Saudi threats a SLAPP in the face

Blocking Canadian-made ad brings a taste of Saudi Arabian censorship to Canada

It’s been a week since the Saudi fatwa against CTV became public and nothing has been done.

Of course, Saudi Arabia didn’t actually issue a fatwa, like their fellow jihadis in Iran did when they condemned author Salman Rushdie to death in 1989 for writing a book they didn’t like.

The Saudis are so much more sophisticated than that. They hired Norton Rose, one of the world’s largest law firms, with 2,600 lawyers at their disposal. And instead of being driven mad by a novelist, the desert sheiks are braying about a 30-second TV ad by the Canadian NGO called EthicalOil.org , a group with whom I’m a volunteer.

EthicalOil.org produced the low-budget ad that says what everybody already knows: Saudi Arabian princes treat women in that society worse than they treat camels. That’s not a joke. Women aren’t allowed to drive, they’re not allowed to vote, their testimony in court is worth half that of a man’s. But at least the Saudis don’t force their camels to go out in the desert heat wearing a burka body bag.

Of course the Saudis don’t like that ad. The truth hurts. And the ad will never air in Saudi Arabia because they don’t have a free press there.

But that’s where Norton Rose’s 2,600 lawyers come in. They’re trying to bring a taste of that Saudi censorship to Canada.

Norton Rose threatened CTV, demanding it not run the ad. And CTV obeyed.

Was it because CTV just didn’t want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending a nuisance suit against a foreign dictatorship with more money than morals? Probably.

But CTV is also owned by Bell Canada, which has done an enormous amount of work in Saudi Arabia, building their telephone infrastructure. Did the Saudi sheiks pressure Bell Canada to shut up their CTV television station? I asked CTV’s spokesman and he wrote back to me. He didn’t confirm it — but he didn’t deny it, either.

This is bigger than a legal quarrel. It’s not really a legal quarrel at all. It’s one step away from outright blackmail. It’s what our Canadian courts call a “SLAPP” lawsuit — strategic litigation against public participation. It’s not a real suit. It’s abusing the courts as a weapon.

It’s lawfare. It’s prosecuting the jihad — with lawyers, not suicide bombers.

CTV should have stood firm. It should have told the Saudis to go pound sand. It should have realized freedom of the press is its corporate life blood, and even to spend $250,000 to fend off a lawsuit — a lawsuit the Saudis would never really have gone through with, for fear of public and diplomatic backlash — is a small price to pay for freedom.

I don’t accept CTV’s capitulation, but I understand it. It’s a hostages here. And it needs to be rescued by someone bigger than a law firm. It needs Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s help. CTV is being attacked by a foreign country. It needs our sovereign head of government to fight back — and I say this as a competitor to CTV.

Former cabinet minister Stockwell Day says there is no precedent for this kind of interference by a foreign power into Canada’s media.

Even during the Cold War, the Soviet Union did not hire lawyers to threaten Canadian media that criticized its totalitarian regime.

Put another way: Imagine the national outrage if the United States started threatening TV stations that said anti-American things.

This isn’t a legal matter. And it’s not even about the oilsands, or about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. That’s what it should have been about, had the ad aired.

But when a foreign dictatorship decided to destroy Canadian free speech, it became a matter of national security, counter-intelligence and national sovereignty.

The prime minister must summon the Saudi ambassador and tell him to call off Norton Rose and have them issue an apology to CTV.

If he doesn’t — send him packing back to his desert.

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