Category Archives: Free Speech

Baku hosted the UN Internet Governance Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan, with more than 1,600 delegates from 128 countries attending the four-day event. Civil society activists argue that the countrys struggle for online freedom of expression should not be forgotten despite Azerbaijan being selected to hold the annual global conference. (Photo: UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz)

Civil society activists in Azerbaijan are trying to push back against government efforts to restrict space for public debate. And theyre hoping a recent global Internet forum in Baku will expand international support for their cause.

The United Nations Internet Governance Forum, held in the Azerbaijani capital November 6-9, brought together more than 1,500 government officials, business executives, international organization representatives and civil-society activists from more than 100 countries. They discussed a wide variety of web-related issues, including Internet security, copyright laws and online eavesdropping.

In the coming weeks and months, rights activists in Azerbaijan hope the forum will prove a catalyst for broader international discussion about what they contend are government policies designed to stifle free speech. If not for the IGF (Internet Governance Forum), we would not be able to attract so much international attention to problems with Internet-freedom in Azerbaijan, said Rasul Jafarov, the director of the Baku-based Human Rights Club, part of the Expression Online Initiative, a non-governmental coalition.

The Internet emerged in 2009 as a new front in an ongoing free-speech battle, following the imprisonment of two video bloggers who posted a clip online that portrayed President Ilham Aliyev as a donkey. Over the past year or so, authorities have struggled to contain flash-protests whipped up via the social network Facebook. In a report distributed at the Forum, the Expression Online Initiative ranked the country as partly free.

While the Azerbaijani government may not block access to websites or social networks, noted Jafarov, there is a serious problem with content regulation and [governmental] monitoring of email correspondence, social-network content and websites.

Such shadow pressure prompts many Azerbaijanis to censor themselves online, he continued. They are afraid to post critical stuff online [so as] not to be summoned to the Ministry of National Security and have other problems, he said.

Media lawyer Alasgar Mammadli, a board member of the watchdog Azerbaijan Internet Forum, agreed. People are afraid even to like a cartoon about the president posted on Facebook, Mammadli said. The right to host the IGF does not mean that the country has a free Internet.

Authorities defend their record by emphasizing quantity over quality when it comes to the Internet.

In an official letter to the Forum, President Aliyev argued that since 65 percent of the countrys 9.16 million citizens were online, Azerbaijans approach toward the Internet should be deemed free. Aliyev, writing in general terms, also credited the the global network for encouraging freedom of speech on the Internet, the widening of social networks, [and] ensuring the open and transparent activity of government.

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Azerbaijan: How to Measure Free Speech on the Internet?

Old hatreds and sectarian violence emerge with new freedom of expression in divided Burma

Transparency in abuse of human rights and murder: Rohingya families flee attacks by Buddhists in Burma (top); Norways convicted mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik used the internet to fuel his hatred of immigrants

LONDON: Taking little time to rest after a contentious campaign, President Barack Obama heads to Burma, acknowledging budding human rights and a government, after more than two decades, now eager for trade and open to new connections with the West.

For example, Burma, known as Myanmar since 1989, has among the lowest mobile-phone penetration in the world, about 5 percent of the population. Better networks, less expensive phones, offer an enormous upside in human rights terms, provided that the freedom of expression and privacy of users are respected. Phones are now the most common way people go online in most developing economies, many for the first time.

Greater freedoms that come from such a shift can represent new dimensions to old challenges though.Many of the suppressed voices uphold democratic values and human rights; others revive ancient hatreds. Freedom of expression online inevitably faces limits, and the international covenant for civil and political rights permits some limits. The question is, how will these be set in a way consistent with international human rights principles and standards?

Recent examples highlight the issues. International attention recently focused on the violence against the Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State, formerly Arakan, in western Myanmar. Last month, satellite imagery obtained by Human Rights Watch showed extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area of the coastal town of Kyauk Pyu one of several areas of new violence and displacement. Websites promoting anti-Rohingya hate speech have been identified as one of the means to incite violence.

The international covenant for civil and political rights permits some limits on freedom of expression.

