Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

On Target Radio 4-5-2015
On Target Radio, a live broadcast radio show on AM560 THE ANSWER in Chicago, is dedicated to the red meat issues that affect your life from gun control to freedom of speech. WIND talk show...

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On Target Radio 4-5-2015 - Video

Lawyers criticise proposed amendments as a serious attack of freedom of speech.

PETALING JAYA: Constitutional and civil liberty lawyers have criticised the proposed amendments to the Sedition Act, 1948 as a serious attack on freedom of speech, the Malay Mail reports.

Although the amendments recently tabled in Parliament via the Sedition (Amendments) Bill 2015 contain positive aspects by seeking to decriminalise criticism of government and the administration of justice, several other provisions make unacceptable inroads into the freedom of speech and the liberty of citizens, lawyers say.

The Bill makes for a chilling read, constitutional lawyer Syahredzan Johan was quoted as saying, and amounts to the most serious attack on freedom of speech Malaysia has ever seen.

Lawyers took issue with several provisions contained in the Act.

Chief among them was the creation of a new offence.

The proposed new section 4(1A) of the Act makes it an offence for anyone to utter seditious words which cause bodily injury or damage to property and imposes a minimum term of imprisonment of five years and a maximum of twenty years as punishment.

The loose wording of the provision has raised suspicion as to its actual intent, a senior lawyer told FMT today.

To me it appears ultimately to be targeting statements made at political rallies and other assemblies, and runs counter to the Peaceful Assembly Act, 2012, which the Prime Minister himself initiated, he said.

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Sedition is not murder

After the Charlie Hebdo shootings, heads of state marched abreast in Paris in symbolic defence of Frances long tradition of freedom of speech. This seemed reassuring. But that image was what political consultants call optics for democracies around the world have recently seen a striking wave of anti-speech legislation.

Amid national mourning over the deaths of the Charlie Hebdo staff including five cartoonists four French police officers arrested the cartoonist Zeon for incitement, identifying as the cause of arrest anti-Zionist or antisemitic cartoons.

A law in Canada recasts antisemitism so it can include criticism of Israel, and declares that freedom of speech should not be abused; supporters cite freedom of speech on campuses as an antisemitic threat that the law should target.

Related: The NDAA: a clear and present danger to American liberty | Naomi Wolf

In Britain the Tories have been fighting for months to introduce a bill to ban extremists from UK campuses; a recent iteration casts UK colleges as monitors of acceptable speech.

In Australia a new bill mirrors parts of Americas Patriot Act. Extremist groups face social media bans in Britain, and the same push is mirrored in democracies around the world. The US National Defence Authorisation Act criminalises speech it sees as offering material support to terror groups, without defining what that might be. (Obamas lawyers confirmed that the journalist Chris Hedges could be arrested under the NDAA for interviewing a terrorist.) Since terror threats are always invoked in these campaigns to justify banning certain kinds of speech, the public in all these countries has been largely passive. Surely, after one terrorist atrocity after another, stamping out the freedom to express extremist ideas on college campuses and online is a small price to pay for safety?

But the core assumption on which these politicians, including Cameron, are selling these laws to the public, is simply wrong. The concept underlying such bills is that dangerous ideas are like a virus. You can quarantine them or kill them, like germs. But ideas are like a vast, rushing body of water that will uproot checkpoints and reconfigure a landscape if barriers are placed in its way. In fact, the history of censorship shows that it is completely useless in stamping out ideas: the fastest way to spread an idea is to censor it.

Censorship by the state (rather than by the church) is a fairly recent invention. Before 1857 it was quite difficult to get arrested for speech in England. The free speech tradition dating back to Miltons Areopagitica, if not earlier, was so rich that one had to be disturbing the Kings Peace for a speech crime to take place, or to be proven (a very high bar) to have committed sedition or blasphemy. Parliamentary debate showed a clear non-partisan bias against censorship bills, and in favour of liberty of expression.

But in 1857 the Obscene Publications Act was passed followed in 1867-8 by Regina v Hicklin. The Obscene Publications Act criminalised the intent of the author for the first time, asking: did the author intend to inflame improper passions? The Hicklin ruling extended this to criminalising a works effect on a reader: if the work could raise a blush on the cheek of a virgin if the text could deprave and corrupt those who might be vulnerable to immorality, then not only had the author committed a crime, but potentially the publisher, distributor and printer had done as well.

