Ezra Levant and the Sock's Suit

So..... Ezra Levant is getting sued for libel. By Khurrum Awan the, according to Ezra, sock puppet and liar.

The case goes like this. Mark Steyn wrote a book. An excerpt from this book was published in Macleans magazine. The original article called "The Future Belongs to Islam" is available here. Some people including Mohammed Elmassry and Kharrum Awan considered the article to be hate speech against Muslims and, after trying mediation with Macleans which did not work, brought a complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

The Tribunal heard the case and decided that the article was not illegal hate speech. The ruling can be found here http://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bchrt/doc/2008/2008bchrt378/2008bchrt378.html

This trial was also liveblogged by Ezra Levant (scroll to the 2nd and 3rd of June) and Andrew Coyne http://www2.macleans.ca/2008/06/02/liveblogging-the-bc-human-rights-tribunal—part-i/

Awan kept telling the press that they wanted a rebuttal to the piece written by a mutually acceptable author and published by Macleans.

Only thing is, they never told Macleans the mutually acceptable bit.

This, according to Levant, is a lie. So he said so. Numerous times.

Awan took issue with this. So he brought a libel lawsuit because Levant called, or was said to have insinuated by implication that Awan was a liar, fool, stupid, serial malicious money-grubbing liar, anti-semite, purjurer, unethical, con artist, in a conflict of interests, unfit to be a lawyer, etc.

Here is his original libel notice and his statement of claim

Ezra Levant's blog response is here. http://ezralevant.com/2010/01/mark-steyns-wouldbe-censor-sue.html He is asking for donations to help cover his costs.

More commentary here:

Covenant Zone

Blazing Cat Fur

National Post (old commentary)