A float is paraded during the "Zondagsstoet" on the opening day of the Aalst carnival on February 23, 2020, in Aalst. - The Aalst carnival was removed from the UNESCO list of intangible heritage at the end of 2019 over persistent charges of anti-Semitism. (Photo by Juliette Bruynseels / AFP) (Photo by JULIETTE BRUYNSEELS/AFP via Getty Images)

The story of a Nazi-obsessed boy and his imaginary friend, Adolph, might seem unlikely fodder for comedy. Indeed, when Jojo Rabbit was released, some critics balked at the premise, which reduced the Third Reich to buffoonery. Yet laughing at intolerance, in this age of division, offers hope.

In the struggle to diminish hate, satire is clearly writer-director Taika Waititis weapon of choice. You think were at the height of human civilization and advancement, and it could never happen again, he told audiences at the Toronto premiere, adding that was exactly what they said in 1933.

The enduring relevance of that message is underscored by two recent events: the discovery of Nazi childrens propaganda for sale on Amazon, and a bizarre carnival parade in the city of Aalst, Belgium.

Last Sunday, Aalst residents paraded in costumes of elaborately poor taste. Several parodied Orthodox Jews in massive fur hats. A few dressed in Nazi SS uniforms, paired with Raggedy Ann-style red cheeks and braids. Others dressed as ants, invoking, for some critics, Nazi propaganda depicting Jews as vermin. Marchers posed before a fake Wailing Wall, twisting the Dutch name for Jerusalems holy site (klaagmuur) into de klaugmier, or the wailing ant.

Participants also lampooned Boris Johnson, Greta Thunberg and UNESCO, which delisted Aalst as a cultural heritage site after controversy over last years parade.

Its our parade, our humour, a spokesperson for the mayor told the BBC, denying anti-Semitism was at play. Its a weekend of freedom of speech.

Free speech and anti-Semitism already were hot-button topics heading into the weekend. Two days earlier, the Holocaust Educational Trust and Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum publicly called on Amazon and Amazon U.K to stop selling books by Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher.

Biographer Randall Bytwerk has described Streicher, the founder of Der Sturmer, as one of the most unpleasant of the Nazis. His illustrated childrens book, The Poisonous Mushroom, published in 1938, was presented as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. Streicher was tried and executed for crimes against humanity.

According to U.K. tabloid The Sun, English translations of Streichers works were printed in 2017 using the Amazon self-publishing platform CreateSpace. Their presence on Amazon was discovered by producers for Auschwitz Untold, a documentary commemorating the 75th anniversary of the camps liberation.

Its not the first Holocaust merch discovered on digital shelves. In December, Amazon pulled listings for a bottle opener and holiday ornaments bearing images of Auschwitz, following complaints on social media. Company policy prohibits the sale of products related to human tragedies. But enforcement in the vast digital marketplace can be sluggish and reactive.

Sensibly enough, Amazons policy does not apply to books, music, videos and DVDs. Books related to human tragedies would encompass authors from Anne Frank to Alice Walker.

Amazons initial response to the criticism heralded a thoughtful approach.

As a bookseller, we are mindful of book censorship throughout history, and we do not take this lightly, read a representatives statement. We believe that providing access to written speech is important, including books that some may find objectionable, though we take concerns from the Holocaust Educational Trust seriously and are listening to its feedback.

Censorship, in a Nazi context, inevitably conjures images of book burning. But the Trust has been clear its goal is not to destroy Streichers books. Preservation is, in fact, essential to its core mission of historical education. That doesnt mean retailers should start selling the audiobook. Education requires context.

Protecting freedom of expression requires constant vigilance. We must condemn offensive ideas as rigorously as we preserve the right to blurt them out, and suffer the consequences.

write.robin@baranyai.ca

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Baranyai: Defending free speech requires we condemn offensive ideas - The London Free Press

OpinionIn a mature, civilised, multi-ethnic society, no one has the right to say exactly what they want

Tuesday, 25th February 2020, 5:15 pm

A friend of mine, a successful man of the world, once gave me some very good advice. Organisations are very often precisely the opposite of what their name suggests. So always be careful if an establishment with professional in its title (only amateurs would say such a thing), or a company calls itself international (you may find, for example, that its coverage extends only to the wider Stevenage area.

As a result, I have always been suspicious of anybody using the word freedom to describe itself witness the Freedom Party. I had a similar reaction to the advent of the Free Speech Union, the journalist Toby Youngs latest venture.

Exactly whose freedoms are Young and his friends seeking to protect? Is it principally those who demand the freedom to say things that offend others? As Trevor Phillips put it so well on the radio the other morning, when Young is involved, it is tempting to think that this is an opportunity to defend right-wing nut jobs, but that would be to diminish a largely well-intentioned enterprise, which has identified an increasingly problematic aspect of civil society.

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'Consider an oratorical free-for-all, where all manner of crackpot rhetoric or hateful speech could be defended on the grounds of an inalienable human right'

Toby Young has a formidable gift for self-promotion, and has a vested interest in the subject he has been defenestrated from public positions because of statements that were deemed beyond the pale. However, this shouldnt be an impediment to our taking his position seriously. What all his activity brings to the fore is a hugely important question, one that has never been properly answered. Is freedom of speech an indivisible human right, without limits? In other words, is Youngs right to say what he likes about Claudia Winklemans breasts (which he has done) the same as Tommy Robinsons right to say that Muslims should f*** off out of the UK?

And this is where the fault lines lie in Youngs argument. In a mature, civilised, multi-ethnic society, with huge disparities of opportunity and power, no one has the right to say exactly what they want. This is not about freedom, its about respect, something that social media, and Twitter in particular, has done much to erode. We do need people to police public discourse in order to protect minorities and the disadvantaged, and, actually, I would rather they were academics, professionals and public officials than Toby Young and David Starkey (one of his named supporters, who even Piers Morgan once called a racist idiot).

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I wouldnt disagree with Young that serious institutions are now on a hair-trigger when it comes to sanctioning anything that is perceived to be offensive. The banning of mainstream speakers on university campuses because of their unorthodox views is clearly a nonsense. But consider an oratorical free-for-all, where all manner of crackpot rhetoric or hateful speech could be defended on the grounds of an inalienable human right. If you want to see what that looks like, log on to Twitter at any time.

I would suggest that the Free Speech Union will not be much of a union, either. Free speech means very different things to different people, and Young will have difficulty protecting his noble vision from the ideological outcasts, trolls and, yes, the nutjobs of the right and the left.

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Toby Young's 'Free Speech Union' is illogical - and more to the point, it won't work - inews

As the #MeToo movement gains global steam,an Instagram account called HerdSceneAnd has taken a prominent and controversial stand against sexual harassment in the Indian art world.In 2018, the account began publishing anonymous accusations that the artist Subodh Gupta, known asDelhis Damien Hirst, and several other prominent men in the south Asian art scene had sexually harassed women.

Gupta issued a denialand, 10 months later, sued the anonymous Instagram account in a Delhi court for defamation and financial loss amounting to nearly $700,000. Then,just as swiftly as hed taken legal action, he backed down from his demands.

After a few court hearings, lawyers for Gupta as well as for the Instagram account told the court in February that they would resolve the matter privately. Now, the terms of their settlement have come to light: The Instagram account holders will remove the two offending posts concerning Guptas alleged sexual harassment and would express regret. In return, Gupta said he would drop his defamation case and his demands for financial recompense, and wouldnt push for the account holders to publicly testify.

The novel case has captured the medias attention with all the questions it raises: How could an anonymous social media account be sued? Would the court demand that the whistleblowers behind it reveal their identities? Would the alleged victims then have to reveal themselves too? Why did Gupta wait so long to sue? Would other powerful men who were outed by HerdSceneAnd also begin to sue?

Although the account had posted allegations against several influential menincluding former Sothebys managing director Gaurav Bhatia (who resigned following an inquiry), artist Riyaz Komu, and painter Jatin Dasso far Gupta is the only one who has sued.

Guptas lawsuit also raises broader concerns about a possible chilling effect on free speech.Early on, the Indian court indicated that the whistleblowers who run the Instagram account would have to reveal their identities. It also directed Google to remove a number of journalistic articles which had reported on the allegations against Gupta. The media outlets did not have a chance to defend their reporting.

Essentially, Guptas defamation case not only risked deterring women from speaking out about sexual harassment in the art world, it also asked for a judicial clampdown on whistleblowing and the free press.

As part of his case, Gupta demanded that Google globally de-index articles about him from its search results and asked Facebook, which owns Instagram, to take down the posts on HerdSceneAnd.

Google and Facebook hit back at Gupta, telling the Indian court that his demands would restrict free speech. Google said that granting Guptas request would put an unreasonable restraint on the freedom of speech and expression on the internet as well as the freedom of the press. Facebook went further to speak out in support of women outing alleged sexual predators, telling the court that Guptas demands could dissuade potential victims of sexual harassment who share their experiences and compromise their privacy.

The Indian Journalists Union also approached the court and asked to be made a party to the case on the grounds that journalists cannot be stopped from reporting on public figures even when the source is anonymous.

The newly established Culture Workers Forum asked the court to be made part of the case as well, explaining that the Indian art industry lacked the means to address sexual harassment: when young artists choose to enter the industry, mechanisms such as imposing terms of service or establishing rules of conduct, are scarcely considered.

Gupta, who makes massive sculptures out of stainless steel kitchen utensils, continues to show and sell his work internationally at galleries including Galleria Continua, Hauser and Wirth, and Nature Morte. Last June, a few months before he went to court, Gupta was invited to a fundraiser by the UKs Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla, for which he made a giant brass elephant as a centerpiece of the event. After the allegations broke his art continued to be auctioned, raking in at least $530,000 in sales in the months before he sued.

As for the anonymous Instagram users who took on powerful men in the Indian art world, they are sticking it out. The Indian court allowed HerdSceneAnd to maintain its status as an unnamed whistleblower and the account is still active. Its most recent post, in August 2019, said: We are still listening. It might seem quiet but do not for a second think our work is done and that weve moved on. We continue to be threatened and intimidated in subtle and not so subtle ways. Not all work can be in the public eye and many in the Indian Art World are hoping everyone will forget, and many have, but rest assured we all still remember.

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An Instagram Account That Accused Subodh Gupta of Sexual Harassment Has Agreed to Apologize in Exchange for the Artist Dropping His Lawsuit - artnet...

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How the Hare Krishna led to a free speech booth at St. Louis airport

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. (AP) Tucked near a rarely used escalator in Terminal 1 at St. Louis Lambert International Airport is a blue sign that hangs over a nondescript stand announcing in all caps the spots purpose: FREE SPEECH BOOTH.

Underneath the sign on a recent morning sat Gregory Brown, 66, and Charles Ryskamp, 70, calling out to travelers and asking for donations in exchange for books about their Hare Krishna beliefs. Most passed without a second look.

