Page: 18 First post complained of Khurrum Awan is a serial liar Julian Porter himself was at the meeting where Khurrum Awan and his junior Al Sharptons tried to shake down Ken Whyte and Maclean’s for cash and a cover story. Porter asked Awan point blank if the CIC’s proposed “counterarticle” was to be “mutually acceptable” to Whyte or of the CIC’s own choosing. After obfuscating for a few rounds, Awan acknowledged that he never in fact offered a “mutually acceptable” article -- that was simply an after-the-fact lie, a little bit of taqqiya that Awan et al. has told the press. Awan admitted that he made no such offer of a mutually acceptable author. It was to be the CIC’s own choice. [116] It is alleged that these words meant and were understood to mean that the plaintiff is a dishonest person and a liar. These meanings are both obvious and defamatory. These meanings would tend to lower the plaintiff’s reputation among ordinary right-thinking members of society. [117] It is also alleged that the use of the word “taqqiya” meant and was understood to mean that the plaintiff believed that it was permissible to lie and use deceit in order to further Islamic objectives. Based on the trial evidence, taqqiya (more usually spelled taqiyya) at least means deception, and is defamatory. [118] The defendant testified that he used hyperlinks to provide the factual basis for his words. In this instance, the word “taqqiya” was hyperlinked to an article entitled “Islamic Tactics of Taqqiya teaches Muslims to practise Deception, Fraud and Double Standards to spread Islam”. At trial, the defendant attempted to minimize this choice of hyperlink by saying he was doing his posts very quickly and at a later stage used a more authoritative link for taqqiya in another post. However, the original link was not changed. [119] There are several factual errors in this post. For example, Mr. Porter’s question is misdescribed. Nor was the plaintiff asked about the CIC in this line of questioning. And the plaintiff did not testify that the author was to be the CIC’s own choice, or the students’ choice. [120] The defendant relies upon the defences of fair comment, justification and qualified privilege to defend this post. The main defence advanced is fair comment. The defendant 2014 ONSC 6890 (CanLII) [115] The first blog post at issue is entitled “Khurrum Awan is a serial liar” and the entire post is complained of, as follows: