Showing posts with label freedom of speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom of speech. Show all posts
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Thursday, February 06, 2014
Ban Ki-moon Condemns Persecution of Gay People in Russia
The United Nations secretary-general has used a speech ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi to condemn attacks on the LGBT community, amid growing criticism of Russia's so-called "gay propaganda" laws.
Ban Ki-moon, addressing the IOC before Friday's opening ceremony, highlighted the fact that the theme of the UN's human rights day last December was "sport comes out against homophobia".
"Many professional athletes, gay and straight, are speaking out against prejudice. We must all raise our voices against attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex people," he said. "We must oppose the arrests, imprisonments and discriminatory restrictions they face."
"The United Nations stands strongly behind our own 'free and equal' campaign, and I look forward to working with the IOC, governments and other partners around the world to build societies of equality and tolerance. Hatred of any kind must have no place in the 21st century." » | Owen Gibson and Shaun Walker | Thursday, February 06, 2014
THE GUARDIAN: Russian laws choking free speech must be repealed now » | The Guardian | Thursday, February 06, 2014
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Muslim Cartoon Row – Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Nawaz, chosen for the London seat of Hampstead and Kilburn and founder of the anti-extremist think-tank Quilliam Foundation, has faced a petition against him, and told the BBC he was advised by police not to appear on TV to debate the issue.
Andrew Neil spoke to Mohammed Shafiq, a member of the Liberal Democrats Ethnic Minority group calling for deselection, and to Kenan Malik, who writes about multi-culturalism and free speech."
Freedom of Speech: Is It My Right to Offend You?
Maajid Nawaz is a former Islamist who now campaigns against extremism as the executive director of the Quilliam Foundation. He is also a Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate. Three weeks ago, he appeared on the BBC's religious debate programme, The Big Questions. On that show, two atheist students wore T-shirts featuring cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed. Nawaz declared that he was not upset by the images. After the show, he tweeted one of the cartoons, declaring that his God was greater than to feel threatened by it. And then everything went mad.
Nawaz has faced an appalling string of death threats. About 22,000 people have signed a petition calling for his deselection. Thousands more have leapt to his defence. Last week, Nick Clegg promised that he would not be deselected. But as various media outlets have reported on the subject, they, too, have faced criticism for their squeamishness: no one has shown uncensored the cartoon at the centre of the storm.
There is so much to unpack here. Where to begin? Well, how about, for the record, a simple declaration: Maajid Nawaz has an absolute right to tweet a picture of the Prophet Mohamed. I would not vote for any political party that dismissed him for doing so. But actually, this is the least interesting, least fruitful aspect of the whole discussion. This is primary school stuff. » | Archie Bland | Sunday, February 02, 2014
Related »
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Maajid Nawaz Must Be Free to Offend Muslims – and Christians Must Be Free to Offend Gays
 |
| Maajid Nawaz |
Let me guess: you’ve heard a lot more about the first case, about Mr Nawaz’s travails, than you have about the second – right? Certainly there’s been far more coverage of the liberal online uprising in defence of Mr Nawaz’s right to tweet the secularist, mickey-taking Jesus and Mo cartoons than there has been of the High Court’s green light for an investigation into the banning of an anti-gay poster by TfL. Which is weird, because these cases are actually very similar. In both, an army of offence-takers sought to scrub from public view something they found repulsive – whether a tweet about Jesus and Mo or a poster putting forward a Christian take on homosexuality – and in both it was casually assumed that the rights of the offended should take precedence over the freedom of everyone else to tweet, read, see and hear certain risqué (allegedly) ideas. But only one case – Mr Nawaz’s – has become a cause celebre [sic] among liberals who profess an attachment to freedom of speech. Why? » | Brendan O’Neill | Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
Dispatches is the British television current affairs documentary series on Channel 4.The programme covers issues about British society, politics, health, religion, international current affairs and the environment, usually featuring a mole in an organisation.
This particular episode deals with Muslims & free speech. With very sophisticated & well articulated debate regarding the topic is presented here.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Related »
A protest by 10,000 Muslims outside the offices of Google in London today is just the first in an orchestrated attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from website YouTube in Britain.
Thousands had travelled from as far afield as Glasgow to take part in the demonstration, ahead of a planned million-strong march in Hyde Park in coming weeks.
Anger over 'The Innocence of Muslims', an American-produced film which insults the Prophet Mohammad and demeans Muslims, according to protesters, remains available to watch on the website YouTube, a subsidiary of Google.
Organiser Masoud Alam said: "Our next protest will be at the offices of Google and YouTube across the world. We are looking to ban this film.
