Excerpt:
After a week-long hearing, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is now weighing its decision on a complaint that a Maclean's magazine article subjected Muslims to hatred and contempt.
"There has never been a case in this country that has had such clear, concise evidence, ever," Faisal Joseph, lawyer for the complainants, said in his closing arguments Friday. "There will never be any more demonstrable evidence of hatred that has been perpetrated by this article."
The complaint against the article - written by Mark Steyn, titled Why the Future Belongs to Islam and published Oct. 23, 2006 - was made to the B.C. tribunal by Naiyer Habib, an Abbotsford cardiologist and B.C. director for the Canadian Islamic Congress.
This followed a complaint by Ontario resident Mohamed Elmasry, the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, on behalf of Muslim residents of B.C.
It alleges the magazine discriminated against Muslims on religious and racial grounds contrary to section 7 (1) of the B.C. Human Rights Code.