Category Archives: Freedom

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said her government is determined to do more to promote freedom of belief around the world as she spoke about growing up the daughter of a church minister and how it has affected her life.

At a pre-Easter reception for church leaders at her Downing Street residence, May joked she held the event the day before the start of the Lent period of fasting so guests planning to give up alcohol for 40 days would still be able to enjoy themselves. She said she would be abstaining from potato chips.

She went on to say that some of those present had urged her to do more for persecuted Christians around the world, and that she intends to act.

We must reaffirm our determination to stand up for the freedom of people of all religions to practice their beliefs in peace and safety, she said at the event on Tuesday. And I hope to take further measures as a government to support this.

May said she plans to continue her predecessor David Camerons practice of holding receptions for different faith groups.

As the daughter of a Church of England minister, I know first-hand the many sacrifices involved and the hard work that so many of you do, she said. From the services and ministry in your churches to the comfort and guidance you provide to millions in our country at some of the most difficult moments in our lives.

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May Pledges More Action to Support Freedom of Religion - Bloomberg

By Rebeca Coleman

smithsonian.com February 28, 2017 12:16PM

Even though the Civil War marked the end of slavery, African-Americans fought for equal rights throughout the century that followed. In the post-Reconstruction era, Jim Crow laws arose and the American South became a region of two segregated societies whites and African Americans. Attempts to tear down this system in the courts bore little to no fruit. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate but equal accommodations in public places were legal, enshrining a public policy that stayed on the books for decades.

The decision in Brown v. Board of Education that overturned Plessy marked one of the first major victories of the ever-growing Civil Rights Movement. That decision was followed by the Interstate Commerce Commissions (ICC) decision to ban segregation on interstate bus travel and then in 1960, the Court ruled that the terminals and waiting areas themselves, including restaurants, could not be segregated. The ICC however, neglected to truly enforce its own rules and jurisdiction.

In 1961, a group of black and white individuals decided to take their frustration with the permanence of segregation, and the federal governments disinterest in putting an end to the discrimination, to a further level. They decided to test the limits of Jim Crow laws by riding two buses together into the Deep South. Two groups, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) sponsored the Freedom Riders on their nonviolent protests of Southern segregation.

On May 4, 13 CORE and SNCC members embarked on their Freedom Ride through the American South with plans to engage in nonviolent protest and ensure that desegregation in public locales was being enforced. Many were seasoned protesters; some had even been arrested before. The overall goal was increasing awareness and decreasing segregation.

Their story, as told in the map above is one of resilience and perseverance. Some of the names are recognizable, including Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and John Lewis, while some of the Riders themselves, such as Diane Nash and Henry Thomas, are lesser-known. Facing threats from the Ku Klux Klan and Bull Connor, these protestors played a crucial part in bringing the cruelties of the Jim Crow South to a national audience.

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Follow the Path of the Freedom Riders in This Interactive Map - Smithsonian

The Chinese Communist Party has "intensified" its persecution of religious practitioners in recent years under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, and the ramifications are being felt well beyond the boundaries of religious policy, according to the U.S.-based Freedom House nonprofit.

In a new report released Tuesday, the group said increased oppression from the Chinese government is creating a thriving "black market" for believers to practice their religion outside of the official institutions.

"The party's rigid constraints render it impossible for state-sanctioned institutions to meet the growing demand for religion in Chinese society," said Senior Research Analyst Sarah Cook, the author of the report.

According to the article, Chinese authorities regularly jail believers for long periods, or engage in sustained violence against certain communities to exert control over illicit religious practices. At least 100 million Chinese, or about one third of the country's population, face "high" or "very high" persecution levels, the report said.

While the government is stepping up its religious restrictions with electronic surveillance at places of worship and imprisonment of those who share religious content on social media, Cook said the efforts illustrate "a remarkable failure," as an increasing number of people are worshipping underground and using tools to circumvent internet censorship.

"It reflects the party's difficulty in confronting citizens who are willing to make sacrifices for higher principles. From this perspective, it would appear that in the long-term battle for China's spirit, an unreformed Communist Party will ultimately lose," she said.

The report shows that China's persecution of religious believers stretches across various faiths, and includes Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Falon Gong practitioners, who face severe human rights violations from the Chinese Communist Party.