"This is not freedom of expression, there is a limit for that. This insult of the Prophet will not be allowed.
The group's next action was a march Mr Alam hoped would be "a million strong" would take place in Hyde Park "in the next few weeks", he said.
"Until it is banned we will keep protesting," he added. » | Jennifer O'Mahony | Sunday, October 14, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Saudi Arabia has called for a new international body to censor the internet, in the wake of the anti-Islam YouTube clip that recently sparked violence in the Middle East.
In a submission to forthcoming international talks on internet governance, the Gulf state said “there is a crying need for international collaboration to address ‘freedom of expression’ which clearly disregards public order”.
During the controversy over a 14-minute clip posted on YouTube and purportedly a trailer for a feature film called “The Innocence of Muslims”, Google resisted pressure, including from the White House, to remove it.
"This video - which is widely available on the web - is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube," Google said last month.
The Saudi government has now told the World Telecommunications Policy Forum, a UN body, that the incident was “an obvious example” of the need for greater international cooperation to restrict content online.
“Any reasonable person would know that this film would foment violence and, indeed, many innocent persons have died and been injured with this film as a root cause,” the Saudi submission said. …
“This behaviour, along with other malicious and criminal activities such as child pornography, identity theft, spam, denial of service attacks, and malware aimed at destroying or crippling businesses, inter alia, must be addressed by states in a collaborative and cooperative environment and strongly underscores the need for enhanced cooperation,” it said. » | Christopher Williams, Technology Correspondent | Thursday, October 11, 2012
My comment:
One of these fine days, the West is going to have to go to war to defend the hard-won principles which are the cornerstone of Western civilisation. We simply cannot allow a totalitarian, theocratic ideology to destroy the principles for which so many have died.
“…Humanity must fight against bad things if we are to survive, and the spiritual things are stronger than anything else, and cannot be destroyed, thank God.” – HRH The Queen MotherThis nonsense has come about because Western politicians have appeased these people all the way along the line, because they haven't stood up, firmly and resolutely, for the principles upon which the West has been founded. As a result, we now have a situation in which Third Worlders are trying to pull the strings. – © Mark
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Obama made a strong condemnation of “violence and intolerance” in his speech at the UN headquarters on Tuesday. He said world leaders had a duty to speak out against the deadly attacks on Americans in the past two weeks caused by an anti-Islam film made in the United States.
But Muslim kings and presidents and other heads of state said Western nations must clamp down on “Islamophobia” following the storm over the film which mocks the Prophet Mohammed.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, said the film was another “ugly face” of religious defamation.
Yudhoyono quoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as saying that “everyone must observe morality and public order” and commented: “Freedom of expression is therefore not absolute.”
He called for “an international instrument to effectively prevent incitement to hostility or violence based on religions or beliefs.” King Abdullah II of Jordan, a close US ally, spoke out against the film and the violence it sparked.
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari condemned what he called the “incitement of hate” against Muslims and demanded United Nations action. » | Sapa-AFP | Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
THE GUARDIAN: UN declaration supports free speech but this has been subject to many legal qualifications
Hate-speech crimes, and offences under blasphemy, sexual equality, defamation or racial abuse laws vary around the world. But absolute freedom of expression is curtailed in many countries.
Article 19 of the UN's universal declaration of human rights in 1948 envisaged few restrictions. "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression," it stated. "This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
In practice there are lots of legal qualifications. A 1994 judgment of the European court of human rights in Strasbourg involving a Danish journalist tried to define the overarching principle "that tolerance and respect for the equal dignity of all human beings constitute the foundations of a democratic, pluralistic society".
So, "it may be considered necessary in certain democratic societies to sanction or even prevent all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance (including religious intolerance), provided that any formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties imposed are proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued". » | Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent | Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Lean thinks that "society" should act against my colleague Pamela Geller and me because the Norwegian mass murdererAnders Behring Breivik cited us in his manifesto. But actually, Breivik cited many, many people, including Barack Obama,John F. Kennedy and Thomas Jefferson -- who are never blamed for Breivik's murders. Also swept under the rug is the fact that Breivik’s manifesto is ideologically incoherent: So far was he from being a doctrinaire counter-jihadist that he wanted to aid Hamas and ally with jihad groups. Brevik’s real inspiration for his violence was, by his own account, Al Qaeda, as becomes clear in his manifesto when he spends 25 pages quoting extensively from the Koran and other Islamic sources. I am no more responsible for Breivik than the Beatles are for Charles Manson.