The Victorians have become known for their modesty; in fact, we cant know that, as they were heavily censored by ever escalating speech laws. Oxfords Ashmolean Museum is currently showing an exhibition of the work of the satirical cartoonist James Gillray; by 1857, a fair amount of his work would have been illegal to print or distribute in Britain.

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The fastest way to spread extremism is with the censors boot

Vincent Reynouard ~ Interview Suite Au "Jugement" (Freedom Of Speech, France) FR
V1K ~ V1KX.org #Follow #Peace http://Facebook.com/V1Kcoeur.

By: V1K #FreedomGlobalMovement

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Vincent Reynouard ~ Interview Suite Au "Jugement" (Freedom Of Speech, France) FR - Video

First pizza, now flowers.

A florist from Washington state, fined $1,000 in February for refusing to decorate a gay wedding in 2013 because she said doing so went against her Christian beliefs, has made more than $100,000 through an online crowdfunding site.

The response echoes the more than$840,000 raised for an Indiana pizzeria whose owners said they would not, as a Christian business, provide their services for a same-sex wedding.

Such donations highlight one way that supporters of the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) are anonymously expressing their views in a discussion that has been dominated by opponents of the law. The recent passage of the RFRA in Indiana (and Arkansas) has drawn a stark line nationwide between advocates of religious freedoms and those of anti-discrimination leading some critics to say that those whose opinions are based on religious faith are now themselves facing intolerance.

About a week ago, Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Ind., became the first business to publicly stand in support of the RFRA. Less than a day after their interview with WBND-TV aired, co-owners Kevin OConnor and his daughter Crystal found themselves facing social media outrage, a hacked website, and threats to their family and business.

I dont know if we will re-open, or if we can, if its safe to re-open, Ms. OConnor told Dana Loesch on The Blaze TV soon after the incident. Were in hiding basically, staying in the house.

In response to the outrage against Memories Pizza, Ms. Loesch and The Blaze contributor Lawrence B. Jones III set up a GoFundMe page for the OConnors, where they criticized the reaction against the pizzeria owners.

Rather than allowing this family to simply have their opinion, which they were asked to give, outraged people grabbed the torches and began a campaign to destroy this small business in small town Indiana, they wrote.

More than $200,000 from more than 7,000 donors poured in within 24 hours of the page going live. Later that week, another GoFundMe page, set up in February for Washington florist Baronnelle Stutzman,received a similar show of support, The Seattle Times reported.

The amounts that each initiative received reflect a quiet push back by supporters of the RFRA, some of whomsee the issue not as one of discrimination, but of freedom of choice or freedom of speech.

Excerpt from:
Why opponents of same-sex marriage are turning to GoFundMe

First pizza, now flowers.

A florist from Washington state, fined $1,000 in February for refusing to decorate a gay wedding in 2013 because she said doing so went against her Christian beliefs, has made more than $100,000 through an online crowdfunding site.

The response echoes the more than$840,000 raised for an Indiana pizzeria whose owners said they would not, as a Christian business, provide their services for a same-sex wedding.

Such donations highlight one way that supporters of the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) are anonymously expressing their views in a discussion that has been dominated by opponents of the law. The recent passage of the RFRA in Indiana (and Arkansas) has drawn a stark line nationwide between advocates of religious freedoms and those of anti-discrimination leading some critics to say that those whose opinions are based on religious faith are now themselves facing intolerance.

About a week ago, Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Ind., became the first business to publicly stand in support of the RFRA. Less than a day after their interview with WBND-TV aired, co-owners Kevin OConnor and his daughter Crystal found themselves facing social media outrage, a hacked website, and threats to their family and business.

I dont know if we will re-open, or if we can, if its safe to re-open, Ms. OConnor told Dana Loesch on The Blaze TV soon after the incident. Were in hiding basically, staying in the house.

In response to the outrage against Memories Pizza, Ms. Loesch and The Blaze contributor Lawrence B. Jones III set up a GoFundMe page for the OConnors, where they criticized the reaction against the pizzeria owners.

Rather than allowing this family to simply have their opinion, which they were asked to give, outraged people grabbed the torches and began a campaign to destroy this small business in small town Indiana, they wrote.

