A few days old but, lest we forget: Ezra Levant was fined $80,000 by a Canadian court:
Levant’s posts centred on Awan’s testimony at a British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal case…Awan was a law student when the article was published and was among a group of students who alleged the article was Islamophobic…Some of blog posts are titled “Awan the liar,” “Awan the liar part two” and so forth…Levant’s lawyer had said his defence was primarily one of fair comment. He had said the blog posts were based upon what Levant observed over two days of Awan’s testimony at the human rights tribunal and were comments on a matter of public interest.
Via HotAir, where Jazz Shaw explains that Levant was fined for expression of *opinion*:
When you get to subjects such as social evolution, religion and prognostication about the future (which was the subject of the original article) it’s fairly obvious that you are talking about matters of opinion. Even here in the United States, you can’t go around writing, for example, that Bob is a drug dealer unless you can come up with some proof to support the allegation. That veers off from the arena of opinion and into the land of slander and libel. But Ezra Levant was disagreeing with Awan – albeit somewhat strenuously – on more subjective matters. For this exchange of ideas a Canadian judge has fined him $80K.
I’m sure this is just what the Left would love to see in America. Levant plans to appeal; feel free to help him pay for it.
UPDATE: Not that I’m sure the U.S. is that much better. Of his order on deportations, President Obama has now boasted, “I just took an action to change the law” – thus ignoring the U.S. constitution, which assigns that power to Congress.