Its like fishing, Ryskamp said after a woman pulling a suitcase power-walked away from them. Sometimes they are biting, and sometimes theyre not.

The two men sit at this booth, on stools they bring themselves, six or seven days a week. For decades theyve spent hours each day trying to entice people over to their selection of books on topics like yoga and reincarnation, taking advantage of an airport program that offers just about anyone a soapbox to proselytize, protest or raise money for a nonprofit.

Their spot is one of three free speech booths at Lambert that often puzzle travelers with their signs nodding to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Yeah, whats the deal with these? asked traveler Tienna Simons after a couple of minutes speaking with Ryskamp and Brown about karma. Isnt the whole country kind of one big freedom of speech booth?

The first of the booths at the airport dates to the 1970s, stemming from years of legal battles over speech rights at Lambert. The disputes largely focused on Hare Krishna members who used to approach travelers throughout the airport offering flowers, candy or books in exchange for donations that funded their temple.

Today, the booths draw much less attention.

Three years of schedules show the booths are most often manned by the same few groups that have gotten permits from the airport. The regulars include the Hare Krishna devotees, Jehovahs Witnesses and the United Service Organization military nonprofit, though booths have been used as Christmas caroling stations and for a protest message on occasion over the years.

Its a reasonable accommodation to allow people to express free speech, said Jeff Lea, the airports spokesman. And we dont discriminate on who can reserve them.

Airport management does makes a point to distance itself from the messages.

The Airport Authority does not endorse the opinions or positions of the users of the Free Speech Booths, read signs attached to all sides of the stands.

Still, Ryskamp and Brown told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that theyre often mistaken for airport employees.

We get a lot of people asking for directions to the bathroom, Brown said.

Lambert was among the first airports in the country to attempt to restrict solicitations by Hare Krishna members and other groups when the first version of a free speech booth was introduced in 1977. Then-director Leonard L. Griggs, a former Air Force colonel, came up with the booth idea after years of battles with the Hare Krishna followers.

Griggs told the Post-Dispatch in a 1979 feature that the Hare Krishnas were the most frequent topic of complaints from travelers.

If they want war, we will give them war, he commented in reference to a group he said was harassing people.

In the early 1970s, the Hare Krishna followers were distinctive in most airports across the country with their bright orange robes and shaved heads. But by 1979 in St. Louis they had taken to wearing street clothes and wigs to keep people from avoiding them, according to a Post-Dispatch report. For a time, they even carried spray bottles of chemicals to defend themselves when passengers reacted aggressively to their approach, according to the newspaper.

The Hare Krishnas took both the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County to court in an attempt to ensure they could approach travelers. Early court decisions went in their favor, most notably a 1979 ruling from a St. Louis Circuit Court judge who ruled that the right to speech was protected at Lambert much like it would be on a busy street.

A few other groups also sued for the right to protest at the airport, including followers of cult political figure Lyndon LaRouche, who ran for president eight times, and a former baggage handler for Trans World Airlines who wanted to protest his firing with the sign TWA discriminates against the handicapped.

But in 1992 the tide shifted when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Hare Krishnas who had sued New York City airports over bans on solicitation in terminals.

The court ruled 6-3 that the airport was not a public forum like a street, but rather government property with a specific business purpose in which solicitation or speech that could interfere with its core purpose could be placed under reasonable restrictions.

There are some publicly owned places like military bases or some government office buildings where the courts acknowledge there can be limits on free speech, said Chad Flanders of St. Louis University Law School. That decision made an airport one of those places.

In the years since, Lambert, along with airports in Atlanta, Minnesota, San Francisco and elsewhere, introduced the current iteration of free speech booths as a way to confine speech to certain times and spaces.

Among the heaviest users of the booths across the country has been Jehovahs Witnesses, including in St. Louis.

Bill Lane, 73, has been manning booths with his wife at Lambert for about a year. He attempts to talk to people about his faith and hands out pamphlets about roles in a family, among other topics.

The work may seem like a lot of rejection, but Lane spent years going door to door as a Jehovahs Witness. By comparison, hes able to reach many more people in the same amount of time at the airport, he said.

We have to change our approach as life changes, Lane said. A lot of people dont stop, but were not pushing something at people. We want them to come by their own initiative.

The Hare Krishnas at Lambert, Ryskamp and Brown, said their work completes their mission to spread their philosophy and helps to financially support their temple. Hare Krishna, also known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, holds certain Hindu beliefs and stresses devotion to the Hindu deity Krishna. It was founded in the U.S. in 1966.

Ryskamp and Brown get donations for about 25 to 40 books they give out each day, they said.

There have been some complaints about the booths at Lambert over the years, including the United Service Organization taking issue with the Hare Krishnas targeting military service members in uniform, Ryskamp and Brown said.

Representatives from the USO have stood in front of the Hare Krishna booths in the past, telling military personnel to stay away.

They can do that. We cant stop them, Brown said. That is their freedom of speech, but we are practicing ours.

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How the Hare Krishna led to a free speech booth at St. Louis airport - Alton Telegraph

Throughout American history, peoples views on what should or should not count as protected speech under the First Amendment has waxed and waned along with cultural trends and changing political ideologies.

But rarely do we see the viewpoint on certain fundamental rights shift so dramatically.

Progressives used to champion the freedom of speech, even in cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. Now it is more likely to be conservatives defending the First Amendment while progressives push for government censorship and restrictions on speech they dont like.

How did we get here?

For the better part of the 20th century, progressives were some of the most vocal proponents for protecting peoples freedom of speech. In the early 1900s, labor organizers formed organizations like the ACLU and fought for the rights of workers to speak and assemble freely.

For example, in 1925 the ACLU defended the free speech rights of Benjamin Gitlow, a member of the Socialist Party of America, who was charged with criminal anarchy for distributing a document called the Left Wing Manifesto.

During the Vietnam War era, progressives supported individuals protesting the war. This included the case of Paul Robert Cohen, who was charged with disturbing the peace for wearing a jacket displaying F*** the Draft inside a public courthouse. It also includes the case of five students in Des Moines, Iowa, who decided to wear black armbands to school in protest of the war. Both cases led to Supreme Court decisions that increased speech protections for all Americans.

In the 70s and 80s, the ACLU even came to the defense of Americans charged with crimes like burning the American flag, which was alleged to be indecent speech, and defended the First Amendment rights of despicable groups like Neo-Nazis.

But in the past 20 years, there appears to have been a shift in the cultural dynamic.

Ironically, todays progressives are making many of the same arguments to restrict free speech that conservatives previously made when fighting against pornography and obscenity. Rather than upholding an individuals freedom to express himself or herself, progressives would rather restrict speech according to their own ideological or cultural preferences.

Louis Michael Seidman, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown, has even argued that free speech is not a progressive ideal, and that there are substantive differences between conservative speech and liberal speech. Northeastern University psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that there are times when speech can be so offensive and upsetting that it is akin to using actual physical violence against someone.

Now, conservative student groups are filing lawsuits fighting enforcement of so-called speech codes and free-speech zones on many university campuses. Their supporters in the courts of law and public opinion are now more likely to be found on the political right than the political left.

This shift in the views of the right and left on free speech has been sharp and dramatic. We can only hope that todays free speech advocates can preserve the right of each of us to express ourselves against those who would choose government censorship.

When the Framers of the Bill of Rights decided to recognize freedom of speech in the First Amendment, they could not anticipate how American culture would develop over the next 200+ years.

But luckily for all Americans, they codified those rights in a written Constitution, which doesnt change based on cultural and political movements.

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How progressives and conservatives have changed the debate over freedom of speech - Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF)

The editorial on the importance of free speech was timely and well done.

I am a retired worker, 70 now, and have benefited from classes in UIs history and political science departments. I am a member of the larger Christian community and in Christ Church I have good friends and neighbors.

On some issues I may agree with them and yet have concerns about the way a few of their leadership present their arguments to the public. Here I hope to increase understanding.

The theology of Christ Church, Puritanism, is deeply rooted in American religious and political tradition. Our rights of life, liberty, property, freedom of religion and speech come largely from this tradition.

Englishman, John Locke, whom you may have read about was a father of liberalism and himself a Puritan. Our tradition of no kings, open debate and speech, democratic government, party politics developed in large part out of the Puritan settlement of North America 400 years ago.

Forward to the present, the Puritan is a champion of liberty and can be militant in the pursuit of that goal. However, when society begins to confuse liberty with libertinism, you can expect to fight.

Their understanding of liberty is that it is given to us by God, and the individual must be internally governed by Gods grace as informed by the scriptures. When the individuals of a society abuse personal freedom as in doing your own thing regardless of what God desires or how it affects our neighbor, the Puritan will speak on the public square. He is generally not moved or coerced by the latest politically correct thinking of social activists or government. For him, freedom is a gift from God for the self-disciplined and obedient.

Now, I also think that Christians, whether of Puritan, evangelical, Catholic or another sect, if regenerated by God, can easily forget where they came from.

We live in a time of confusion. Few of us are not touched by broken families, drug abuse, sexual confusion or the apathy that results from the spirit of our times. Too often, the Christian does not communicate to the non-believer that they understand. God can repair that which is broken in the individual person or society and nation.

Until then, The Argonaut editorial board has it right: debate, but listen in a mannered way. Extend to other groups that which you would have them extend to you. If listening and understand are not practiced, political life, a key to freedom is lost.

Letter to the editor received from Fred Banks

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OPINION: The importance of freedom of speech in the christian community - Argonaut

This piece originally appeared on Informed Comment.

Israeli caretaker prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been indicted for corruption and is facing an election soon, just boasted that his ministry of strategic affairs has managed to undermine First Amendment protections for free speech in the United States by lobbying state legislatures to pass laws forbidding the boycott of Israel.

Anti-boycott laws of the Old South were used against Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists in the civil rights movement to keep African Americans subordinate and segregated. The right to boycott establishments over civil rights was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1982 in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware.

Some 28 U.S. states have passed laws prohibiting the boycott of Israel and are attempting to punish this action by denying such individuals state contracts.

Gilad Erdan is the head of the ministry of strategic affairs, which has spearheaded the attempt to undermine the U.S. Constitution and make criticizing Israeli policy illegal in the United States. This effort is allegedly being aided by Mossad, Israeli intelligence.Mossad intensively spies on Washington, D.C., and may have compromising information on U.S. politicians.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, is the main instrument of such Israeli policy pushes in the United States, and has never been forced to register as the agent of a foreign state, as U.S. law requires.

Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO via Getty Images

It should be noted that the anti-boycott laws do not only punish companies. Most states treat individuals providing them services as companies categorized as sole proprietors. University professors invited to speak on campus in the states with these horrid laws have been asked to sign statements saying they dont boycott Israel before being allowed to speak. These procedures are the most dangerous assault on free speech in the United States since the McCarthy era.

Journalist Abby Martin has justlaunched a lawsuit against the University of Georgia for cancelling her speaking appearance when she declined to sign a pledge saying she would not boycott Israel.