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Freedom House: Chinese Communists Intensifying Religious Persecution - Voice of America

For centuries wars have raged over religion. Religious institutions are given special political status and dissenters are oppressed, even murdered. Many fled to these shores in hopes of creating something new, something different. In its early stages, it hadnt gone so well. In New England, those seeking freedom from persecution became the persecutors. Here in Virginia the established church followed them and continued its reign.

The kickback against religious oppression by those whose families fled it was one of the reasons for revolution. Once freedom was gained the question became what to do next. A new government, free of royalty, led by people with a stake in it must be designed, or why not keep what you have.

The influence of the churches, and of religion itself had to also be dealt with. These Enlightenment thinkers, some of the most educated in world history, knew that there had to be a way to build a society not dictated by religion. How else could a nation be formed from so many different ones who came fleeing persecution?

This question became paramount in the making of a Constitution, and there would be no union of states without freedom of religion. In reality, there can be no freedom at all without freedom of religion. This, more than anything else, separated America from the world, and even from world history.

America truly was the greatest nation the world had ever seen, due largely for this reason. A secular nation not beholding to any church was, in and of itself, revolutionary.

An implied concept supported by Supreme Court interpretations is the separation of church and state, meaning neither should interfere in the business of the other. Freedom itself depends upon this. This separation was to help both thrive.

James Madison, author of the Constitution, in speaking against those seeking to undermine this freedom referred to it as the old error. He further explained that, religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together. This statement rings true as a merger of the past 150 years has created a new Christianity, and now seeks to create a new government.

Puritan theologian and the architect of religious freedom in America Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts in the late 1600s for his revolutionary ideas. The theocratic puritan state had failed in its mission to end the persecution they fled and he believed forced religion destroyed the very soul. His freedom of conscience ideas set America on the course to true freedom. Enforced uniformity confounds civil and religious liberty and denies the principles of Christianity and civility. No man should be required to worship or maintain a worship against his will, he wrote. Madison and Jefferson, among others, were quite familiar with Williams writings.

The old error now lays directly on our doorstep. Those who seek to execute this error and merge the two are great enemies to both religion and to the state. The Roman Empire syncretized Biblical Christianity with some other empirical religions and merged these with the civil government, to the destruction of both. A new religion arose that destroyed both Europe and the Middle East, and the empire itself collapsed, sending Europe into the Dark Ages.

Freedom of conscience is something to fight for, as is the freedom of religion it produces. History has otherwise shown that this is a dark and evil path to travel. Religious leaders will seek to control the masses and their resources. We see it in churches already. The only thing that arises is death and destruction, poverty and wealth accumulation for the religious/political leaders.

Moreover, the attackers of this great freedom act against the very religion they seek to force upon the people. Its tome, the Bible, teaches to Let everyone be fully convinced in his own mind (Romans 14:5) and the rhetorical, Why should my liberty be determined by someone elses conscience? (1 Cor 10:29). Did not Jesus himself teach that the wheat and the tares were to live together? (Matt 13:30) These and many other teachings led medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas to teach that everyone has a duty to believe and act in accord with ones own conscience. Reformation would follow.

Without religious freedom there can be no freedom at all. We must stand firm for what makes America great. Today, it is sought not to define Americas greatness by its freedoms, but by its ability to kill and destroy. Making America Great doesnt really mean great, it means more able to kill and destroy so the rich can get richer.

Freedom is worth fighting for. Together, lets protect both the state and the religion and ensure that the wall that separates them stands proud and tall to protect both and let freedom ring.

Tim Cotton lives with his family in Culpeper and is co-chairman of the Piedmont Green Party.

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COLUMN: Maintain the wall and let freedom ring - The Daily Progress

Protestors and LGBT activists rally outside of Trump International Hotel, this month in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

Protestors and LGBT activists rally outside of Trump International Hotel, this month in Washington, DC.

The collision of two core American values freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination is prompting a showdown in legislatures and courts across the country.

For some conservatives, religious freedom means the right to act on their opposition to same-sex marriage and other practices that go against their beliefs. LGBT advocates and their allies, meanwhile, say no one in the United States should face discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

President Trump is said to be considering an executive order to bar the federal government from punishing people or institutions that support marriage exclusively as the union of one man and one woman. The language is similar to a bill expected to be reintroduced by Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah called the First Amendment Defense Act.

