Maclean's magazine, Canada's Newsweek, was brought before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for running an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book America Alone.

The California websites introduced as evidence were FreeRepublic and Catholic Answers. The claim was that their discussion boards proved that Maclean's inspire hate-speech toward Muslims.

The Washington Times reports:

Numerous Canadians and Americans following the hearing denounced the case as absurd and that it is a threat to free speech that a provincial tribunal is asserting jurisdiction over the writings of a best-selling author residing in New Hampshire, based upon an out-of-province complainant offended by the response of anonymous American readers on American Web sites.

We also point out the absurdity of naming a site called 'Free Republic' in a very totalitarian type tribunal. What's next? The Southern Poverty Law Center and the overly permissive US Constitution?