I wrote recently that in the past 23 months, Palestinians in Gaza have been demonstrating weekly, and Israeli army snipers have shot down over 8,000 them, leaving many crippled for life and killing over 200. Most of those shot were peaceful demonstrators posing no danger, who simply came into a zone the Israeli army arbitrarily declared off limits, even though it was inside Gaza. Victims include children, women, medics, journalists and other nonviolent noncombatants.

Photo by THOMAS COEX/AFP via Getty Images

Criticizing these policies, which everyone concerned with human rights in the world does, is not equivalent to disliking Jews. The only reason the question even comes up is that the Israel lobbies and the organized-crimelike Likudniks have attempted to deflect any obstacle to their colonization drive by smearing human rights activists as bigots for daring oppose their monstrous plans.

As I have noted, not only are no sanctions being placed on Israel for these naked war crimes, but the lawmakers in the U.S. are willing to take large scissors to the U.S. Constitution on behalf of the Likud Party, protecting it from any civil society attempt to hold it accountable.

In response to such war crimes, including the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, civil society around the world has adopted the tactics of boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) against Israel. It has especially resorted to these tactics precisely because powerful world governments refuse to intervene to stop Israeli crimes against humanity.

I earlier reported that Ben Kesslen at NBC Newsreported that the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College cancelled their ads with Little Rocks Arkansas Timesbecause owner Alan Leveritt wont sign a pledge that his business does not boycott Israel. Leveritt doesnt boycott Israel, but he considers a state law passed by Arkansas and 27 other states to be unconstitutional and he would rather risk his business than surrender his First Amendment rights.

The loss of the state contract was devastating to the newspaper. It is important to underline that Alan Leveritt does not boycott Israel. He simply refuses to sign a pledge that restricts his freedom of speech and which is imposed by the state government, on First Amendment grounds. The Arkansas Times is a centrist newspaper in a conservative state, so that Netanyahu has actually managed to reach into the heart of America and strike at its media diversity by shredding the U.S. Constitution (on which state constitutions are based when it comes to freedom of speech).

In a disgusting miscarriage of justice, the anti-boycott law was upheld by a lower court in Arkansas on the grounds that a boycott is neither expressive nor speech, which contradicts the precedent of NAACP vs. Claiborne Hardware (1982). The appeal is nowbefore the 8th Circuit Court.

Economic boycotts have been part and parcel of American political striving for liberty from the beginning. I have three words for you:Boston Tea Party. What do you think the American colonists were doing when they tossed 342 chests of British tea into the harbor? They were boycotting, divesting and sanctioning the injustice of King George III.

Several federal judges have already found state laws that attempt to punish companies or individuals for boycotting Israel unconstitutional, in Kansas, Arizonaand Texas.

When Kansas fired Mennonite school teacher Esther Koontz from a program to train other teachers over her refusal to certify that she doesnt boycott Israel (she does), the ACLU took the case to court anda federal judge struck downthe Kansas statute. The state legislature then reformulated it so that it only affected big businesses under certain circumstances, which is also unconstitutional, but made it a little unlikely that the law would affect anyone.

Netanyahu tried to deny a Mennonite school teacher her job.

The anti-boycott lawsare unconstitutional. They are also racist, aimed at keeping brown Palestinians down.

Contributor

Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the proprietor of the Informed Comment e-zine. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in

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Netanyahu Boasts That He Destroyed Free Speech in America - Truthdig

The First Amendment does not protect the person who falsely cries Fire! in a crowded theater, according to the classic words of Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. More to the point nowadays, however, is whether the First Amendment protects the person who uses hate speech in a world that is crowded with hate and violence.

This book hopes to begin an honest conversation about what we really mean by free speech when we invoke the right and trumpet the liberty, when we demand freedom of speech only for the issues personal to us, and when we seek to deny it for others, announces Thane Rosenbaum in Saving Free Speech From Itself (Fig Tree Books).

The very notion that we ought to rewrite the First Amendment is mind-blowing to those of us who cherish the right of free speech as a core value of American democracy. Ironically, the high regard in which we hold the First Amendment obliges us to afford Rosenbaum an opportunity to be heard. And anyone who recognizes the dire risk of hate speech in our benighted world is obliged to consider what Rosenbaum has to say.

Rosenbaum is a public intellectual and an especially accomplished and credible one. He contributes to The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among many other distinguished publications. He is a legal analyst for CBS News Radio, a commentator on CNN, and the moderator of The Talk Show at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. He is the author of five novels and two provocative books on the theme of justice, Payback: The Case for Revenge and The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our legal System Fails to Do Whats Right. He is Distinguished University Professor at Touro College, where he serves as director of the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. Above all, and unlike many others who command the attention of the media, he is no mere controversialist.

If he has a problem with the First Amendment, perhaps we should give it another look, writes New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, a former Republican (and still a principled conservative) in his foreword to Saving Free Speech

Thane Rosenbaum cites a long list of democracies, including countries as dissimilar from each other as India, Ireland and Israel, that are less exuberant in their defense of free speech.

Saving Free Speech is a detailed and well-documented overview of how the First Amendment actually functions in contemporary America. Rosenbaum points out that nearly everyone has a strong opinion about the sanctity of free speech. But troubling distinctions are made between speakers whose rights are respected and protected, and speakers whose rights are disregarded. On one hand, Rosenbaum points out, college campuses across the country have withdrawn speaking invitations from public figures as diverse as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Condoleezza Rice, Henry Kissinger and George Will, Michael Moore and Bill Maher. On the other hand, the courts have protected the First Amendment rights of not only cross-burners and flag-burners but even neo-Nazis who wanted to march through Skokie, Ill., a suburban Chicago community they chose because of the Holocaust survivors who lived there.

Indeed, the rhetorical thread that runs through Rosenbaums book is his argument that we have misunderstood and misapplied the right of free speech. He decries what he calls the free speech madness that is as tightly woven into Americas democracy as are the Stars and Stripes. He points out that the right of free speech is already circumscribed by law shouting Fire! in a theater is just one of many examples of impermissible speech and he asks us to entertain the not-so-radical idea that the time has come for some additional legal restraints.

More and more are recovering addicts from the drunken free-speech hedonism of the past, he writes with his characteristic snap and flair. Many question what free speech really means in a world of social media trolling, cyberbullying, cloak and dagger hacking of Americas presidential election, militant protest rallies by groups that spread hate, incitement to violence, the spreading of fear, and college campuses that are repressing the openness of mind that was once the whole point of a liberal arts education.

Rosenbaum cites a long list of democracies, including countries as dissimilar from each other as India, Ireland and Israel, that are less exuberant in their defense of free speech. Marching neo-Nazis in Austria and Germany two nations for whom brown shirts and the chanting of Heil Hitler is not some quaint trip down memory lane get marched right to jail for up to three years. For Germans, he argues, the Skokie decision was not so much a federal case as a freak show.

The case that Rosenbaum makes for fine-tuning the First Amendment is based on balancing our concern for freedom of speech with the social and political values of civility, dignity and privacy. The right to free speech was never divorced from a companion obligation to do so with decency, writes Rosenbaum, citing the Founders who gave us the Bill of Rights in the first place. Anything less makes no sense in a free society.

The next limitation on freedom of speech, Rosenbaum proposes, is to make hate speech a hate crime: Verbally assaultive assaults against individuals and groups are not protected under the First Amendment. The internet, which has become a terrorists best friend, is the first place to start: The internet is policed by no one, he writes, and yet it is a source of incitement and instruction to aspiring mass murderers. Hate speech whenever it is uttered, wherever it is found, in whatever form it takes, and on which platform it makes itself known must be treated like obscenity: subject to Justice Potter Stewarts aphorism, I know it when I see it.

So Rosenbaum proposes a variety of concrete steps, ranging from a constitutional amendment to new municipal ordinances, arguing that somebody has to be in charge, minding the store and enforcing discipline and responsibility. His thought experiment is plausible and even compelling right up to the moment when we pause to wonder what tinkering with the First Amendment would really mean now that President Donald Trump, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Attorney General Barr are the ones in charge?

Jonathan Kirsch, attorney and author, is the book editor of the Jewish Journal.

CORRECTION Feb. 20: An earlier version mistitled the book Saving Free Speech as Saving the First Speech

Read the original:

What We Really Mean by Free Speech - Jewish Journal

Recent antics to stir up controversy are disingenuous.

by THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD | 2/21/20 1:00am

If the Dartmouth College Republicans had not used the phrase Theyre bringing drugs in the subject line of an email sent to campus earlier this week, it is quite likely that none of what is described in the remainder of this editorial would have happened.

But, of course, that is what the College Republicans titled their email announcing a policy talk with a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Bryant Corky Messner, who was scheduled to have an event at the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy on Tuesday on the topic of the need for more border security specifically, a wall at the southern border to fight the opioid crisis.

Setting aside the rather galling implication that a border wall constitutes a serious solution to one of the United States most important problems today, one might reasonably understand why titling an email Theyre bringing drugs would upset people and lead to students expressing concern which is exactly what happened.

What cannot be reasonably understood is why, two days later, the College Republicans announced that the event had been postponed, citing serious security concerns. If there had been legitimate security threats made, then the College and local police would have been involved in the postponement decision which, as this newspaper reported yesterday, was not the case. In fact, as College Republicans secretary Griffin Mackey 21 told The Dartmouth, the decision to cancel was made because the group determined it did not have the budget or time to secure security resources.

So maybe this was all one big mix-up, in which the College Republicans sent out a provocative email to campus that was misconstrued by students concerned about the event. But that would not explain why the leadership of the College Republicans then told a right-wing news outlet that the event was postponed due to a possible violent response by left-wing campus activists at a campus with a large contingent of radical leftists, in the words of then-College Republicans chairman Daniel Bring 21.

This version of events has since spread to a few other right-wing websites, all of which tell the same story about liberal intolerance for free speech and conservative ideas on college campuses. Yet missing from any of these accounts or from the College Republicans themselves is any proof that there was a serious threat of violence from members of the Dartmouth College Democrats or others directed toward the event or Mr. Messner.

Much to his discredit, Messner has full-throatedly embraced the right-wing narrative that he was silenced by campus leftists.

.@DartRepublicans were forced to cancel my appearance due to the militant stance of the Dartmouth College Dems, Messners campaign posted on Twitter Tuesday evening. Security threats demonized free speech at an institution of higher learning. Stop liberal censorship!

The tweet, already on shaky grounds in terms of veracity the College Democrats never made any sort of militant stance toward Messner links to a page on Messners campaign website with a large photo of Mr. Messner, with his mouth covered with a black box with the word SILENCED written in white letters.

Liberals have taken over higher learning and have officially CANCELLED my appearance, the page reads. Help stop liberal censorship on campuses across the country by signing below. Strong believers in the First Amendment then need only to provide their name, email address and ZIP code and click on a button proclaiming DEMAND FREE SPEECH!

