Sen. Arlen Specter backed out of speaking at a Tuesday conference on the
global effort to silence speech critical of Islam, citing a
scheduling conflict, but the Council on American-Islamic
Relations has taken credit for his decision.
In February Specter introduced
legislation in the U.S. Senate aimed at protecting American
authors who have been sued under plaintiff-friendly libel laws
overseas. He was scheduled to speak about the trend, known as
"libel tourism," at a Washington conference being sponsored by
the Legal Project of the Middle East Forum, the Federalist
Society Center for National Security Law, and the Thomas
Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.
CAIR branded it an "anti-Islam" conference and launched a
petition drive last Friday protesting Specter's appearance, and
on Monday the pressure group
took credit for getting him to cancel.
But Brooke Goldstein*, who organized the conference in her role
as director of the Middle East Forum's Legal Project, said that
Specter had canceled his scheduled appearance two days before
CAIR launched its online petition. The group issued a press
release
responding to CAIR this morning, noting that Specter has not
changed his support for the legislation he co-sponsored with
Sens. Chuck Schumer and Joe Lieberman.
Specter's office wrote in an email to TAS that "he had
several hearings and constituent meetings scheduled for this
morning."
One of the speakers at the conference, James Taranto of the
Wall Street Journal, noted:
We do not have a strong opinion as to whether, as CAIR puts it,
"American Muslims are involved in a concerted effort to
suppress free speech on Islam." Running a petition to pressure
an elected official not to participate in a conference on the
subject would seem, however, to fit that description.
Other speakers included Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz, Frank
Gaffney, and Andrew McCarthy. More on the conference itself to
come.
*Brooke
Goldstein is an occasional contributor to The
American Spectator.
