Category Archives: Free Speech

#39;Lagarde list #39; journo arrests spark Greek free speech outrage
The Greek authorities look to be tightening their hold on the media, as another journalist is taken into custody in an alleged attempt to silence him. Spiros Karatzaferis promised to reveal potentially damaging information on the Greek bailout on TV, but was arrested before he could. RT LIVE rt.com Subscribe to RT! http://www.youtube.com Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com Follow us on Twitter twitter.com Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.From:LattestKhabrainViews:0 0ratingsTime:05:03More inNews Politics

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'Lagarde list' journo arrests spark Greek free speech outrage - Video

State University of New York Canton College Free Speech Calling for Revolution Saying Frack Monsanto
The Roselle Plaza of State University of New York Canton College is a perfect place for saying what you want. There are many young, intelligent, thinking Americans passing through this place where free speech is honored. During my campaign for Congress in the 21st Congressional District of New York, I have spoken freely here on numerous occasions. I love Canton College. I love freedom of speech. I love bringing great change. I am the Revolution!!!From:donaldhassigViews:0 0ratingsTime:04:20More inNonprofits Activism

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State University of New York Canton College Free Speech Calling for Revolution Saying Frack Monsanto - Video

Should Trolling be Illegal?
A Political campaign manager was outed by Buzzfeed for spreading misinformation during Hurricane Sandy. Some officials are calling for prosecution, while others argue the right to free speech. Annie examines both sides of the debate. Please Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com Google+: plus.google.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com Follow Annie on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com And on Facebook: http://www.facebook.comFrom:TheTechFeedViews:279 43ratingsTime:02:02More inScience Technology

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Should Trolling be Illegal? - Video

CINCINNATI ?? A Kentucky man committed no crime when he asked groups of people at an event in a public park here if they wanted "to laugh at the crippled girl," a Hamilton County jury decided Thursday.

The win for Forest Thomer II, 25, of suburban Cold Spring, Ky., also is a win for free-speech rights, he said.

"I think we've taken a negative situation and turned it into a positive situation," Thomer said after Thursday's verdict.

Thomer was doing what he called guerrilla marketing when he went to the May 23 Party in the Park event, hosted by the USA Regional Chamber of Commerce. To promote the comedy career of his friend, Ally Bruener, Thomer walked up to groups of people, pointed at Bruener ?? who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair ?? and asked, "Do you want to laugh at the crippled girl?"

As the people were trying to recover from the seemingly inappropriate question, Bruener wheeled up, told a joke and then announced when and where her next performance would be.

Lori Salzarulo of the USA Regional Chamber of Commerce complained to police about Thomer's comments. Police threatened to shock Thomer with a Taser then arrest him.

Cincinnati Police Officer Dan Kreider charged Thomer with disorderly conduct, accusing him of "grossly abusive language."

The charge is a crime that could have sent Thomer to jail for up to 30 days and, Thomer insisted, also violated his right to free speech.

After Thomer accused the police of censorship, the city twice changed the charges, finally deciding to try him on a charge of "turbulent behavior."

Thomer and his lawyer, Danielle Anderson, believe Salzarulo wanted Thomer thrown out because she feared his kind of humor would ruin the chamber's event.

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Free speech wins in Ohio 'crippled girl' case

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) A Portland lawyer has taken a complaint about free speech on Portland's mass transit system to federal court.

Jennie Bricker says that a year ago, she spoke up when a TriMet fare inspector told an argumentative man to stop talking and said he had no free speech fight on a light-rail platform.

The Oregonian reports (http://bit.ly/VaV2jn) Bricker disagreed. She says she raised her voice enough to be heard from about 30 feet away but wasn't yelling.

The fare inspector barred her from the system for 30 days for making excessive noise.

Bricker says it was what she said, not how loudly she said it, that upset the inspector, and the suspension violated her own free speech rights. She's asking that TriMet clarify its rules and train fare inspectors better.

___

Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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TriMet free speech dispute lands in federal court

November 1, 2012

As UPR on Sri Lanka Begins, IFJ Urges Attention on Free Speech Issues

As the Universal Periodic Review on Sri Lanka begins at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its partners and affiliates in Sri Lanka, urge closer attention to issues of free speech and the right to information, which have been casualties of the quarter century long civil war, and are yet to gain due priority in the post-war environment.

The IFJ and its partners are especially concerned at the reign of impunity which continues to prevail for attacks on journalists and media institutions, and the constant fear that individual media practitioners work under. Even if overt measures of coercion are less conspicuous than during the war years, political and financial power is deployed to silence dissent. Victims of gross human rights violations during the war years are also deprived of a forum through which they can articulate grievances and seek redress.