After a widely circulated draft order aroused considerable opposition from the LGBT community, no further action was taken. Asked recently whether such an order might still get signed, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said only that Trump "will continue to fulfill" commitments he had made. Advocates for executive action say they do not expect new developments until Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, has been confirmed.

The debate's heart: What "exercising" one's religion means

Under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Congress is barred from enacting "an establishment of religion," but neither can it prohibit "the free exercise thereof." The question under current debate is what it means to "exercise" one's religion.

If a football coach is not allowed to lead his team in a public prayer, or a high school valedictorian is not given permission to read a Bible passage for her graduation speech, or the owner of a private chapel is told he cannot refuse to accommodate a same-sex wedding, they might claim their religious freedom has been infringed. Others might argue that such claims go against the principle of church-state separation, or that they undermine the rights of LGBT people to be free from discrimination.

Legislation either to uphold LGBT rights or to limit them in the name of protecting religious freedom has advanced in several states, and further court battles are likely.

One of the thorniest cases involves Catholic Charities, whose agencies long have provided adoption and foster care services to children in need, including orphans. Under Catholic doctrine, the sacrament of marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman, and Catholic adoption agencies therefore have declined to place children with same-sex couples.

When Massachusetts (and other jurisdictions) redefined marriage to include same-sex couples, making it illegal to deny adoption to them., the Catholic agencies closed down their adoption services and argued that their religious freedom had been infringed.

"One of the major activities of the [Catholic] church, going way back, was to look after the orphans," says Stanley Carlson-Thies, founder of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance. "For that to be illegal unless the religious people change their standard, seems to me ... unfortunate."

But to the LGBT community and its supporters, a refusal to place a child for adoption with a same-sex couple is unacceptable discrimination against people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Those who oppose anti-discrimination efforts are often portrayed as out of step with the growing public acceptance of same-sex unions.

"I can't think of a single civil rights law that doesn't have some people who are unhappy about it," says Karen Narasaki, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "But once the country has said, 'Well, we believe that people who are LGBT need to be protected from discrimination, then how do you make sure that happens?"

The commission's report on the religious freedom vs. anti-discrimination debate, published last September, came down squarely on the anti-discrimination side. The commission recommended that "civil rights protections ensuring nondiscrimination" were of "preeminent" importance and that religious exemptions to such policies "must be weighed carefully and defined narrowly on a fact-specific basis."

When you have two important American principles coming into conflict with one another, our goal as Americans is to sit down and try to see if we can uphold both.

Charles Haynes of the Newseum's Religious Freedom Center

The commission chairman at the time, Martin R. Castro, went further with a statement of his own, saying, "The phrases 'religious liberty' and 'religious freedom' will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance."

The commission report sparked a protest letter signed by 17 faith leaders, arguing that the report "stigmatizes tens of millions of religious Americans, their communities and their faith-based institutions, and threatens the religious freedom of all our citizens."

One of the signers, Charles Haynes, director of the Religious Freedom Center at the Newseum Institute in Washington, says religious conservatives are entitled to make claims of conscience.

"We may not like the claim of conscience," Haynes says, "but you know, we don't judge claims of conscience on whether we like the content of the claim. We are trying to protect the right of people to do what they feel they must do according to their God. That is a very high value."

Haynes himself says LGBT rights and same-sex marriage "are very important" but that supporters of those causes "cannot simply declare that one side wins all."

"Nondiscrimination is a great American principle it's a core American principle as is religious freedom," Haynes says. "When you have two important American principles coming into tension, into conflict with one another, our goal as Americans is to sit down and try to see if we can uphold both."

Exercising "freedom to worship" in life

Not all faith leaders are convinced, however, that the push for LGBT rights is jeopardizing the religious freedom of people who hold conservative beliefs about sexuality and marriage.

During a recent appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations, Bishop Michael Curry, leader of the Episcopal Church in the United States, said he has witnessed the persecution of Christians in other parts of the world and doesn't see anything comparable in the United States.