Another example involves the tragedy in Norway in which a self-confessed fan of extremist websites and a user of social media killed 77 young adults in order to market his manifesto of xenophobia. Racial hatred and religious intolerance are, of course, not new. The medias role in inciting violence, from Nazi Germany to the fall of Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide is well known. Policymakers are faced with difficult choices: whether some aspects of internet content should be censored, including self-censorship by content providers, and what rules and processes might be developed that not only protect freedom of expression but also the rights of those most vulnerable to abuse.

Arguably the internets greatest strengths are also its greatest weaknesses: Mass data stripped from its normal context can justify just about any opinion and aid any lone voice in finding the likeminded, regardless of how extreme the view. Such views can serve as the spark igniting new violence as was seen in the anti-Islamic film trailer posted on YouTube, which triggered protests throughout the region.

The internet provides a permanent and interactive archive of speech and opinion unprecedented in human history old opinions can be recycled within an instant, and global feedback loops are created; local acts can gain global significance. Technology acts to legitimize individual thoughts, breaking the divide between private and public realms. If technology can help foster the Arab Spring, can it also feed a European Winter?

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Dark Side of Free Speech

This election season, some some entrepreneurs took liberties with workplace political speech. That could land them in legal hot water.

Scott Sommerdorf/AP

Murray is testing the legal boundaries between politics and work, and he's not the only one. Robert E. Murray, of Murray Energy Corp., speaking during a news conference Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007.

The morning after President Obama was reelected, Robert Murray, CEO of the largest privately-held coal company in the U.S., gathered 50 of his staff together for a meeting that began with a prayer.

As Murray committed his company to the care of his Lord, he also aired his differences with President Obama, saying that the President's policies amounted to a "war on coal" that necessitated the layoffs of 150 mine workers, to be announced the following day.

"The takers outvoted the producers. In response to this, I have turned to my Bible," Murray's prayer reads. "Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corporation for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build."

It wasn't the first time Murray had mixed politics and work. This summer, Murray allegedly forced some employees to pose for video cameras, without pay, behind Mitt Romney during a televised stump speech. He also reportedly sent emails to workers threatening them with layoffs if they failed to donate to his Republican political action committee, according to an October story in The New Republic.

Murray is pushing the legal boundaries between politics and work, and he's not the only one. More than a half-dozen privately-held companies threatened layoffs or cutbacks if President Obama won reelection this year. They include ASG Software Solutions, Cintas, Dana Holding, Koch Industries, Lacks Enterprises, Rite Hite, andWestgate Industries.

At best, linking politics with a decision to lay off employees will land an entrepreneur in a legal grey zone. Murray himself is likely to wind up in court, legal experts say, for violating state laws regarding electioneering in the work place. There's already a complaint in front of the Federal Election Commission. And experts point out that in addition to the questionable legality of Murray's moves, anything smacking of coercion in the office also engenders terrible ill will among your employees.

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When Politics and Free Speech Don't Mix

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Celebrate cartooning and free speech Thursday, Nov. 15 at the National Press Club. Longtime supporters of Cartoons & Cocktails and newcomers will gather in the ballroom for the biggest live and silent auction of editorial cartoons in town. They will vie for works by a dozen Pulitzer Prize winners and 50 of their colleagues.

Kevin "KAL" Kallaugher who cartoons for The Economist and The Baltimore Sun is the emcee.. He'll be introducing auctioneers from local and national media, The Washington Examiner publisher Michael Phelps among them.

What's on the block? Original work by Politico's first Pulitzer winner and Cartoons & Cocktails honorary chairman Matt Wuerker and The Washington Post's Tom Toles and Ann Telnaes and scores more. Cartoonists who have migrated from the drawing board to the tablet have donated prints, most with original signatures.

Read all about the beneficiaries--the teen-produced regional newspaper Young D.C. and the human rights organization Cartoonists Rights Network International--when you visit http://www.cartoonsandcocktails.org.

In a hurry? Charge your tickets at http://www.cartoonsandcocktails.org/tickets3.htm

Your all-access pass (yes, you will meet cartoonists) is $75 per person. It includes keepsake catalog, bid card, two drinks, butlered light fare and competitive fun at the silent auction tables (68 p.m.) and in the live auction (7 p.m.9:30 p.m.).