The IFJ and its associated groups are worried at the failure of Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to accept any firm commitments for implementing the recommendations of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), appointed with a Presidential mandate a year after the end of the war, as part of the national reconciliation process. The LLRC recommendations related to free speech and the right to information, though modest in number, are deeply consequential. Yet the action plan announced in July to give effect to the recommendations of the LLRC does not set down any time-line for the passage of a right to information law and seems to gloss over the need to dispel the climate of impunity for attacks on the media.

Following the resettlement of the last of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Menik Farm camp in the northern province in late September, media persons seeking to travel into the area to report on the quality of life of resettled communities, encountered numerous obstacles from military officials whose presence in the area is reportedly, overwhelming.

The IFJ and its partners observe that the GoSL is in default on three main recommendations of the LLRC: restoration of freedom of movement for media personnel through all parts of the country; the investigation and prosecution of all known cases involving attacks on media practitioners; and the enactment of a right to information law.

In addition, the IFJ and its partners have found that state-controlled media, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, Channel ITN and Lake House publications, have become forums for verbal abuse and vilification of independent journalists and human rights defenders, often with dangerous implications for their physical safety and wellbeing.

Further, news websites hosting content on Sri Lanka have been subject to arbitrary rule changes and frequent obstruction with absolutely no legal or constitutional mandate.

The IFJ and its partners urge the UPR process in Geneva to particularly underline the following steps as urgent priorities for the GoSL to commit itself to:

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UPR on Sri Lanka Begins; IFJ Urges Attention on Free Speech

31 Oct 2012

The arrest of editor Kostas Vaxevanis for exposing alleged tax cheats is just the latest attack on free speech in Greece. Democracy itself is now in danger, say Asteris Masouras and Veroniki Krikoni

UPDATE: Since this article was published, journalist Spiros Karatzaferis was arrested on an outstanding charge after claiming he would publish classified documents relating to Greeces financial bailout. Read here

In recent months Greece has recorded multiple instances of censorship and attacks on the press. Systematic efforts to curtail media freedom are taking place against a backdrop of rising police brutality used to quell anti-austerity protests and mounting neo-Nazi violence against journalists,immigrants, and homosexuals linked to rise of the far-right Golden Dawn party, which gained 18 seats in Junes parliamentary elections (having achieved a record 21 seats in the May election).

28 October, National Day in Greece, sawthe arrest of investigative journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, whoseHot Doc magazine published a leaked list (nicknamed the Lagarde list) of over 2,000 names of Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland. Reporters Sans Frontieresappealed for his release, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatovi,expressed her concern, and netizens rallied to his support on Twitter, gathering over 16,000 signatures on apetition demanding that charges be dropped,as did the European Federation of Journalists.

They are after me instead of the truth,Vaxevanisstatedin a video uploaded on the night before his arrest.

A New York Times editorial slammed the Greek government for being shamefully quick to attack the messenger and strip basic social services from the countrys most vulnerable citizens but shamefully slow at probing possible tax evasion by the well-connected. Vaxevanis, whose magazine has been steadily publishing investigative reports on graft and corruption scandals, hadreported a seemingly abortive ambush at his home on the northern suburbs of Athens earlier in September by five unknown individuals.

Several other incidents of censorship have plagued the media in the last month, leading to international condemnation and grave concerns about the state of democracy in its nominal birthplace.

On 25 September, a 27-year-old netizen was remanded to trialonblasphemy charges for maintaining aFacebook page titled Gerontas Pastitsios (Elder Pastitsios), which included satirical comments on Christianity and the noted Eastern Orthodox monkElder Paisiosand his alleged prophecies, as well as the commercial exploitation of Paisioss legacy. The matter was raised by a member of parliament from Golden Dawn.According to the

On 9 October, the Guardian published areport by the Nations Maria Margaronis ontorture allegationsmade by anti-fascist protesters arrested after a clash with Golden Dawn members on 26 September, in which detainees spoke of being subjected to an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation at police headquarters in Athens. The inister of Public Order, Nikos Dendias, later announced hisintention to sue the British newspaper for defamation and instead of ordering a public inquiry while investigating the torture allegations in a sworn administrative inquiry, a processdescribed by the UNHCR in 2008 as an internal and confidential police procedure designed to protect the rights of the officer involved rather than those of the complainant.

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Greece: Free speech faces abyss

The abysmal state offree speech at Canadian public universities is stifling students right to speak their minds, according to a new report card that gives mostly failing grades to universities and their student unions.

The 2012 Campus Freedom Index (download PDF), released Wednesday by the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, awarded only three As to 35 universities and student unions it analyzed in its second annual report. A grade of F was far more common handed out 28 times to 12 universities and 16 student unions for everything from cancelling controversial speakers and obstructing pro-life groups to banning the expression Israeli Apartheid.

Everyones forced to pay for these universities through tax dollars and the universities get the money in part by claiming to be these centres of free inquiry, said JCCF president John Carpay, who co-authored the report. Its fundamentally dishonest for the university to go to the government and ask for hundreds of millions of dollars on the pretext that they are a centre for free inquiry and then receive the money and turn around and censor unpopular opinions.