"I'm not worried about my religious freedom," Curry said. "I get up and go to church on Sunday morning, ain't nobody stopping me. My freedom to worship is protected in this country, and that's not going to get taken away. I have been in places where that's been infringed. That's not what we're talking about."

Curry's reference only to "freedom to worship," however, missed the point, according to some religious freedom advocates. They say they want the freedom to exercise their faith every day of the week, wherever they are even if it means occasionally challenging the principle of absolute equality for all.

"We can't use equality to just wipe out one of the [First Amendment] rights," Carlson-Thies says, "or say you can have the right, as long as you just exercise it in church, but not out in life."

Carlson-Thies is one of several conservatives who support a "Fairness For All" initiative to forge a compromise between advocates for LGBT rights and religious freedom, but the effort has had little success so far. The LGBT community and their allies have been cool to the notion of compromising their cause, while a group of more strident religious freedom advocates made clear their own opposition to the recognition of sexual orientation as a status worthy of civil rights protection.

Legal analysts are divided in their assessment of the debate. A federal judge, ruling on a Mississippi religious freedom law, concluded that by protecting specific beliefs, the bill "constitutes an official preference for certain religious tenets," and may therefore be unconstitutional. Other laws and proposals, however, are written in support of beliefs held by several different religions and thus may not run afoul of the First Amendment's bar on "an establishment of religion."

John Inazu, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis whose book Confident Pluralism lays out an approach that might help bridge differences between LGBT and religious freedom advocates, says efforts at reconciliation face long odds.

"There were efforts early on about some kind of compromise," he tells NPR in a recent interview. "I think those are less and less plausible as time goes on and as sides get factionalized. It's hard to see in some of these cases how there would be an outcome that is amenable to everyone, and so I think we're seeing these cases with us for a long time."

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In Religious Freedom Debate, 2 American Values Clash - NPR

"Freedoms" redirects here. For other uses, see Freedom.

Political freedom (also known as a political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.[1] Political freedom was described as freedom from oppression[2] or coercion,[3] the absence of disabling conditions for an individual and the fulfillment of enabling conditions,[4] or the absence of life conditions of compulsion, e.g. economic compulsion, in a society.[5] Although political freedom is often interpreted negatively as the freedom from unreasonable external constraints on action,[6] it can also refer to the positive exercise of rights, capacities and possibilities for action, and the exercise of social or group rights.[7] The concept can also include freedom from "internal" constraints on political action or speech (e.g. social conformity, consistency, or "inauthentic" behaviour).[8] The concept of political freedom is closely connected with the concepts of civil liberties and human rights, which in democratic societies are usually afforded legal protection from the state.

Various groups along the political spectrum naturally differ on what they believe constitutes "true" political freedom.

Left-wing political philosophy generally couples the notion of freedom with that of positive liberty, or the enabling of a group or individual to determine their own life or realize their own potential. Freedom, in this sense, may include freedom from poverty, starvation, treatable disease, and oppression, as well as freedom from force and coercion, from whomever they may issue.

Friedrich Hayek, a classical liberal, criticized this as a misconception of freedom:

[T]he use of "liberty" to describe the physical "ability to do what I want", the power to satisfy our wishes, or the extent of the choice of alternatives open to us... has been deliberately fostered as part of the socialist argument... the notion of collective power over circumstances has been substituted for that of individual liberty.[9]

Anarcho-socialists see negative and positive liberty as complementary concepts of freedom. Such a view of rights may require utilitarian trade-offs, such as sacrificing the right to the product of one's labor or freedom of association for less racial discrimination or more subsidies for housing. Social anarchists describe the negative liberty-centric view endorsed by capitalism as "selfish freedom".[10]

Anarcho-capitalists see negative rights as a consistent system. Ayn Rand described it as "a moral principle defining and sanctioning a mans freedom of action in a social context. To such libertarians, positive liberty is contradictory, since so-called rights must be traded off against each other, debasing legitimate rights which, by definition, trump other moral considerations. Any alleged "right" which calls for an end result (e.g. housing, education, medical services) produced by people is, in effect, a purported "right" to enslave others.[citation needed]

Some notable philosophers, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, have theorized freedom in terms of our social interdependence with other people.[11]

