CRTC, Al Jazeera, Epic Backwardness

* Al Jazeera:

* Elmasry: Don't censor the Arab CNN

* Bud: The CNN of the Arab world?

* Letters: Al Jazeera

* Robert Spencer: Jihad TV Comes to Canada

* Jonas: Backwardness on an epic scale

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Elmasry: Don't censor the Arab CNN

Don't censor the Arab CNN Mohamed Elmasry, National Post, July 19, 2004

Last week, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission managed to eviscerate free speech in Canada -- under the pretense of protecting us from harm.

For the first time in its history, the CRTC has asked cable television distributors to censor all "abusive" material from a news network, the Arabic-language satellite station al-Jazeera, as a precondition for them carrying its 24-hour-a-day programming.

Why target only al-Jazeera? Why not other networks, such as CNN, BBC or even our CBC?

The new CRTC rules are designed to keep anti-Semitic or other abusive comments off the air. In principle, this apparent concern for human rights is laudable. In practice, however, these limitations will prove virtually impossible to enforce.

To turn commercial distributors into unpaid censors is impractical and flies against any notion that Canada is a liberal democracy whose constitution protects free expression. Moreover, to target only al-Jazeera with this unprecedented condition is beyond discriminatory -- it is racist.

No distributor can afford to monitor a 24/7 news network: Even if they wanted to, the costs of compliance would be astronomical. [. . . . ]

The CNN of the Arab world?

The president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, thinks that al-Jazeera should be licenced for cable viewing in Canada. He equates this anti-semetic and anti-western station with CNN. Well, if CNN would have people on who identified all Muslims as corrupt pigs, whose sole interest is to murder all non-Muslims, then it would be like Al-Jazeera's coverage of Israel and the West. It is not unusual for guest speakers on this station to make absurd claims, such as, for example, that the Jews were behind Sept.11, as well as any other terrorist attack committed by Islamic fanatics.

Al-Jazeera fans the flames of hatred towards any belief that is not consistent with their medieval dictums. This Elmasry is the same man who is pushing for Sharia law to be introduced into Canada for Muslims. I would think such a barbaric code would never have a chance; however, not only do we have the Liberals in thrall to the immigrant vote, now we have the loony-left NDP having an influence. As almost all Charter challenges that succeed eminate from the left, anything is possible. My attitude: You want to live under Sharia law or view the terrorist beheadings of Westerners on Al-Jazeera, then move back to the Middle East.

© Bud

Letters: Al Jazeera

ONLINE EXTRA:Our readers on crimes in jail and Al-Jazeera

Bad decision

Re: Al-Jazeera Terms Irk Cable Firms, July 16. Al-jazeera in Canada? OK, but I’m glad the CRTC is at least keeping Fox News out of the country. Tender Canadian minds might frizzle if exposed to a right-of-centre viewpoint, and U.S.-based at that! Without the ongoing protections of such entities as the CRTC, the billion-dollar CBC, the courts, and, the Liberal Party of Canada, this fragile thing we call Canada would simply collapse in a week.

Richard K. Ball, Charlottetown

Another letter --

[. . . . ] It is one thing to have a strong and intelligent point of view based on knowledge and truth, but al-Jazeera encourages the cruelest of human behavior with reporting and editorial content based on perpetuating long standing myths of Jewish blood libels and by relying on the propaganda of Arab dictators as the gospel truth. For those who do not understand the extent of al-Jazeera’s deception, a viewing of its English language web site would be most informative if not disturbing.

Canadians should fear that al-Jazeera may find a Canadian-based audience. Anti-Western sentiment, particularly that based on untruthful information, is a direct threat to Canadian national security. [. . . . ]

Interestingly, CRTC allows Canadians to view the lowest rated of the US-based news channels including CNN, CNN Headline News, CNBC and MSNBC but does not permit the Canadian broadcast of Fox News Channel, the highest rated and most viewed cable news channel in the US. Is CRTC’s mission to ensure the quality of programming made available to Canadians or to appease those among us who would rather kill us? [. . . . ] Jeffrey M. Brown , Thornhill, Ont.

Robert Spencer: Jihad TV Comes to Canada

Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine.com | July 20, 2004

[] But the incidents recounted above and others like them suggest that Canada may be getting more than it bargained for. According to a recent report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, “Terrorism of foreign origin continues to be a major concern in regard to the safety of Canadians at home and abroad. … Canada is viewed by some terrorist groups as a place to try to seek refuge, raise funds, procure materials and/or conduct other support activities. ... Virtually all of the most notorious international terrorist organizations are known to maintain a network presence in Canada.” From the looks of its track record, Al-Jazeera will provide these Canadian-based terrorists with a source of news, encouragement, and instruction.

What’s more, it will serve these radical Muslims as a useful recruiting tool. For jihadist recruiters in Canada, Al-Jazeera is likely to be an electronic madrassa beaming, twenty-four hours a day, the teachings and perspective of radical Islam into the living rooms of Canadian Muslims. Nor will this be a problem for Canada alone: what is to prevent those whom Al-Jazeera radicalizes and recruits for the global jihad from slipping across the border into the Great Satan?

George Jonas: Backwardness on an epic scale

Backwardness on an epic scale
George Jonas, National Post, July 19, 2004

[. . . . ] As a footnote to the decision of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to let al-Jazeera into the country, it seems that our brave broadcast commissars may have remembered that if fence-sitting were an Olympic sport, Canada would invariably bring home the gold.

The CRTC appears to have straddled the fence with admirable aplomb. [. . . . ]

Next item. As the anarchy continued in Gaza City this weekend, with gunmen from rival Palestinian factions burning down Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority offices yesterday, it illustrated again that turmoil in the Muslim world has little to do with Israel's policies, or even with Israel's existence. It would be in a state of upheaval if the Jewish state had never come into being.

Take a list of events: Egypt's use of poison gas against Yemen in the 1960s; the killing of tens of thousands of Syrian citizens by Assad the Elder; the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens by Saddam Hussein; the hundreds of thousands of Muslim casualties on both sides of the Iran-Iraqi war between 1980 and 1988; Saddam's invasion of neighbouring Kuwait; the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan; the global terrorism of al-Qaeda; the Indian-Pakistani nuclear standoff over Kashmir; the kidnappings and killings by Muslim guerrillas in the Philippines; the fratricidal murders in Algeria; the recent Muslim massacres in Indonesia; the current slaughter of black Christians by Arab Muslims in the Sudan -- all these and similar events over the last half century had nothing, nothing whatever, to do with Israel. There wasn't even an indirect connection. Presumably, these events would have occurred if no Jewish state had ever existed or even envisaged. [. . . . ]