While universities scored an average grade of C for having fairly sound policies and principles around free speech, the report said they werent as good at following them.

For example, the University of Toronto earned an A for its policies, which include a statement on freedom of speech from its governing council and student code of conduct provisions that protect a persons right to voice views not everyone may agree with. But it scored an F for its actions the report citing the administrations 2008 effort to have pro-life groups turn their graphic posters towards the wall. Another example was a group being charged a $400 security fee for holding an Israeli Apartheid Week, a move study authors deemed unfair.

Student unions scored lower in the rankings, earning a D average on both policies and actions.

The Index sheds light on the significant role that Canadian student unions play in damaging the free speech climate on campus, the authors wrote, adding that they were particularly troubled that 10 student unions denied official club certification to student groups based solely on the content of their message, not because of misconduct. The student unions at Carleton University and Memorial University of Newfoundland scored Fs because they refused to certify pro-life clubs, the report said.

Student unions at the University of Saskatchewan, University of Victoria, University of Calgary, University of Western Ontario, University of Guelph, McGill University and Lakehead University have all banned campus pro-life groups at different times in recent years, earning them Fs, according to the report.

Pro-life groups seem to be the current target on campuses, Mr. Carpay said, but in 20 years it could well be another group that doesnt fit with the popular view of the day. He was especially troubled by the arrest of pro-life protesters at Carleton University in October, 2010, whose trespassing charges have since been dropped. President of the Carleton University Students Association, Alexander Golovko, said in an email to the Post that the results from this index are not fully representative of the current state of affairs at Carleton. This year my team and I are striving to ensure there are open and accessible debates on issues that matter to students.

The national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, Adam Awad, dismissed the index, saying it did not explain its methodology well enough to support its criticism of student unions.

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Free speech at Canadian universities ‘abysmal,’ report says

Students discuss a controversial anti-abortion display at the University of Calgary in 2009. Universities were the birthplace of political correctness and now a right-leaning group says that on most Canadian campuses the trend has eroded free speech.

The Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms issued its 2012 Campus Freedom Index, which surveyed 35 Canadian universities and student unions.

It awarded only three A grades, compared with 28 Fs to 12 universities and 26 student unions for things like cancelling campus appearances of controversial speakers to trying to keep out pro-life groups and banning the expression "Israeli apartheid," the National Post reported.

"Everyone's forced to pay for these universities through tax dollars and the universities get the money in part by claiming to be these centres of free inquiry," justice centre president John Carpay, who co-authored the report, told the Post.

[ Related: Maclean's annual university rankings: Western schools on the rise ]

"It's fundamentally dishonest for the university to go to the government and ask for hundreds of millions of dollars on the pretext that they are a centre for free inquiry and then receive the money and turn around and censor unpopular opinions."

The report gives universities an average grade of C for having fairly good policies and principles regarding free speech but said they weren't very good at following them.

Student unions fared worse, scoring an average of D on both policies and actions.

"The index sheds light on the significant role that Canadian student unions play in damaging the free speech climate on campus," the report said.

The report focused on student unions' treatment of pro-life groups, noting 10 denied official certification to pro-life campus clubs based solely on the content of their message and not because of any misconduct, the Post reported.

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‘Campus Freedom Index’ gives free speech a failing grade at Canadian universities

CINCINNATI A Kentucky man committed no crime when he asked groups of people at an event in a public park here if they wanted to laugh at the crippled girl, a Hamilton County jury decided Thursday.

The win for Forest Thomer II, 25, of suburban Cold Spring, Ky., also is a win for free-speech rights, he said.

I think weve taken a negative situation and turned it into a positive situation, Thomer said after Thursdays verdict.

Thomer was doing what he called guerrilla marketing when he went to the May 23 Party in the Park event, hosted by the USA Regional Chamber of Commerce. To promote the comedy career of his friend, Ally Bruener, Thomer walked up to groups of people, pointed at Bruener -- who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair -- and asked, Do you want to laugh at the crippled girl?

As the people were trying to recover from the seemingly inappropriate question, Bruener wheeled up, told a joke and then announced when and where her next performance would be.

Lori Salzarulo of the USA Regional Chamber of Commerce complained to police about Thomers comments. Police threatened to shock Thomer with a Taser then arrest him.

Cincinnati Police Officer Dan Kreider charged Thomer with disorderly conduct, accusing him of grossly abusive language.

The charge is a crime that could have sent Thomer to jail for up to 30 days and, Thomer insisted, also violated his right to free speech.

After Thomer accused the police of censorship, the city twice changed the charges, finally deciding to try him on a charge of turbulent behavior.

Thomer and his lawyer, Danielle Anderson, believe Salzarulo wanted Thomer thrown out because she feared his kind of humor would ruin the chambers event.

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Free speech wins in 'crippled girl' case