Have a little more time? Check out three short videos of earlier auctions:

2011 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN5DlMWPZrE

2010 at http://cartoonsandcocktails.org/video.htm

and 2007 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRGw89tJ4_Q

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Celebrate cartooning and free speech Thursday, Nov. 15 at the National Press Club

A panel discussion in London yesterday did not offer much hope that prosecutors and politicians will defend free speech online. Paul Bernal reports

The arrest of a young man on Remembrance Sunday, apparently forposting a pictureof a burning poppy, is the latest case of offensive online speech being pursued by the law.So yesterdays panel discussion on the subject at the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) annual could not have been better timed.

There was an excellent range of speakers on the panel: Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Helen Goodman MP, Labours Shadow Culture Minister, Facebooks Director of Policy Simon Milner, and Indexs CEO Kirsty Hughes. A lot of ground was covered but the impression left at the end of the session was one that should leave advocates of freedom of speech more than a little trepidation.

Dan Tench, the chair, began by outlining the variety of potential offences from the increasingly infamous Section 127 of theCommunications Act 2003to the lesser knownMalicious Communications Act 1988, the act under which the young man was arrested for his poppy burning picture on Sunday. It was, and is, a somewhat depressing and confusing list of often broadly worded laws: even lawyers struggle with it, so the difficulties of the average Twitter or Facebook user or even the average police officer can have in understanding it are hard to overstate. And the law really matters: Keir Starmer was clear (and correct) throughout that the CPSs job is to prosecute in accordance with this law. Simon Milner was similarly direct: Facebooks policy is to obey the law. Facebook may be an American corporation, but theyll follow local laws when dealing with speech: in Germany, for example, laws on Holocaust denial, in the UK, all the multi-faceted laws on offensive speech.

Having said that, the one piece of potentially good news to emerge from the panel was that Keir Starmer announced that his office would be producing interim guidelines covering offensive speech online in the next few weeks. The contents of those guidelines will be interesting Starmer seemed to suggest that they would outline how the law should apply, and how public interest in a prosecution would be determined. There would not, and indeed should not, be a shift in public policy as a result though for differing reasons different members of both the panel and the audience would probably like to see that.

Thats where the worry for advocates of free speech should come in. Kirsty Hughes spoke eloquently about the key problems with our current approach, about how what we do in the UK is watched very carefully by those in more repressive regimes and used to justify their oppression, about how there seems to be a growing sense of enforcing some sort of orthodoxy, and about how people seem to think they have a right not to be offended. But Starmer, to an extent, didnt seem to acknowledge that there might be a problem instead he talked of the difficulty of dealing with delicate issues like the offensive remarks concerning the death of April Jones while Helen Goodman MPs approach seemed to be that we hadnt gone nearly far enough in controlling speech.

That was the most depressing part of the panel. Though she had just returned from theInternet Governance Forumin Baku, and claimed to have been moved by and understood the crucial role played by freedom of speech on the internet in the struggles against oppression in Egypt and Azerbaijan, she didnt seem to see any connection at all between the control of speech in the UK with the control of speech elsewhere. Freedom of speech, it seemed, was important in other places, but not in the UK. Indeed, the time she showed most emotion was her disappointment to discover that a charge of harassment required a pattern of behaviour, rather than just a single incident.

If the panel is any indication, we cant expect a great improvement in the treatment of offensive speech online and incidents like the current poppy-burning story can only be expected to recur. I hope that isnt the case just as I hope that politicians like Helen Goodman MP can be persuaded to see the importance of freedom of speech in practice as well as in principle. This subject will keep on raising its head until something changes and free speech advocates should keep on making sure that it does.

Dr Paul Bernal is lecturer in IT, IP and media law at the University of East Anglia. He tweets from@paulbernalUK

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Does Keir Starmer see the problem with poppy burners?

Gay Parade Highlights Religious Differences
A small group of gays performing a somewhat insulting anti-Christian, anti-Jesus parade in Hollywood in recent years highlights the differences between the Muslim world and the Christian world. If this parade were anti-Muslim, past experience with a certain video shows what might happen: it could set off world-wide outrage and violence in the Middle East. Christians are more passive, they just shake their heads and wonder what insults they will have to endure next. The mainstream and Hollywood media are quick to defend "gay" rights but are silent when Christians are insulted. This great country still has free speech, and this should be defended at all costs, even this stupid behavior. But the message here is during these tense times maybe a little self-restraint will go a long way. I would challenge those gays to go on a similar march in downtown Cairo with an anti-Muslim message, like dragging Mohammad behind a Camel. We all know what the outcome of that would be. They would be coming back to America in pine boxes. Freedom of speech, as well as religious tolerance is non-existent in large parts of the world. This event by a small group of gays, throws a spotlight on larger issues. Christians must wonder why the US Government spends billions of dollars in foreign aid and never once mentions to these other countries anything about them adopting some of OUR values, like freedom of speech and religious tolerance. Maybe a good Christmas present to the Christian community ...From:mrvideoman5Views:1 0ratingsTime:01:11More inEducation