But the threat of violence must have subsided, as Messner braved the snows of New Hampshire and made the trek to Hanover on Wednesday, where he filmed a brief video apparently taken on the Green.

The First Amendment applies to everybody, Messner declared in the video, which his campaign posted on Twitter. And shouting down and intimidating people so they cant exercise their First Amendment rights is absolutely wrong. We will fight this battle. We will fight it hard.

This editorial board would be the first to agree with Mr. Messner about the freedom of speech after all, the First Amendment is the lifeblood of any newspaper. But the battle he is fighting is a rather pathetic attempt to spin a controversy out of something that, for all we can tell, did not actually happen.

Taking advantage of dubious controversies to promote free speech cheapens the cause of free speech. By casting himself as the victim of a supposed conspiracy, Messner cynically abused the cause of free speech to further his own campaign. But we do hope that Mr. Messner comes to campus to speak its his right to do so.

Nonetheless, Messners campaign antics ranging from misrepresentations to blatant lies are unbecoming of a candidate for the United States Senate. And the College Republicans evident attempt to stir up trouble is a sad reminder of just how far our political culture has fallen.

The editorial board consists of the opinion editors, the executive editor and the editor-in-chief.

See the rest here:

Verbum Ultimum: Crying Wolf - The Dartmouth

Gavin Williamson arrives at 10 Downing Street on December 17, 2019 in London, England. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

The Conservative education secretary Gavin Williamson has said that universities should be doing much more to protect free speech and the government will step in if they dont.

In an article for The Times, Williamson said: The University of Oxford has adopted strong codes of conduct that champion academic freedom and free speech, explicitly recognising that this may sometimes cause offence.

Every university should promote such unambiguous guidance. If universities dont take action, the government will.

If necessary, Ill look at changing the underpinning legal framework, perhaps to clarify the duties of students unions or strengthen free speech rights.

His comments come in the wake of student protests against anti-trans speakers that have led to several talks by gender-critical academics being postponed.

Gender-critical academics, who deny their views are transphobic but insist that trans women are men, have accused universities of no-platforming them and said they face a hostile environment.

In one case, the hostile environment amounted to a philosophy professor claiming that she was being personally victimised by transgender pride flags that were put up at her university to protest Donald Trump.

Gavin Williamson made clear in his speech that the right to protest is sacrosanct and added that intimidation, violence or threats of violence are crimes.

He said that despite new free-speech guidance for universities being published a year ago, this hasnt yet put a stop to concerns. The Conservative manifesto committed to strengthen academic freedom and free speech', he said.

Writing for PinkNews in January 2020, professor and head of the department of sociology at the University of York, Paul Johnson, explained why freedom of speech doesnt mean anti-trans academics are free to spout views on gender ideology.

There is public discussion at the moment about freedom of speech in UK universities. Some people claim that freedom of speech is under attack and, in some cases, that they are being silenced, Johnson said.

When it comes to the issue of anti-trans speech in universities, Johnson said that if a speaker is promoting or justifying hatred of trans people by insulting or ridiculing them as a group then this could necessitate a restriction on free speech.

Johnson added: It could also be argued, for example, that the talk might encourage a lack of respect for the human dignity of trans people that would strike at, and potentially diminish, their human rights and freedoms.

If we accept either or both of these examples, then we could say that a restriction on speech is necessary in a democratic society to prevent crime and/or protect the rights of others.

But what restriction should be applied? A university could, for example, decide that a trigger warning is necessary when advertising the event. It could decide that the visiting speaker can only give their talk if another speaker offers a counter view or is given a right to reply.

It could issue the visiting speaker with instructions on how to engage in respectful debate. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has outlined other examples of reasonable restrictions. A university would only say that a talk couldnt go ahead if there were no other reasonable options available to address its concerns.

The rest is here:

Education secretary Gavin Williamson says universities must do more to protect free speech or the government will - PinkNews

By K J M Varma(Eds: Updating with fresh inputs )

Beijing/Wuhan, Feb 12 (PTI) The coronavirus outbreak in China has led to rare open calls for freedom of speech in the Communist nation amid growing public discontent over the handling of the epidemic, as the death toll continued to climb which prompted the government on Wednesday to announce fresh restrictions in top cities.

So far, the virus outbreak has claimed 1,115 lives with 97 new fatalities reported mostly in the worst-affected Hubei province on Tuesday while the confirmed cases of infection jumped to 44,763, the state-run CGTN TV reported.

The number of confirmed cases abroad rose to 440 with one death so far in the Philippines. Japan reported the highest number of 203 cases with a majority of them from a cruise ship.

Two Indian crew on board the cruise ship off the Japanese coast have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the Indian Embassy in Japan said on Wednesday.

The virus, now named COVID-19, has spread to over 20 countries, including India.

The outbreak which led to the lockdown of nearly 20 cities in China with over 50 million people in Hubei province has led to increasing calls for freedom of speech, especially after the death of 34-year-old doctor, Li Wenliang, who faced a stern warning from police when he along with eight others tried to inform authorities about the virus epidemic in December.

Tragically, Li, an ophthalmologist died of the coronavirus on February 6, sparking a nation-wide outpouring rarely seen in China in recent years.

Following his death, hundreds of Chinese, led by academics have signed an online petition calling on the national legislature to protect citizens right to freedom of speech, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The petition is addressed to the National Peoples Congress (NPC) often termed as the rubber-stamp parliament for its routine approval of the proposals of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). The NPC is scheduled to meet early next month but the spread of the virulent virus cast doubts about the meeting as the government discouraged large gatherings.

The petition lists five demands to protect the peoples right to freedom of expression, discussion on this issue at the NPC, make February 6, the day of Dr Lis death as a national day for free speech.

The petition also demands the government to ensure no one is punished, threatened, interrogated, censored or locked up for their speech, civil assembly, letters or communication and to give equitable treatment, such as medical care, to people from Wuhan and Hubei province, the Post reported.

The petition is gaining momentum online, but some of the signatories have already come under pressure, the report said.

Those signed the petition included Tsinghua University sociologist Guo Yuhua and her colleague, law professor Xu Zhangrun, whose accounts on social media network WeChat have been blocked.

Xu wrote a critical letter last week blaming that the crackdown on civil society and freedom of expression is making it impossible to raise the alarm about coronavirus outbreak, the report said.

Another report said that a prominent blogger went missing from Wuhan after writing critical posts about the handling of the virus outbreak.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Beijing and Shanghai, Chinas two biggest cities, have announced fresh restrictions on residential communities to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus, joining dozens of mainland cities that have gone into partial lockdown since the epidemic began last month.

Measures unveiled by the authorities on Monday include stricter controls on the movement of residents and vehicles, compulsory mask-wearing and shutting down leisure and other non-essential community services, the Post report said.

The lockdown-style measures appear to be aimed at controlling possible community transmission of the virus as the country returns to work at the end of an extended Lunar New Year holiday.

Millions of Chinese returned to the cities after the extended New Year Holiday on Monday. The government is encouraging people to work from home.

While the government highlighted that the cases of the virus have started showing a declining trend, analysts however cautioned that the people should not be too optimistic as the turning point has not emerged yet, state-run Global Times reported.

And the most challenging battleground is still in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, it said.

Zhong Nanshan, China''s top epidemiologist, told the newspaper that the inflection point of the outbreak cannot be predicted now.

"It may peak in mid or late-February," he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday that the epidemic situation has shown positive changes due to concerted hard work and that the prevention and control work has achieved notable outcomes.

"The results are hard-won progress made by all sides," Xi told a high-powered meeting of the CPC.

Noting that epidemic prevention and control have entered a critical stage that requires stringent efforts, Xi stressed focusing on priorities without any let-up and strengthening prevention and control in areas where the epidemic situation is particularly serious or at greater risk, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. PTI KJV NSA AKJ NSA

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Calls for freedom of speech on rise in China as coronavirus death toll soars to over 1,100 - Outlook India

The Moroccan authorities are intensifying their crackdown on peaceful voices with a new wave of arbitrary arrests and prosecutions of individuals, including a journalist, rappers and Youtubers, many of whom have been targeted simply for criticizing the King or other officials, said Amnesty International today.

The Moroccan authorities concept of a red line is essentially a ban on criticising the monarchy or state institutions, which is being used with renewed enthusiasm to target peaceful activists and artists. Youtubers, rappers and journalists now face harsh prison sentences after being targeted with repressive laws

The organisation has documented the cases of at least ten activists who have been unlawfully subjected to arrests, interrogation and harsh sentences since November. Four have been accused of "offending" or "insulting" the King or the Monarchy known to be one of the three red lines for freedom of expression in Morocco. All ten individuals have been accused of "offending" public officials or institutions, all crimes under Moroccos Penal Code.

"The Moroccan authorities concept of a red line is essentially a ban on criticising the monarchy or state institutions, which is being used with renewed enthusiasm to target peaceful activists and artists. Youtubers, rappers and journalists now face harsh prison sentences after being targeted with repressive laws, said Heba Morayef, MENA regional director at Amnesty International.

It is urgent that the authorities amend Moroccos Penal Code which retains an arsenal of provisions that criminalize freedom of expression and have been unlawfully used to supress dissent in the country.

Between November 2019 and January 2020, nine out of the 10 individuals and activists-were handed cruel prison sentences ranging between 6 months and four years.

On 1 December, Settat police arrested blogger Mohamed Sekkaki, known as Moul El Kaskita, a few days after he published a video on YouTube criticizing the King and a new tax on YouTube users. The Settat court sentenced him to four years in prison and a fine of 40 000 dirhams (around $4000) based only on penal code provisions related to "insulting the King" and "offending" public officials. His appeal trial is scheduled for 11 February.

On 5 December, police in Rabat arrested a YouTube influencer, Omar Ben Boudouh, also known as Moul El Hanout for offending "public officials" and "institutions" and "incitement to hatred". Amnesty International has reviewed Boudouhs interrogation report which largely shows he was arrested on bogus charges for expressing his views. On 7 January, he was sentenced to three years in prison, subsequently he began a hunger strike to date in Tifelt prison where he is held.

The Moroccan authorities must urgently reform the Penal Code to decriminalize articles that have been used to repress freedom of speech

Another influencer and Youtuber, Youssef Moujahid, was arrested on 18 December and accused of "offending" public officials and institutions and "incitement to hatred". Moujahid's legal case was added to that of Boudouh because he was publishing on his page "Nhabek ya Maghribe" videos commenting on Boudouh's statements. Their appeal is scheduled on 12 February.

On 17 December, the Meknes First Instance Tribunal sentenced high school student Ayoub Mahfoud, 18, to three years imprisonment and 5000 dirhams fine (around $500) for a social media post. He was accused of "offending" public officials and institutions. He was provisionally released on 16 January, pending his appeal session, which is set to take place on 30 March.