American Economist Milton Friedman in his book Capitalism and Freedom argues that there are two types of freedom: political freedom and Economic freedom. Friedman asserted that without economic freedom, there cannot be political freedom. This idea was contested by Robin Hahnel in his article "Why the Market Subverts Democracy." Robin Hahnel points out a set of issues with Friedmans understanding of economic freedom: that there will in fact be infringements on the freedom of others whenever anyone exercises their own economic freedom, and that such infringements can only be avoided if there is a precisely defined property rights systemwhich Friedman fails to provide or specify directly. [12][13]

According to political philosopher Nikolas Kompridis, the pursuit of freedom in the modern era can be broadly divided into two motivating ideals: freedom as autonomy or independence; and freedom as the ability to cooperatively initiate a new beginning.[14]

Political freedom has also been theorized in its opposition to (and a condition of) "power relations", or the power of "action upon actions," by Michel Foucault.[15] It has also been closely identified with certain kinds of artistic and cultural practice by Cornelius Castoriadis, Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ranciere, and Theodor Adorno.

Environmentalists often argue that political freedoms should include some constraint on use of ecosystems. They maintain there is no such thing, for instance, as "freedom to pollute" or "freedom to deforest" given that such activities create negative externalities. The popularity of SUVs, golf, and urban sprawl has been used as evidence that some ideas of freedom and ecological conservation can clash. This leads at times to serious confrontations and clashes of values reflected in advertising campaigns, e.g. that of PETA regarding fur.

John Dalberg-Acton stated that "The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities."[16]

Gerald MacCallum spoke of a compromise between positive and negative freedoms. An agent must have full autonomy over themselves. It is triadic in relation to each other, because it is about three things: the agent, the constraints they need to be free from, and the goal they're aspiring to.[17]

Hannah Arendt traces freedom's conceptual origins to ancient Greek [1] politics. According to her study, the concept of freedom was historically inseparable from political action. Politics could only be practiced by those who had freed themselves from the necessities of life, so that they could participate in the realm of political affairs. According to Arendt, the concept of freedom became associated with the Christian notion of freedom of the will, or inner freedom, around the 5th century C.E. and since then, freedom as a form of political action has been neglected, even though, as she says, freedom is "the raison d'tre of politics."[18]

Arendt says that political freedom is historically opposed to sovereignty or will-power, since in ancient Greece and Rome, the concept of freedom was inseparable from performance, and did not arise as a conflict between the "will" and the "self." Similarly, the idea of freedom as freedom from politics is a notion that developed in modern times. This is opposed to the idea of freedom as the capacity to "begin anew," which Arendt sees as a corollary to the innate human condition of natality, or our nature as "new beginnings and hence beginners."[citation needed]

In Arendt's view, political action is an interruption of automatic process, either natural or historical. The freedom to begin anew is thus an extension of "the freedom to call something into being which did not exist before, which was not given, not even as an object of cognition or imagination, and which therefore, strictly speaking, could not be known."[19]

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Political freedom - Wikipedia

The chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus told CNN Monday he would vote against any ObamaCare replacement bill that includes refundable tax credits, calling them another "entitlement program."

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) was referring to a draft of an ObamaCare replacement bill created Feb. 10 and leaked last week.

It's unclear how much it has changed since two weeks ago, but the draft includes a refundable tax credit, based on age and not income, to help people buy health insurance.

"A new Republican president signs a new entitlement and a new tax increase as his first major piece of legislation? I don't know how you support that do you?"

Meadows's comments represent the difficulty Republicans face in coalescing around an ObamaCare replacement. He indicated that other members of the caucus may vote against the repeal bill if it contains the refundable tax credit.

The caucus has asked leadership to take up a 2015 ObamaCare repeal bill that was vetoed by President Obama. They have said they won't vote for any bill that is "weaker" than the 2015 bill.

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Freedom Caucus chair says he'd vote against draft ObamaCare replacement - The Hill

ABroward Countyman who admitted he fed more than $20 million toScott Rothstein'smassive Ponzi scheme had his prison term reduced last weekat the request of prosecutors.

Frank Prev, 73, of Coral Springs, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2014.

Senior U.S. District Judge James Cohn agreed on Friday to cut Prev's federal prison term from 3 1/2 years to two years and two months. Federal prosecutors recommended the sentence reduction because of information and help Prev provided in related prosecutions in Pennsylvania.

