FREE SPEECH TAKES A HIT IN CANADA

Now, I've known a few people in my life from Canada. I knew an activist-type-fellow a few years back who told me that there was no guaranteed freedom of speech for Canadians. More recently a local friend from Canada tells me there is. Regardless, the media has been told they can't publish pictures of Afghanistani war dead. Check out this clip from [http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?ps=1012&id=12753363&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCLM_UNEWS|an April 25, 2006 article] from AP and Charter.Net:

Canada's new Conservative government banned the media from showing live images of the flag-draped coffins of four Canadian soldiers when their bodies were returned Tuesday from Afghanistan, angering political opponents and some families.

The government also has stopped lowering flags to half-staff outside Parliament each time a Canadian soldier is killed, prompting Liberals to accuse Prime Minister Stephen Harper of trying to play down the growing human cost of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.

Typical conservative. Respect life until it's the lives of soldiers doing your bidding in other countries where you really shouldn't be. So, what do you do? You stop the press from reporting on Canadian dead and you even stop lowering the flag to half-staff to better keep Canadians' minds off of Canadian's dying.

Hell, it worked in America.

Thanks be to Bob Edwards for posting a link to this article on TheShoutBox.