A journalist, Omar Radi, was also arrested on 26 December for a tweet he posted criticizing the judicial system for upholding the verdict against Hirak el Rif protesters. A few days after his arrest, he was provisionally released, pending his next trial on 5 March this year.

Omar Radi told Amnesty International that his interview with the Algerian media "Radio M", where he criticized Moroccan authorities for what he called the expropriation of tribal lands by the State, was the reason for his arrest upon his return from Algeria.

On 29 December, rapper Hamza Sabaar, known as STALiN, was arrested in Laayoune and convicted a few days later to three years in prison for a rap song he published on Youtube. In the song, he criticized the deteriorated socio-economic situation in the country. On 16 January, a court reduced his sentence to eight-months imprisonment.

Authorities should drop the charges and free all individuals prosecuted and convicted for simply exercising their right to freedom of expression; and stop using archaic Penal Code provisions to criminalize free speech

On 24 December, the authorities in the city of Tata arrested activist Rachid Sidi Baba and the judge later convicted him to six months prison and a fine of 5000 dirhams (around $500) for publishing one YouTube video where he expresses his frustration about land exploiting by foreign investors without significant involvement of return benefits to local communities. The verdict in his case is scheduled on 13 February.

On 9 January, a Court in Khenifra convicted Abdelali Bahmad, alias Ghassan Bouda to two years imprisonment and a fine of 10 000 dirhams (around $1000) for "insulting" the Monarchy and its symbols. Prosecutors used four online posts that Bouda published on Facebook as evidence. According to his lawyer, in one of the posts, Bouda expressed his support to Hirak El-Rif protests.

Authorities should drop the charges and free all individuals prosecuted and convicted for simply exercising their right to freedom of expression; and stop using archaic Penal Code provisions to criminalize free speech," said Heba Morayef

"The Moroccan authorities must urgently reform the Penal Code to decriminalize articles that have been used to repress freedom of speech".

Background

In its May 2017 submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Amnesty International called on the Moroccan authorities to repeal those provisions, especially after the country passed a Press Code that decriminalized speech offenses in 2016. At the same time however, new provisions criminalizing "insult" to Islam and the territorial integrity were reintroduced in the Penal Code.

In October 2019, the National Committee for Human Rights (CNDH) submitted tothe parliament a memorandum aimed at amending the Moroccan Penal Code to ensure that it complies with the principles of legitimacy, necessity and proportionality.

See the original post:

Morocco: Crackdown against activists for criticizing the King, public institutions and officials - Amnesty International

LOUISVILLE, Ky. A concern on campus lead to a discussion about diversity at the University of Louisville on Monday.

Dr. Ricky Jones, a professor and director of Pan-African Studies at the university, voiced his frustrations with the schools response to a student who handed out anti-gay pamphlets to an LGBTQ-focused class.

While the students actions caused concern among the students and faculty in the classroom, he apparently followed the law and university policy when distributing the literature, a statement from UofLs spokesperson, John Karman said.

Dr. Jones told students, faculty and staff that be believed it went beyond the Freedom of Speech when the student came back a second time.

We are not making anti free speech arguments. That is not the argument we are making. We are not even arguing that the student did not have the right to pamphlet the class, he explained. The argument that we're making is that he has crossed out of the boundaries of free speech and moved into a realm of targeting, harassment and intimidation. Once he pamphlet-ed the class, I and others do not understand why it was necessary for him to return to the class.

According to the University, the student was trying to share information not intimidate, but some students took it very differently.

That wasn't him just popping up in Davidson and saying I'm going to hand these out everywhere. This was a specific classroom that he knew was going to be full of queer students, explained Finn Depriest, who was not in that specific class but has taken classes with Dr. Kaila Story before.

It was frustrating. I was super aggravated, because she's given students such a space to feel safe and for someone to invade that.

Students said theres a security guard that stands in front of the door before and after class. Jones said the student was told he'd have to give 48-hours of notice before showing up again, but doesnt believe thats enough.

This student has to be contacted immediately and be told 'do not return to that class, he said. Dr. Jones has no issue with the student exercising his right of free speech in an open area on campus. Nobody is saying you can't pass the stuff out, we're just saying, look man, don't come back.

RELATED: Woodford County approves fairness ordinance; becomes first county in 20 years to pass LGBTQ right law

RELATED: Catholic school students stand against anti-Semitism

UofL President Dr. Neeli Bendapudi met with students after the incident.

The students and I discussed how, as a learning community at a public university, we also respect and must uphold free speech rights protected by the First Amendment. We express this in the CARDINAL Principles as a commitment to prepare students for ideas rather than protect them from ideas, however disagreeable they may be to any of us personally. This is not just some abstract ideal that institutions of higher education espouse. For a public university, failure to protect free speech leads to significant consequences if we infringe on ones constitutional rights. At the same time, as a university we have the right, in fact an obligation, to educate our community and advance our goals of creating an inclusive environment.

Depriest finds the silver lining knowing there's still acceptance on their campus, and hopes their voices will be heard.

I hate that this has to be such a horrible thing to happen for people to come together and you get to see, but also you get to see all the people who you can go to and you can count on.

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Originally posted here:

Dr. Ricky Jones talks to students after anti-gay pamphlets were handed out to LGBTQ-focused classroom - WHAS11.com

Swis voters have given their backing in a referendum to extending anti-racism legislation to cover sexual orientation, defying critics who had claimed such a move would be an infringement of free speech.

Unlike many of its western European neighbours, Switzerland has no law in force that specifically protects LGBTQ+ people from discrimination or hate speech.

A law passed by the countrys government in December 2018 was designed to close this loophole. However, an alliance of rightwing parties including the conservative Christian Federal Democratic Union (EDU) and the nationalist Swiss Peoples Party (SVP) opposed the law change and sought a referendum to prevent it from coming into effect.

On flyers and on posters, opponents framed the law as a gagging clause that would restrict freedom of speech and demote gay and bisexual members of society to a weak minority in need of protection.

Switzerland has a long tradition of holding plebiscites on issues that can range from major foreign policy decisions to the building of a new school. Votes are usually held on three to four dates spread across the year.

In Sundays vote, 63.1% of the public voted in favour of expanding the anti-discrimination law, though the results revealed splits across the linguistically and cultural heterogenous state. In the German-speaking cantons of Schwyz, Uri and Appenzell-Innerrhoden, there were majorities in favour of blocking the law. In French-speaking Vaud, by contrast, the law was endorsed by an emphatic 80% of the voting public.

Under the new law, those who publicly degrade or discriminate others on the basis of their sexual orientation, for example by denying same-sex couples entry to a nightclub, could face a jail sentence of up to three years. The law does not affect private conversations such as among friends or family.

Several European countries such as Belgium, Germany, France, Ireland and the UK already have similar legislation in place.

LOS, an advocacy group representing Swiss lesbian, bisexual and queer women, welcomed the referendum result. We have won, and how! Next stop: same-sex marriage, it said.

Switzerland and Italy are the last two countries in western Europe where gay marriage is not legal. Both countries offer same-sex couples the option of civil unions but not full marriage.

In a separate referendum, Swiss voters on Sunday rejected an initiative calling for at least 10% of new housing to be built by not-for-profit cooperatives in an attempt to reduce the cost of living. The proposal was rejected by 57.1% of the voting public.

See the article here:

Swiss vote to approve legislation to protect LGBTQ+ rights - The Guardian

Imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has been awarded Consortium News 2020 Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award for courage in the face of an unprecedented attack on press freedom.

By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News

Julian Assange, the imprisoned and maligned publisher of WikiLeaks, has been awarded the 2020 Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award by the board of the Consortium for Independent Journalism, publishers of Consortium News.

Assange is incarcerated in a maximum security prison in Londonawaiting a hearing later this month on an extradition request by the United States. He has been charged 0n 17 counts under the U.S. Espionage Act of possessing and publishing classified material that revealed prima facie evidence of U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

For practicing the highest order of journalismrevealing crimes of the stateAssange faces 175 years in a U.S. prisona life sentence for the 48-year old Australian.

Assange, whose life has been endangered in harsh prison conditions, has become an international symbol of the threat to press freedom. He is the first journalist to be charged under the Espionage Act for possession and dissemination of state secrets.

The late Robert Parry.

Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News, was a staunch defender of Assanges rights. In 2010, he wrote: Though American journalists may understandably want to find some protective cover by pretending that Julian Assange is not like us, the reality is whether we like it or not we are all Julian Assange.

The award is named after journalist Gary Webb whose life was cut short after the mainstream press vilified him for accurate reports about a CIA operation that flooded urban areas of the U.S. with cocaine from Nicaragua.

Journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, a member of the Consortium News board, said: Having been close to Julian Assange through much of his struggle against corrupt power, I had no hesitation in voting for him for the Gary Webb prize. While Gary was a tragedy at the end, Julian must be a triumph.

A History of Scoops

Assange launched WikiLeaks in Dec. 2006. Among its first revelations were files alleging corruption by former Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi; the U.S. Army manual for soldiers at Guantanamo Bay and registers of U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In January 2008, WikiLeaks released United Nations Confidential Reports that expose matters from allegations of hundreds of European peace-keepers sexually abusing refugee girls to generals in Peru using Swiss bank accounts to engage in multi-million dollar frauds against the UN.

Chelsea Maning in 2017. (Vimeo)

WikiLeaks first major release came on April 5, 2010 with the publication of the Collateral Murder video,providing evidence of a U.S. war crime in Iraq. It was leaked by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who was arrested and charged on May 26, 2010 under the Espionage Act.

With Manning in jail, WikiLeaks published more of her leaked material. The Afghan War Diaries were released on July 25, 2010, which revealed the suppression of civilian casualty figures, the existence of an elite U.S.-led death squad and the covert role of Pakistan in the conflict. Assange partnered with The New York Times, Der Spiegel and The Guardian in publishing the Afghan leaks.

On Nov. 28, 2010, the first of Mannings U.S. Diplomatic Cables were released. They helped spark a revolt in Tunisia that spread into the so-called Arab Spring, revealed Saudi intentions towards Iran and exposed spying on the UN secretary general and other diplomats.

Over the next few years WikiLeaks revealed embarrassing documents on Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the Sony Corporation, and secret details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

WikiLeaks in 2011 pioneered an anonymous online drop box for whistleblowers to deposit documents without their identities being known, even to WikiLeaks. The organization carefully authenticates every document it receives and has a perfect record of accuracy. Major news organizations like The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and CNN have copied WikiLeaks in creating their own anonymous drop boxes.

In 2016, WikiLeaks published leaked emails from the Democratic National Convention and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that exposed DNC efforts to derail the primary candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Hillary Clintons role in the destruction of Libya and a pay-to-play scheme at the Clinton Foundation.