Indeed, the whole attempt to smear Geller and me with Breivik’s murders rests on several leaps of illogic and unstated assumptions. Even if Breivik’s views really were exactly the same as ours, would it therefore hold that if someone commits violence in the name of an idea, that idea is thereby discredited and must be driven out of the public discourse? In that case, precious few ideas would be left, since people at one time or another have committed violence in the name of virtually every cause under the sun. » | Robert Spencer | Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
THE SPECTATOR: A week ago, the offices of the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo were burned down. This attack came after it advertised the founder of Islam, Muhammad, as 'editor-in-chief' of the new issue. The move was a light-hearted response to the very serious matter of the election of an Islamist party (the Ennahda party) as the leading party in Tunisia (a result which, incidentally, appears not to have greatly bothered most European media).
As the staff of Charlie Hebdo contemplated the ruins of their magazine, a much grander and richer magazine, Time, ran one of those pieces which have become familiar whenever there is an Islamist assault against free speech. As Nick Cohen has also noted, the Paris correspondent of Time magazine –- the almost too-perfectly named Bruce Crumley –- used the burning of their offices to taunt Charlie Hebdo's journalists[.]
'Do you still think the price you paid for printing an offensive, shameful, and singularly humor-deficient parody on the logic of 'because we can' was so worthwhile?' he asked before going down a related track by denouncing French politicians who had criticised the firebombing. Mr Crumley is apparently not a fan of free-expression, or even slight jokes, when it comes to Islam. In this respect he is not unique. He follows in a long and ignoble line of useless idiots.
In 2004 when Theo van Gogh was murdered on a street in Amsterdam by a Islamic fundamentalist it was Index on Censorship's turn. You would have thought that with a title like 'Index on Censorship', the reader could expect such a magazine to do what it says on the masthead. Yet in what should have been a pretty straightforward test ('for or against the murder of people who express their opinions') Index on Censorship managed to land it wrong.
They published a piece which claimed that it was not van Gogh's murderer but van Gogh himself who had been a 'fundamentalist'; not Mohammed Bouyeri (the killer), but van Gogh (the killed) who had been on a 'martyrdom operation' by having the temerity to say mean things about Islam. Index on Censorship's author went on to imply that the whole murder was some type of performance art designed to promote van Gogh's new film on the assassination of another critic of Islam, Pim Fortuyn. Read on and comment » | DOUGLAS MURRAY | Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
His supporters have hailed Geert Wilders' acquittal as a victory for free speech, while his many detractors have slammed the decision not to punish a man who described Islam as "fascist." The Dutch right-wing populist politician was cleared of inciting hatred against Muslims by a court in Amsterdam Thursday after the judge ruled that his comments -- which also included comparing the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" -- were "acceptable within the context of public debate."
In his verdict, leading judge Marcel van Oosten said that while Wilders' statements were indeed offensive to Muslims, they were also part of a legitimate political discussion. Wilders' claim that Islam is a violent religion and his demands for a ban on Muslim immigrants should be viewed in the context of the larger societal debate over immigration policies, the judge argued.
The verdict has sparked a re-examination of free speech in a multicultural Europe, with some asking just how far the basic democratic right to speak one's mind actually extends.
German commentators were deeply divided over the issue on Friday. While some argued Wilders should have been punished, others suggested that free speech trumps any discomfort with extreme opinions. » | David Knight | Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
CROSSROADS ARABIA: “With a series of new Royal Decrees, Saudi Arabia has taken an amazing step backward from free speech. Directly and indirectly, the newly-amended Press & Publications Law now criminalizes, well, just about anything. Sedition? Check. Lèse majesté? Check. ‘Anything affecting the reputation or dignity’ of anyone? Check. ‘Propagating division between citizens? Check.
That doesn’t leave much to talk about, does it? Maybe the weather is uncontroversial. But if the weather causes floods and people die as a result, this law would prevent talking about who is responsible for the lack of preparation: that would clearly be ‘divisive’. How about sports? No… criticizing a goalie’s poor performance will surely annoy him, his friends, family, and supporters.
Saudi Gazette has the more complete coverage of the announcement made through the Saudi Press Agency. It notes that the law pertains not just to Saudi newspapers, but also to online media, including those of Saudis writing outside the Kingdom.
This is truly both breathtaking in its scope and its stupidity. One does not protect the dignity of people by calling in the cudgel of law, with its power to confiscate newspapers, close their offices, find [sic] them heavily, and banning future writings. All that does is push criticism underground while falsely creating a sense that everything is quiet. As I said in an earlier piece, Arab governments have already lost the battle to control media, both professional and personal. They cannot put the genie of the Internet back in the bottle, nor close it down.” » | Saturday, April 30, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)