In a related matter, former Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm partner Stuart Rosenfeldt, 61, of Boca Raton, is serving the last few months of his federal prison sentence at a halfway house in South Florida, prison records show. He was moved from the federal prison camp at MaxwellAir Force Base in Alabamato South Florida to begin his transition back to freedom, prison officials said.

Rosenfeldt was a partner in the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale law firm, which was the center of operations for the $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme orchestrated byRothstein. Rothsteinis serving a 50-year prison sentence for his crimes.

Rosenfeldt, who pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiringto commit campaign finance fraud, to defraud the United States, to commit bank fraud and to deny civil rights, surrendered to prison in early 2015. He will be placed onprobation for two years after he is released from the halfway house.

Prev, who worked with a hedge fund group, fed more than $20 million from investors into the fraud in the four months before it collapsed in 2009.

Prev was initiallysentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison in February 2015 but was allowed to remain free on bond because of poor health and so he could testify in one of the related cases, according to court records.

Prosecutors said he didn't know it was a Ponzi scheme but failed to report obvious red flags to investors, including that Rothstein skipped making payments, paperwork was missing and the underlying deals couldn't be verified.

Prev was also credited with helping authorities to investigatethe Rothstein fraud.

Prev, who served in the military and worked in a CIA cryptology station in the 1960s, was once a successful bank president in South Florida. Prosecutors said he was paid about $4 million linked to the Rothstein fraud.

pmcmahon@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4533 or Twitter @SentinelPaula

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Rothstein ally gets punishment cut; ex-partner Rosenfeldt nears freedom - Sun Sentinel

Cambodias prime minister, Hun Sen, whose government is clamping down on critical media, citing Donald Trumps behaviour. Photograph: Samrang Pring/Reuters

And so it has happened. Less than 100 days into his presidency, Donald Trump is being cited by a corrupt and despotic regime to justify new restrictions on rights and freedoms. On Saturday, Cambodias council of ministers spokesman Phay Siphan vowed to crush media entities that endanger the peace and security of the kingdom, calling on all foreign agents to self-censor or be shut down. He justified this threat by citing Trumps recent expulsion of critical media outlets from a White House briefing (Report, 25 January).

Donald Trumps ban of international media giants sends a clear message that President Trump sees that news published by those media institutions does not reflect the real situation, the Phnom Penh Post quoted the spokesman as saying. Freedom of expression must be located within the domain of the law and take into consideration national interests and peace. The presidents decision has nothing to do with democracy or freedom of expression.

This comes in the wake of a new wave of human rights violations by Cambodia (including the murder of a prominent government critic, Kem Ley, and a new law designed to dismantle opposition parties) in the run-up to local and national elections.

Such comments demonstrate how President Trumps careless rhetoric and narcissistic acts can be used by despotic regimes across the globe to justify human rights violations. Alexandre Prezanti Global Diligence LLP

I read Carl Cederstrms piece (Its not just lies: Trump wills his truth into our reality, 27 February) with particular interest. I had only just watched David Hare and Mick Jacksons Denial, following Peter Bradshaws reputational rescue of the film in his review (G2, 27 January), as having overwhelming relevance. It seems particularly apt to Cederstrms point.

In the film, at the end of the long trial, the judge pulls out the question and I paraphrase What if David Irving believed all these egregious untruths would he still be a mendacious liar? The precise reason why he was able to dismiss his own question was not quoted. But it is a matter of historical record that the judge found for the defendants and stated that for his own ideological reasons [the holocaust denier] persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence. Roger Macy London

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Donald Trump's media ban inspires Cambodian attack on press freedom - The Guardian

New York Times

Rhiannon Giddens Celebrates 'Freedom Highway' in the Big House ... New York Times The folk singer accompanied the release of a new album with a workshop for convicts and a show at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y.. Rhiannon Giddens channels 'voices that need to be heard' on ...Los Angeles Times Rhiannon Giddens's Second Solo Album, "Freedom Highway," Out NowNonesuch Records Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway review powerful and timelyThe Guardian Washington Post -The Times (subscription) -American Songwriter all 26 news articles »

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Rhiannon Giddens Celebrates 'Freedom Highway' in the Big House ... - New York Times