During the Trump administration, WikiLeaks published in March 2017 secret CIA documents that exposed the entire hacking capacity of the CIA, which the agency had lost control of. WikiLeaks avoided the distribution of armed cyberweapons. But the documents it published revealed how the agency can remotely gain control of a citizens television set and showed that the CIA can plant doctored fingerprints into a cyber-attack to falsely blame an adversary. The Vault 7 release led then CIA Director Mike Pompeo to label WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence service.

Over the past decade, WikiLeaks publications have spurred countless news reports and academic papers around the world, and have been used in numerous court cases promoting human rights.

Assanges Arrest

A month after the Afghan War Diaries were published two women went to the police in Sweden to ask if Assange could be tested for sexually transmitted disease after having unprotected relations with both of them. One of the women later texted that she had been railroaded by police into making a formal complaint about rape and refused to sign her statement. The next day Swedens chief prosecutor dismissed the allegations. She said: I dont think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape.

Nils Melzer (UN Photo)

After Swedish authorities told him he was free to go, Assange returned to London when an extradition request was issued by a prosecutor, not a judge, and he was arrested in December 2010. This came after Swedish police had altered and signed the statement of one of the women who had refused to sign, in a way that permitted the case to be re-opened, according to a UN special rapporteurs investigation. Nils Melzer, the rapporteur on torture, said:

I speak fluent Swedish and was thus able to read all of the original documents. I could hardly believe my eyes: According to the testimony of the woman in question, a rape had never even taken place at all. And not only that: The womans testimony was later changed by the Stockholm police without her involvement in order to somehow make it sound like a possible rape. I have all the documents in my possession, the emails, the text messages.

While still in the police station, she wrote a text message to a friend saying that she didnt want to incriminate Assange, that she just wanted him to take an HIV test, but the police were apparently interested in getting their hands on him. The police wrote down her statement and immediately informed public prosecutors. two hours later, a headline appeared on the front page of Expressen, a Swedish tabloid, saying that Julian Assange was suspected of having committed two rapes.

After he exhausted his appeals in British courts to fight extradition to Sweden, Assange sought and received political asylum by the government of Ecuador in its London embassy on June 19, 2012. Assange and his lawyers said at the time they feared onward extradition from Sweden to the U.S. to face charges for publishing classified material.

The former foreign minister of Ecuador on why his country gave Assange asylum:

Assange continued running WikiLeaks from inside the embassy. Despite needing medical care, British authorities said he would be arrested if he left the embassy and re-entered British territory. In February 2016 a UN panel ruled that Assange was a being arbitrarily detained in the embassy.

A change in government in Ecuador in May 2017 led to the eventual revocation of Assanges asylum without due process and in likely violation of Ecuadorian national law and the 1954 United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees. The convention stipulates that no asylee can be expelled to a territory where his life or freedom would be threatened.

Assange was eventually dragged out of the embassy by British police on April 11, 2019. His fears of extradition to the U.S. were realized when the U.S. indicted him on 17 charges under the Espionage Act and one charge of computer intrusion.

Imprisoned in the high security Belmarsh Prison with terrorists and other violent criminals, Assange has had restricted access to visitors, including with his lawyers. Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, visited Assange in his cell and reported that he was suffering from psychological torture.

Assange faces an extradition hearing at Woolwich Crown Court that begins the week of Feb. 24 and will continue in May. (Consortium News will be in London to provide extensive coverage in print and video.)

In a normal case, Assanges indictment would be thrown out after it was revealed that the prosecuting government was spying on Assanges privileged conversations with his attorneys in the Ecuador Embassy.

Police expelling Assange from embassy. (YouTube)

Both U.S. indictments against Assange spell out the exact work of investigative reporting. The indictment on intrusion alleges that Assange helped Manning gain access to a government computer, which the indictment acknowledges Manning had security clearances to legally access.

What the indictment alleges is that Assange egged Manning on for more information and tried to help her, unsuccessfully, to sign in under an administrative user name to help her do what every reporter must do, hide their sources identity. The second indictment likewise accused Assange of practicing journalism by encouraging his source to provide classified documents.

In his 2010 article Parry said in his investigative reporting he did the exact things Assange had done, even encouraging his sources to commit a crime if it could prevent a larger crime from occurring. He wrote:

The process for reporters obtaining classified information about crimes of state most often involves a journalist persuading some government official to break the law either by turning over classified documents or at least by talking about the secret information. There is almost always some level of conspiracy between reporter and source. In most cases, I played some role either large or small in locating the classified information or convincing some government official to divulge some secrets. More often than not, I was the instigator of these conspiracies.

At the time Parry wrote his article, the Obama administration had empaneled a grand jury to consider charging Assange under the Espionage Act for publishing leaked secrets, which Parry defended as the core work of investigative journalism. Ultimately, then Attorney General Eric Holder decided against indictment, because of what the administration called its New York Times problem.

That was an acknowledgement that Assange was a journalist and that prosecuting him for doing what the Times and other big media also do would open them up to prosecution as well. The First Amendment prevailed until the Trump administration brushed aside the very same problem and charged Assange with espionage.

The 1917 Espionage Act, derived from the 1889 British Official Secrets Act, outlaws any unauthorized possession and/or dissemination of classified information. Journalists have for decades possessed and published state secrets without consequence. This is what makes Assanges case an unprecedented assault on freedom of the press and the First Amendment.

Recognition of Threat to the Press

Rachel Maddow.

At the time of his arrest, even long time critics of Assange acknowledged the threat to press freedom it posed. In an editorial, The New York Times wrote:

The new indictment is a marked escalation in the effort to prosecute Mr. Assange, one that could have a chilling effect on American journalism as it has been practiced for generations. It is aimed straight at the heart of the First Amendment.

The new charges focus on receiving and publishing classified material from a government source. That is something journalists do all the time. This is what the First Amendment is designed to protect: the ability of publishers to provide the public with the truth.

The Times praised Assanges work:

Mr. Assange shared much of the material at issue with The New York Times and other news organizations. The resulting stories demonstrated why the protections afforded the press have served the American public so well; they shed important light on the American war effort in Iraq, revealing how the United States turned a blind eye to the torture of prisoners by Iraqi forces and how extensively Iran had meddled in the conflict.

The New Yorkers Masha Gessen, wrote: The use of the Espionage Act to prosecute Assange is an attack on the First Amendment. It stands to reason that an Administration that considers the press an enemy of the people would launch this attack. In attacking the media, it is attacking the public.

MSNBCs Rachel Maddow, the Democratic Party booster, who probably had more influence than any commentator in drumming up the Russiagate conspiracy theory and Assanges alleged role in it, launched into an astounding defense of the imprisoned publisher. On her program she said:

The Justice Department today, the Trump administration today, just put every journalistic institution in this country on Julian Assanges side of the ledger. On his side of the fight. Which, I know, is unimaginable. But that is because the government is now trying to assert this brand new right to criminally prosecute people for publishing secret stuff, and newspapers and magazines and investigative journalists and all sorts of different entities publish secret stuff all the time. That is the bread and butter of what we do.

Victim of Disinformation Campaign

Assange has been the victim of an effective, mass disinformation campaign, planned as long ago as March 8, 2008 when a secret, 32-page document from the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessment branch of the Pentagon described in detail the importance of destroying the feeling of trust that is WikiLeaks center of gravity.

The document said: This would be achieved with threats of exposure and criminal prosecution and an unrelenting assault on reputation.

It was as if they planned a war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech, Pilger said in 2018 (video above).

As a result, a number of falsehoods about Assanges story are deeply entrenched in the media and the public and are resistant to correction with facts.

1. Assange is not a journalist.

Most establishment journalists do not consider Assange to be one of them. First, he is completely a product of the Internet Age, a medium as revolutionary as the printing press, radio and television. His journalism is of a different type than traditional reporting.

Second, WikiLeaks publishes entire documents, rather than reporting extensively on them. In the past newspapers, such as The New York Times, published several pages in print editions of major documents, such as the top secret Pentagon Papers and today provide whole documents online.

Accepting the Freedom of Expression award, 2008 (Index on Censorship)

Assange is not simply a clerk receiving documents and posting them online without studying any of them. He has engaged in their authentication and has a profound understanding of their contents and newsworthiness. Assange has given countless interviews and speeches, authored three books, edited and co-written two others, and written dozens of articles. Throughout he has displayed a deep understanding of geopolitics and the internal affairs of numerous nations.

Most importantly, Assange has had an adversarial relationship with power, something that is waning in establishment media. Because of that increasingly cozy relationship between journalism and power Assange has scooped major media, perhaps engendering a degree of professional jealousy. The U.S. government must insist he is not a journalist making it easier to apply espionage charges to him.

His role as a journalist was affirmed by the numerous awards he has won, including The Economists New Media Award (2008); Amnesty Internationals UK Media Award (2009); the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award (2010); the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (2011, which Parry won in 2017); the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism (2011, Australias Pulitzer Prize), the Voltaire Award for Free Speech (2011), the International Piero Passetti Journalism Prize of the National Union of Italian Journalists (2011), the Jose Couso Press Freedom Award (2011); the Yoko Ono LennonCourage Award for the Arts (2013) and the Galizia Prize for Journalists, Whistleblowers & Defenders of the Right to Information (2019).

In 2010, the New York Daily News listed WikiLeaks first among websites that could totally change the news. No less of an authority than the founder of this site, one of Americas best investigative reporters, said, Journalists are all Julian Assange.

And Parry gave this warning to establishment journalists: By shunning WikiLeaks as some deviant journalistic hybrid, mainstream U.S. news outlets may breathe easier now but may find themselves caught up in a new legal precedent that could be applied to them later.

Google search results for Assange.

2. Assange was charged with rape. This might be the most frequent falsehood uttered about Assange, even mistakenly by Assange supporters. No rape or any other charges were ever filed by Swedish authorities. The case was dropped three times, but the rape smear persists. Stefania Maurizi, a reporter for La Repubblica in Italy, obtained documents that showed British authorities pressured the Swedish chief prosecutor not to come to London to interview him in the embassy.

In a report on the German ZDF TV network last week documents were produced by Melzer showing the rape allegations were invented by Swedish police. Why would a person be subject to nine years of a preliminary investigation for rape without charges ever having been filed? he recently told the Swiss newspaper Republik. Just imagine being accused of rape for nine-and-a-half years by an entire state apparatus and by the media without ever being given the chance to defend yourself because no charges had ever been filed.

Many persist in believing that Assange is a coward who fled to the Ecuadorian embassy to escape the rape charges when he voluntarily went to the police station in Sweden. His fear was being extradited to the U.S. via Sweden.

3. Assange was charged with endangering U.S. informants.

Much was made in the Espionage Act indictment of Assange allegedly revealing the names of U.S. informants and endangering their lives. At the top of the indictment are listed all the U.S. statutes prosecutors say Assange violated. Nowhere among them is revealing the identity of informants. Thats because, though it may be unethical, there is no law against it.

In fact, as Australian mainstream journalist Mark Davis revealed in a talk webcast by CN Live! it was Assange and not his mainstream media partners who worked through the night to redact the names of many informants before the Afghan War Diaries were released in July, 2010.

