Excerpt:
Hate speech creates a "silencing dynamic" that excludes disadvantaged groups from civil participation, according to Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.
In a submission to Richard Moon, a University of Windsor law professor hired by the Canadian Human Rights Commission to review its online hate speech mandate, Prof. Elmasry writes that "the state should act to empower those who are disadvantaged by hate speech, and that may mean lowering the voices of some in order that others may be heard."
He called for mandatory press councils, and an end to "media monopoly," and said the CHRC was wrong to dismiss his recent complaint of Islamophobia in Maclean's magazine, which "aired its opinions to more than two million readers, but CHRC did not hold a hearing for Canadian Muslims and experts to voice their views."
His comments are a rare departure from the public silence the controversial Muslim leader has taken on an issue in which he is deeply invested.