive for a few months. If you pick a login here, you can size up westernstandard.ca. There's a great article on Marc Emery, from whom until very recently you could freely buy mail-order pot.

The YouTube clips, where Levant stands up w/ entirely no hope to the pleasant face of governmental annihilation, are the main attraction. Here's clips 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. He's the real deal.

And:

139 dead in Cartoon-related riots. How good does the dimmest Christian look next to these numbnuts?