Davis, who was in the bunker at The Guardian in London working on the documents, said it was only when two Guardian journalists in a book revealed the secret password to the entire trove of documents, endangering informants named in them, that Assange released the full archive to alert those in danger. The Guardian denies this saying WikiLeaks told them the password it used in its book would expire within hours. In any event, there is no evidence that any informant named has been harmed.

4. Assange hacked secret U.S. databases.

Assange was arrested at age 20 for hacking but was released on good behavior. The label hacker has followed him ever since even though Assange is not being charged as a hacker but for helping Manning hide her identity while accessing classified material she had clearance to access, which Parry said is standard journalistic practice.

5. Assange was charged with interfering with the 2016 U.S. election.

One of the most widely mistaken beliefs is that Assange interfered in the U.S. election with Russian help in order to get Donald Trump elected. All of the U.S. charges against Assange stem from 2010 and have nothing to do with the 2016 election, another mistaken belief.

In the 2017 film Risk,by filmmaker Laura Poitras, Assange is filmed on the phone in early 2016 saying WikiLeaks had obtained emails on Hillary Clinton and we hope to get something on Trump. As Maurizi has written for Consortium News, WikiLeaks did obtain Trump documents but discovered they had already been published.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, told CN Live!that had WikiLeaks had damaging information on Trump, they certainly would have published it, especially before an election when voters need to be informed about the candidates.

There is zero evidence that WikiLeaks had material on Trump and suppressed it, another widely believed falsehood. Assange favored neither candidate and before the election said the choice between the candidates was like choosing cholera or gonorrhea.

Special Counsel Robert Muellers report alleges that Assange communicated online with Russian GRU defense intelligence agents posing as Guccifer 2.0 to obtain leaked Democratic Party emails. Even if it were true that Guccifer 2.0 was a cover for Russian intelligence, Mueller offers no evidence that Assange would be aware of that.

And even if it were the Russians who provided the material to Assange, the emails were accurate, meaning it is irrelevant who the source of the leak was. The Wall Street Journals and other major medias anonymous drop boxes prove that. They dont need or want to know the source if newsworthy documents are authenticated.

If a foreign power inserted fabricated emails into a U.S. presidential campaign, that would be sabotage through disinformation. But thats not what happened. The emails were information, not disinformation.

What Really Happened

Plaque to be presented to Assange. (Made by Roy de Visser, The Trophy Store in Sydney, Australia)

The truth is that a vindictive U.S. government was exposed with clear evidence of committing war crimes, meddling in other nations internal affairs and spying on adversaries, allies and citizens alike and in response imprisoned and charged the journalist who revealed this wrongdoing. It is an attack on press freedom usually associated with the most aggressive totalitarian regimes, going to the core of how the West defines itself: as a democracy that upholds the right to criticize government or authoritarianism that crushes dissent.

The really horrifying thing about this case is the lawlessness that has developed: The powerful can kill without fear of punishment and journalism is transformed into espionage, said Melzer. It is becoming a crime to tell the truth.

Melzer told the Republik:

Imagine a dark room. Suddenly, someone shines a light on the elephant in the room on war criminals, on corruption. Assange is the man with the spotlight. The governments are briefly in shock, but then they turn the spotlight around with accusations of rape. It is a classic maneuver when it comes to manipulating public opinion. The elephant once again disappears into the darkness, behind the spotlight. And Assange becomes the focus of attention instead, and we start talking about whether Assange is skateboarding in the embassy or whether he is feeding his cat correctly. Suddenly, we all know that he is a rapist, a hacker, a spy and a narcissist. But the abuses and war crimes he uncovered fade into the darkness.

A plaque in honor of Assanges award, reads: For bravery in the face of a grave threat to Freedom of the Press and for journalistic accomplishments in revealing crimes of the state.

The Gary Webb Award is the third prize Assange has won while in prison, and the first from the United States. Recognition of the threat his case poses to press freedom grows.

Past winners of the Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award are Sam Parry (2016), who created Consortium News website in 1995, and filmmaker Oliver Stone (2017).

History of the Award

About the origin of the award, Parry wrote: The award is named in honor of investigative reporter Gary Webb who in 1996 courageously revived interest in one of the darkest scandals of the 1980s, the Reagan administrations tolerance of cocaine trafficking by the CIA-organized Nicaraguan Contra rebels who were fighting to overthrow Nicaraguas leftist Sandinista government.

Journalist Gary Webb holding a copy of his Contra-cocaine article in The San Jose Mercury-News.

The Contra-Cocaine scandal was originally exposed by Associated Press reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger in 1985, but the major U.S. newspapers accepted the Reagan administrations denials and treated the story as a conspiracy theory.

So, when Webb revived the story in 1996 for The San Jose Mercury News and described how some of the Contra cocaine fueled the spread of crack across urban America, the major newspapers again rallied to the defense of the Contras and the Reagan administrations legacy.

Originally posted here:

Julian Assange Wins 2020 Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award - Consortium News

Guest columnist Steven Brown, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, looks at poetry's long and distinguished history of censorship, from Ovid to Shel Silverstein.

2020, like every election year, is an especially good time to think about the First Amendment. There are few rights Americans hold more sacred than freedom of speech. Poets, like many artists, often serve as barometers of cultural and political change. That's why they are the first to be imprisoned or silenced in dictatorships or when governments take a turn toward totalitarianism. It's also why Plato deemed the poet "akin to the thief" not because we steal, but because ideas are dangerous and poetry is, as Mary Ruefle put it, "an act of the mind."

If prison is a way to control the body, then censorship is a means to control the mind or, at least, to control what a mind has access to. Sadly, every society employs some form of censorship, but as Steven Brown, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, points out, if you flip the script, it can be a joy to resist.

Tina Cane, Poet Laureate of Rhode Island, tinacane.ink

The Joy of Censorship

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked

Allen Ginsberg, Howl

I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please!

Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Although these two works would not, at first or even second or third glance, seem to have much in common, they both acutely demonstrate, in their own way, the awesome power of poetry to tackle contemporary mores and challenge the status quo. Their power and their success in that respect are evident, because they garnered one of arts greatest badges of honor: the government sought to censor them.

Ginsberg was famously brought to trial and acquitted on obscenity charges for the profanity-filled and sexually explicit content of "Howl." "The Lorax" was banned in at least one California school district for its allegedly negative portrayal of the logging industry, a major employer in the community.

Like prose, poetry has a long and distinguished history of censorship behind it. The Roman poet Ovid was purportedly exiled in 8 A.D. because of his risqu poetry, and the work of Sappho was ordered burned on more than one occasion.

In case anyone thinks weve made progress over the centuries, it is sobering to learn that Shel Silversteins famous childrens poetry collection, "A Light in the Attic," enraged enough hypersensitive folks that it ranked number 51 on the American Library Associations list of the most frequently challenged books in the 1990s. My favorite reason: one of the poems was accused of encourag[ing] children to break dishes so they wont have to dry them.

Of course, the poetry of music hasnt escaped the censors thumb of disapproval either. Whether its President Richard Nixons effort to encourage radio stations to censor songs with references to drugs or Tipper Gores 1980s crusade against explicit lyrics, there has never been a shortage of taste arbiters ready to keep dangerous musical stanzas at bay.

Rhode Island earns a dubious spot in that censorship hall of fame. In 1990, the ACLU had to sue the Westerly Town Council when it sought, for alleged public safety reasons, to revoke the license of a nightclub owner who invited the controversial rap group 2 Live Crew to perform. Among the towns stated safety concerns was the unprotected shore of the Atlantic Ocean on the beach adjacent to the club. In a victory for both free speech and common sense, the court was not persuaded.

While we may laugh at such amateurish attempts to squelch free speech, we must realize that it is an ever-present danger. At the same time, though, lets celebrate the meaning of such heavy-handed tactics: when the government seeks to censor a poem, it acknowledges its power to move people, to persuade them, to make them think.

Best of all, it does one other thing: it tempts people to taste the forbidden fruit. As Mark Twain gloated to his editor when a library in Concord, Massachusetts, banned "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" as trash, the censorship will sell us another 25,000 copies for sure!

Its winter. Enjoy it by snuggling up with a good book of poetry and, in doing so, quietly chalk up another victory against the bluenoses and censors in our midst.

Poetry contest

Enter your original poetry in a new statewide contest, sponsored by The Public's Radio, R.I. Poet Laureate and R.I. Youth Poetry Ambassador. Details are available at ribook.org.

Youth poetry group

Youth poets are invited to join an ongoing poetry group with the deputy youth ambassador, Tyler Cordeiro. It meets Saturdays at 2 p.m. at Brooklyn Coffee & Tea House, 209 Douglas Ave., in Providence.

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In a small state of poetry: Why poets are on the front lines of the free-speech fight - The Providence Journal

House Bill 36 would grant student journaliststhe right to exercise freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The legislation originally applied toschool-sponsored media at public middle and high schools, as well as institutions of higher education, but the bill was amended this week to remove language about middle and high school students.

The latest text of the bill defines a student journalist as a student enrolled at a public institution of higher education who gathers, compiles, writes, edits, photographs, records, or prepares information for inclusion in school-sponsored student media. All mention of middle and high school students was removed.

The amended bill was voted out of committee 20 to 2, on Feb. 3. There was bipartisan support for the legislation; the no votes were both Republicans. The bill now will move to the full House for a vote.

Patronedby former WDBJ journalist Del. Chris Hurst, D-12th, ofMontgomery, HB 36 also protects advisers working with thestudent journalists.

Hursts bill would allow schooladministrationsto intervene and exercise restraint only in situations of slander, libel, privacy, danger or violations of federal or state law.

Excerpt from:

Bill that would extend freedom of speech to student journalists amended in committee - Fauquier Times

This editorial represents the opinion of the Dispatch editorial board, which includes the publisher, editor, editorial page editor and editorial writers. Editorials, like opinion columns, represent a particular viewpoint and are not to be confused with news stories.

There are good reasons the Ohio General Assembly should prod the states public universities to update their free speech policies to guarantee free and robust discussion of ideas.

But Senate Bill 40, approved unanimously last week by the Ohio Senate, is a poorly conceived and undeserved bludgeon. The Ohio House should be more judicious.

Sponsored by Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Powell, the bill would prohibit Ohios 14 public universities from taking any action or enforcing any policy that limits or restricts the free expression rights of its students, student groups, faculty, staff, employees, and invited guests in public areas of campus.

The legislation declares all outdoor areas of campus to be public forums and would prohibit universities from charging security fees to a student or student group based on the content of expression or the anticipated reaction to that content.

It also would require universities to keep an updated, online record of how it is complying with the bills provisions and to report any alleged infractions. And much more.