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Gay Parade Highlights Religious Differences - Video

ADL of Evil - Anti-Defamation League, anti-free speech terror.
From:Anninos ChristoforouViews:0 0ratingsTime:07:57More inEducation

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ADL of Evil - Anti-Defamation League, anti-free speech terror. - Video

EDL March on Norwich 2012
There was a so-called "peaceful" demonstration by the English Defence League here in Norwich. You can see from this video what their idea of peaceful is. There was a counter-protest by "We Are Norwich." The EDL were protesting that a militant "christian" preacher wasn #39;t allowed to peddle his Islamophobic, and homophobic literature at a stall in Hay Market. Free speech is only free until you use it to incite hate. Over 1500 people turned up to protest the EDL #39;s actions and show them that they are not welcome in Norwich.From:Alex CarsonViews:1149 9ratingsTime:04:30More inPeople Blogs

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EDL March on Norwich 2012 - Video

Atheists vs Theists - Who #39;s more numerous?
I #39;ve noticed the theist videos tend to get a landslide of dislikes compared to atheist videos? Why is this, are there more atheists than theists, are there theists disliking because they #39;re embarrased by the video, is it fighting between Christians and Muslims etc.? What is it. This video provides some possible explanations http://www.youtube.com ____________________________________________________________ Tags: Atheism, religion, religious, god, like, dislike, pro-god, anti-god, christians, muslims, jews, hindus, higher power, pantheism, agnosticism, apatheism, nature, mother nature, godless, fundamentalist christianity, extremist islam, islam, christianity, bible, koran, torah, middle east, europe, dark ages, enlightenment, 21st century, religious freedom, secularist, secularism, science, creationism, evolution, rationality, reason, catholic, protestant, green bar, red bar, liberal, agnostic atheism, flying teapot, socialist, stalin, conservative, george bush, atheists, theists, politics, religious people, humanism, free speech, draw mohammad day, muhammad, jesus christ, cross, crucifixion, life of brian, monty python, satireFrom:TheSchemer1Views:4 1ratingsTime:00:57More inEntertainment

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Atheists vs Theists - Who's more numerous? - Video

Harry Shearer - (If U Want Free Speech) Go To Russia
- Year 1990 - Lyrics: This is the sheriff of Yahoo County talking. If your selling smutty rap you better start walking. No use suing, No use Squawking. The judge says I can come in and hush ya. If you want free speech, go to Russia. Go to Russia Now right thinking people are taking a stand. We #39;re giving each other a helping hand. Wiping up the crap that #39;s spread all over this land. Your rights stop where my rights crush ya. If you want free speech, go to Russia. Go to Russia From movies to museums to record stores We #39;re drying up Americas sores A mind is a terrible thing to have when outdoors So don #39;t make me come in and cuff and cuss ya If you want free speech, better go to Russia. Better go to Russia Thank your for the bridge, Roy. Now what #39;s the good of being fresh if your not clean? I #39;m stronger than dirt, if you get my meaning Over in Russia they just abolished censorship, but hey, its just another communist trick. So you can rest assured they won #39;t get ticked off if you talk trash about your dingus to Gorbachev. Now I can #39;t do much about drugs or drunks, But I can sure force the dirty words back into hiding where they belong. Hidden Bush! So, take a nice old mean old sheriff #39;s advice, Talk nice when your in my jurisdiction. Avoid the primitive don #39;t get your head bent Forget the first amendment After all, it was written a long time ago And I just sent my only copy to Moscow. Don #39;t get me wrong, I #39;m not against rap But every little kid needs the occasional slap ...From:blacksalmonifyViews:4 1ratingsTime:03:53More inMusic

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Harry Shearer - (If U Want Free Speech) Go To Russia - Video