CCLA: NO to Caledonia civil rights abuses, YES to Muslim veils in Ontario courts

After reading about how the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) recently refused – again to even consider the possibility of defending Caledonia citizens against the civil rights abuses suffered at the hands of the OPP and Ontario government, a friend informed me that the CCLA was an intervenor in the outrageous Ontario Court of Appeal decision that not only allows Muslim women to testify while their faces are covered, but states that veiled women can ask the court to remove all men from the court! 

The CCLA makes silly excuses about why it won’t even meet with us to talk about the systemic, years-long civil rights abuses during an illegal peacekeeping mission on Canadian soil used to subvert the Charter and Ontario’s Police Services Act, but it worked to deny an accused the right to face his accuser simply because the accuser was a Muslim woman and, in the process, normalized what Ezra Levant calls ‘gender apartheid,’ AKA: sharia law: 

From Ezra Levant…

It is illegal for a woman wearing a face-obscuring veil to board a plane in Canada. But a unanimous ruling last week by the Ontario Court of Appeal says it’s just fine for that same woman to give testimony in court with her face covered.

There’s more. Ontario’s highest court says veiled women can ask for an order to clear men out of the courtroom — any men in the public gallery, any male court staff, even her opponent’s lawyer, even the judge himself — in return for taking off her veil. It’s paragraph 85 of the ruling.

Shariah law has come to Canada.

Face-obliterating veils called niqabs are a medieval tool for gender apartheid. They destroy a woman’s identity. They turn her into an object, a chattel owned by her master — which is why they’re the norm in Saudi Arabia, where women have fewer rights than men and only slightly more than animals. […]

To their shame, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association intervened to support this. They have demanded Bibles be removed from schools and the Lord’s Prayer be banned from legislatures. But Muslim veils — a chastity belt for the face — have their support in a secular court. […]

• Ezra Levant, Toronto Sun, Oct 17/10: Court decision puts veil over women’s rights [PDF]

From the Canadian Civil Liberties Association…

[…] The case arose when one of the accused in a sexual assault case argued that his Charter right to full answer and defence was infringed by N.S. testifying at the preliminary inquiry while wearing her niqab. He argued that as part of his defence he is entitled to a full and thorough cross-examination of the complainant and that, for the purposes of both the cross-examiner and the preliminary inquiry judge, it is essential to observe the complainant’s demeanour in order to assess her credibility.

The CCLA intervened in the case at the Court of Appeal and argued that religious freedoms and beliefs must be respected and that requiring a woman to remove her niqab to testify in Court unjustifiably infringed her freedom of religion. The CCLA also argued that allowing a witness to testify wearing her niqab would facilitate the search for the truth. The Court of Appeal accepted this argument and also noted that allowing a sexual assault complainant to wear a niqab while testifying may promote genderal equality and also recognize the importance of her religious beliefs, reflecting Canada’s multicultural heritage. […]

• Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Oct 13/10: Ontario Court of Appeal rules on issue of niqab in the courtroom [PDF]

From the Court of Appeal for Ontario…

[85] Attempts to reconcile competing interests using “constructive compromises” might include the use of an all female court staff and a female judge. Those measures might also include, where constitutionally permissible, an order that a witness be crossexamined by female counsel. Consideration might also be given to using the measures provided for in the Criminal Code to protect complainants testifying in sexual assault cases and child witnesses. If necessary, the court could be closed to all male persons other than the accused and his counsel. In this case, resort to the measures outlined above could result in N.S., if she was required to remove her niqab, revealing her face to only one male person, M—d.S., to whom her religious beliefs indicated she should not. Without diminishing the significance of even that intrusion, it certainly respects and protects her religious rights much more than would a simple order that she remove her niqab.

• Court of Appeal for Ontario, Oct 13/10: Her Majesty the Queen and N.S. and M—d.S. and M—l.S. [VoC DOWNLOAD, PDF, 56P]

VoC Comment

Methinks the Canadian Civil Liberties Association needs a name change. Canadian Civil Liberties for Some Association (CCLSA) sounds just about right. Or, Canadian Destroyer of Civil Liberties Association (CDCLA). That works, too, I suppose. I’ll leave others to comment on the judges that brought Sharia law to Ontario.

References

• Caledonia Victims Project, March 08/11: Canadian Civil Liberties Association closes door on Caledonia civil rights abuses
• Wikipedia.org: Aqsa Parvez (referenced in Ezra Levant article)

Mark Vandermaas, Editor
VoiceofCanada
info@voiceofcanada.ca