More than $200,000 from more than 7,000 donors poured in within 24 hours of the page going live. Later that week, another GoFundMe page, set up in February for Washington florist Baronnelle Stutzman,received a similar show of support, The Seattle Times reported.

The amounts that each initiative received reflect a quiet push back by supporters of the RFRA, some of whomsee the issue not as one of discrimination, but of freedom of choice or freedom of speech.

See the original post here:
Why opponents of same-sex marriage are donating to GoFundMe (+video)

First pizza, now flowers.

A florist from Washington state, fined $1,000 in February for refusing to decorate a gay wedding in 2013 because she said doing so went against her Christian beliefs, has made more than $100,000 through an online crowdfunding site.

The response echoes the more than$840,000 raised for an Indiana pizzeria whose owners said they would not, as a Christian business, provide their services for a same-sex wedding.

Such donations highlight one way that supporters of the controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) are anonymously expressing their views in a discussion that has been dominated by opponents of the law. The recent passage of the RFRA in Indiana (and Arkansas) has drawn a stark line nationwide between advocates of religious freedoms and those of anti-discrimination leading some critics to say that those whose opinions are based on religious faith are now themselves facing intolerance.

About a week ago, Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Ind., became the first business to publicly stand in support of the RFRA. Less than a day after their interview with WBND-TV aired, co-owners Kevin OConnor and his daughter Crystal found themselves facing social media outrage, a hacked website, and threats to their family and business.

I dont know if we will re-open, or if we can, if its safe to re-open, Ms. OConnor told Dana Loesch on The Blaze TV soon after the incident. Were in hiding basically, staying in the house.

In response to the outrage against Memories Pizza, Ms. Loesch and The Blaze contributor Lawrence B. Jones III set up a GoFundMe page for the OConnors, where they criticized the reaction against the pizzeria owners.

Rather than allowing this family to simply have their opinion, which they were asked to give, outraged people grabbed the torches and began a campaign to destroy this small business in small town Indiana, they wrote.

More than $200,000 from more than 7,000 donors poured in within 24 hours of the page going live. Later that week, another GoFundMe page, set up in February for Washington florist Baronnelle Stutzman,received a similar show of support, The Seattle Times reported.

The amounts that each initiative received reflect a quiet push back by supporters of the RFRA, some of whomsee the issue not as one of discrimination, but of freedom of choice or freedom of speech.

Original post:
Why opponents of same-sex marriage are turning to GoFundMe (+video)

MARSHALL, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - An investigation into claims that a high school was trying to suppress students' freedom of speech has revealed miscommunication was at the heart of the issue.

Earlier this week, Newschannel 3 reported on the controversy.

Students in Marshall High School's Gay Straight Alliance were upset that a bulletin board raising awareness for transgender students was taken down.

They were concerned the school reacted to pressure from parents, claiming it violated religious rights and had no place in a school.

Superintendent Randy Davis looked into the events, and said he found that was not the case.

He says the board did mistakenly get taken down Friday, instead of Monday, when it was scheduled to be removed for another group to use.

Davis released a statement Thursday, apologizing for the confusion leading to a lack of trust among students.

========

The full statement reads as follows:

March 31st was to be a day of awareness at Marshall High School regarding transgender students and others of the LGBTQ community. Unfortunately, it turned into a storm of controversy through social media and other formal media outlets. The controversy surrounded the removal of a poster display created by the Marshall High School's Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) some time prior to the day of awareness. On Tuesday, March 31st a statement was released by the Superintendent indicating what had been reported to him regarding the timing and the reasoning behind the removal of the GSA Club's poster display. After the Superintendent's investigation concluded this morning Thursday April 2nd involving all pertinent individuals, the following sequence of events have been verified:

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Investigation into students' claims of free speech finds miscommunication at heart of problem

Exclusive | Kamal Haasan To ET NOW On Stock Markets Freedom Of Speech
Here #39;s the legendary actor Kamal Haasan in conversation with ET NOW about the freedom of speech and expression, his views on the stock market and wealth creation! You cannot miss this one!...

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Exclusive | Kamal Haasan To ET NOW On Stock Markets & Freedom Of Speech - Video

BBC Radio 4 - LFA: Protecting the freedom of speech
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By: Saiyan Tanaka

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BBC Radio 4 - LFA: Protecting the freedom of speech - Video