During most of the 25 years of my political work, the process of criticizing the powerful and the mighty, then being criticized in return, went on until 2003 when Ekstra Bladet carried out a deliberate character assassination campaign against me, through front page lies and manipulation of words. It was that horrible experience that made me realize the power of the media and how the noble concept of freedom of expression was being monopolized by some arrogant and unprincipled journalists who had no scruples in destroying an individual's lifetime work.

Most Canadians are having some difficulty making sense of the recent foiled terrorist plot, announced by police officials on June 3, 2006. Allegedly, these Canadian terror suspects, who may have had international connections, had called their plot "Operation Badr," named after the legendary Battle of Badr, in which Islam's prophet Mohammad and his men carried out a raid and defeated a much larger force. Allegedly, the targets of the planned truck-bombings included the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) building, RCMP headquarters, CSIS, the CBC, as well as the Parliament buildings in Ottawa. Reportedly, the attacks were intended to kill Canadian civilians. In the scheme, members of Parliament had also been targeted for kidnapping and possible beheading. There were plans to behead the Prime Minister.

Why would these 17 alleged terrorists, all of them Muslim males, want to attack Canada? The most common explanation given is that the alleged terrorists wished to punish Canada in retaliation for its military role in Afghanistan, where Muslims are being killed. The seemingly most obvious goal of the attacks was to cause Canadians to pull their troops out of Afghanistan, and, supposedly, to save lives of Muslims. This fits with the alleged demands of the accused, namely, to force Canada to remove its troops from Afghanistan and release Muslim prisoners.

I NEVER dreamt I'd be defending a holocaust-denier. But then again I never thought I would need to.The "denier" in question, David Irving, a precocious British historian (aren't they all?), was jailed recently in Austria for denying the Holocaust -- a crime that in Austria, along with 9 other European countries warrants years of prison time.

A rather toadish looking fellow, Irving claimed that the number of Jews murdered at Auschwitz might be lower than originally claimed. "Given the ruthless efficiency of the Germans," Irving asks, "If there was an extermination program to kill all the Jews, how come so many survived?" Irving has capitulated somewhat, recanting his earlier theory and favoring instead the idea that the death tolls of the Holocaust (putting it lightly) might be slightly "off".

In November of 2005 -- and here comes the most insidious part -- Irving was arrested in Austria on his way to a university lecture. Although he may look like a disheveled badger, and his views are undeniably despicable, Irving is worth defending for two reasons.

First, the idea of free speech means that Irving's right to deny the Holocaust eclipses the complaints of those to whom such speech might be offensive. Europe should not pretend to loathe all things fascistic while its laws are replete with tactics used by Hitler, Franco, Stalin and Mussolini. By imprisoning Irving, Austria sets a dangerous precedent: that nations can revise history simply by jailing any naysayers. Granted, in this case, Austria has erred on the side of truth, but one should not be so optimistic for future cases. One might recall similar tactics used by Stalin to "revisit" Soviet history -- only Stalin preferred his ubiquitous death squad to prison.

The world is in the throes of dissent, enmity, hatred, malice and violence and religious leaders and believers in God, irrespective of the religion they follow, should promote the cause of peace and unity, rather than sow the seeds of discord and fanning the flames of bigotry and prejudice.

Religious tolerance has reached a new low in this land of the free, where freedom and justice should reign, but where hate mongers have hijacked the rights of individuals and use the print and electronic media as well as television to brain-wash the innocents into believing that one religion, ISLAM, is seeking to dominate the world. The Holy Qur'an makes it clear that there is no compulsion in religion. Chapter 2, v 256

As the followers of Islam tread a thin line between social justice and stereotyping, the world is being led to believe that this is a violent religion and some of its followers are satanic. The same can be said of other religions.

In this country, freedom of speech is an inherent right, but while freedom gives you the right to be wrong, it does not allow you to do wrong and that is exactly what is being done by some religious leaders, with impunity in many cases, and at the same time, denying the right of the followers of this faith, numbering 1.5 billion, to respond to these blasphemous and despicable assertions, because the media in most cases, is not open to them.

People generally have short memories and so I think it is necessary to remind the public of some of the comments made, not by Muslims, but rather, by non-Muslims, of the Religion of Islam.