In sponsor testimony, citing no Ohio examples, Brenner said the law is needed because, In recent years, the rigor with which opposing views have been presented has lessened on college campuses. Our students are being taught what to think instead of how to think. In particular, it has been conservative ideologies that have been stifled by the administrations of colleges and universities due to bias, fear or both.

However, in an interview with The Dispatch, Brenner said the bill was inspired by the University of Californias (Berkeley) 2017 decision to cancel a speaking invitation to right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

In seeing what was going on in other states and other universities throughout the United States, we felt (the bill) was needed to be brought here to Ohio so we can protect the freedom of speech for students on campus, Brenner said.

Its true some of Americas colleges and universities, in adopting anti-harassment and anti-bullying policies, were overzealous and went too far in limiting speech.

Over many decades, in dozens of cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has reinterpreted the First Amendment to sometimes narrow but more often broaden free speech protections.

Not until 1939, nearly a century and a half after the birth of the First Amendment, did the Supreme Court rule public places must be open for assembly, allowing citizens to discuss public questions freely. Authorities could reasonably regulate access, but not discriminate.

In 1969, the court held authorities could limit student free speech only by showing it constituted significantly disruptive conduct that would interfere with the schools educational process.

In 1999, in an Ohio case, the court ruled speech could be prohibited only when incitement could reasonably lead to violence.

Case law on free speech will continue to evolve. For this reason alone, its unwise to embed in state law any current First Amendment understanding or practice.

The General Assembly would do far more good to enact a law giving firm but simple directives to Ohios public universities, such as:

Adopt a free speech policy consistent with updated case law on the First Amendment and regularly educate faculty, students and staff on it.

Prohibit so-called free speech zones that limit where public demonstrations and protests are permitted.

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Editorial: Ohio Senate bill on free speech goes further than it should - The Columbus Dispatch

In the spring of 2018, as the Universitys famed "Chicago Principles on free speech were gaining traction nationwide, a group of University of Chicago faculty members asked President Robert Zimmer for a public forum on campus to debate the Principles.

It is our belief in the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of inquiry that leads us to call for addressing these issues in a public venue, they wrote, in a letter to the editor about the invitation published later in The Maroon.

The president never granted the request. Instead, he offered the professors a few private, invite-only discussions at locationsincluding the Neubauer Collegium and the Quadrangle Club.

One of those faculty members, English professor Kenneth Warren, had also helped write the Chicago Principles as a member of the Committee on Free Expression. In a recent interview withThe Maroon, Warren described Zimmers move as part of the administrations unwillingness to meet with faculty and students in open, ongoing discussions...in some sense, to assess whether or not the document is doing what it was supposed to do.

The incident, new details of which have come to light through recent interviews with faculty members, highlights professors struggle with communicating with an administration they feel has stonewalled them.

This is, faculty say, a contradiction of the very doctrine the Principles enshrine: the Universitys solemn responsibility to promote...lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation.

The Chicago Principles and the Universitys free speech brand

Concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, reads the Chicago Principles, the statement issued in 2014 as a crystallization of UChicagos ideals regarding free speech.

The original document was titled, simply, the Report of the Committee on Free Expressionthe seven professors tasked by President Robert Zimmer with drafting it. The report gained the Chicago Principles moniker as it was exported nationwide.

According to the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), eighty-two American universities have since adopted or endorsed variants of the Principles.

Free speech has become, in many ways, a cornerstone of UChicagos public personaas much a part of the schools hallowed history as neoclassical economics or the first nuclear chain reaction. Outlets from The Washington Post to The Economist have covered the Principles.

The topic shot up in national prominence during the summer of 2016, after Jay Ellison, Dean of Students in the College, sent incoming first-year students a made-for-the-headlines letter denouncing trigger warnings and safe spaces.

A year later, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (A.B. 95) dubbed Zimmer Americas Best University President because of his stance on free speech. Since the Principles publication, Zimmer has toured campuses from Ohio to Colorado to tout them.

The desire for a public forum

Mathematics professor Denis Hirschfeldt was one of the six professors who sent the original invitation to Zimmer.

Given the role that Bob Zimmer has had in advocating a very particular viewand...given that this is not uniformly embraced by members of the community, including in the faculty, we think that there should be a discussion of this, Hirschfeldt told The Maroon.

One of the reasons we wanted this...is because absent a discussion, theres a feeling on the part of a lot of people that a lot of whats happening with President Zimmers advocacy is publicity.

The professors envisioned a forum that would see Zimmer onstage in conversation with a slate of faculty members who hold diverse opinions on free speech. They asked administrators if Zimmer would be available sometime over the next two quarters, or over the full year.

The administration responded with a no. What Zimmer wanted, Hirschfeldt said, was instead a series of closed conversations with groups of faculty who would be handpicked by top administrators to attend.

All six professors were invited, as were several other faculty members drawn from across the University. The invitees received an email from Zimmers secretary, Susan Huie, giving a date, time, and location.

As Hirschfeldt tells it, when he realized the conversation would replacenot precedean open debate, he opted not to attend. He sent a note to Huie saying so.

If these conversations are a preliminary to having a public [conversation], something where you were going to figure out what the parameters should be, then thats great, then Id come, Hirschfeldt told The Maroon. The problem is that this was instead of [the public event].

Hirschfeldts email received no response. Since then, no on-campus public conversation about the Chicago Principles implementation has materialized.

The closest approximation to one would be a student forum in International House in April 2018. After Student Governments request for a public conversation with Zimmermade with support from the six professorsadministrators consented to a moderated public event for students to ask questions about free speech.

But the event was far from the open forum with faculty and student voices that the professors had envisioned. Zimmer took questions alongside Dean of the College John Boyer, who discussed free expression in relation to the philosophy of liberal education undergirding the Universitys Core Curriculum. The event was moderated by Institute of Politics Director David Axelrod, whereas the six professors had pressed for the inclusion of faculty who have divergent views on what constitutes real freedom of speech on university and college campuses.

The rare public appearance by Zimmer, open only to College students, drew large numbers of graduate student protesters. Inside the event, students clamored to bring up other concernsmost notably the shooting of a student, just two days earlier, by a UCPD officer.

Discussion behind closed doors

Meanwhile, faculty were attending the series of one-hour events the administration had scheduled.

English professor Elaine Hadleyanother of the professors who had, with Warren, invited Zimmer to discuss free speechwas invited to a session held at the Quadrangle Club, a social club for University faculty and affiliates.

Much of the initial lecture at the faculty discussions, by Zimmer and University Provost Daniel Diermeier, focused on the national context for the Chicago Principles, not their implementation on campus.

One example, discussed at length, was the 2017 student protest at Middlebury College that shut down a lecture by conservative author Charles Murraybest known for The Bell Curve, the controversial 1994 book that linked race to IQ.

Several of the invitees were unsure what the event was, let alone why theyd been selected.

It was clear, from some of the remarks of people in the room, that many of them werent quite sure why they had been anointed, Warren said.

Hadley said, A few seemed to know little to nothing about the Free Speech policythe purpose of the discussion.

The professors were drawn from across a variety of divisions and schools. Some were glad for the opportunity, like philosophy professor Gabriel Lear. Im interested in free speech issues and have thought about them in the context of my interest in Platos and Aristotles theories of civic virtue, but I rather doubt the President and Provost knew about that, Lear told The Maroon. She added that the discussions offered the chance to speak with colleagues from parts of the University I dont normally interact with about a topic I think is quite important.

Some points of contention did surface. At the event they attended, Warren and Hadley brought up the question of unionization, which the professors had cited in their April 2018 public letter about the proposed forum.

I said something like, for me, free speech also encompasses the right of students to vote to unionize, and once the vote is overwhelmingly yes, the university should recognize an election they sanctioned, Hadley told The Maroon. And [Zimmer] said, I dont think thats about free speech. And he said it very forcefully.

Warren said he was interested in discussing the risks of the Universitys growing dependence on wealthy donorswhether that represented, in some sense, a potential threat to freedom of expression. Diermeiers response was that it didnt.

It had, in his view, not been the case that the experience of the university with respect to donors trying to determine what happens with the money that they put forward on campus was an issue, Warren said.

UChicagos free speech brand has itself become a lure for major donors.

Citadel founder Ken Griffin, for example, cited the Universitys shunning of safe spaces and trigger warnings as one motivation for his $125 million gift to the economics department in November 2017.

The Chicago Principles as the facilitator of broader conversation

The broader question at the heart of the open-forum proposal, faculty say, is what role the Chicago Principles themselves should play in discourse on higher education. To what extent is the document specific to UChicago, and furthermore, how should it be used in setting University policies?

Warren described in stark terms the administrations response to the Principles, which he helped to write. Especially as the statement has increased in visibility nationally, its been used in ways that I think are inimical to the values it wants to promote, he said.

Furthermore, the document was promulgated with the presumption that it was actually going to support the values expressed within it, Warren added. And that expectation requires ongoing evaluation and discussion. Are students feeling that they have a clearer sense of what values they are expected to uphold? Do those values work in practice? That seems to me to require ongoing discussion and review. And thats not what weve seen here on campus.

To Warren, this has in part stemmed from FIREs instant latching on to the document. That endorsementfollowed by a flood of support from other institutionshas lent it a sort of legitimacy hes not sure it warrants.

The call from FIRE for other institutions to adopt the document has given it more of a status of a kind of loyalty oath than a support for freedom of expression, he said.

Apart from Zimmer, perhaps the Universitys major figurehead of free speech is Law School professor Geoffrey Stone, who has authored several books on the First Amendment and who led the drafting of the Chicago Principles as the committees chair.

Stone said that he has been amused and delighted, if initially surprised, by the documents national fame. He also doesnt feel the Universitys marketing of free speech poses a threat to varied opinions about the topic on campus.

Nothing stands in the way of students or faculty who want to talk about these issues, he said. Thats completely okay, thats at the very heart of what the Principles are about.

He noted that he was completely unfamiliar with the professors public forum proposal and the closed faculty discussions, though he described the six professors who made the inviteapart from Warren, whom he knows wellas leftwingers with a restrictive view of what constitutes free speech.

I dont think this administration, at this university, would be reluctant at all [to hold a public forum], Stone said.

That doesnt mean that the administration would organize this, but if faculty members wanted to do it, theyd be perfectly free to do it. And if they wanted to invite the Provost and the President to come and speak and they were available, I assume they would.

Stone added, however, that in planning a public debate, I dont think theyd get very far, frankly. My sense is that the substantial majority of faculty members endorse [the Chicago Principles].

The document itself, Stone said, reflects one hundred years of campus history and is meant to be a longstanding principle to guide the University. This is perhaps a different interpretation than the purpose Warren gestures toward: an engine of further dialogue, to be continually revisited as it plays out on campus.

If it feels Im dancing around the word hypocrisy, its only because I think that the upper administration feels that its commitment to freedom of expression is genuine, Warren said.

I think they take that seriously. But in practice, they have worked very hard to limit the scope of what kind of discussion we can have on campus regarding those principles.

Lee Harris contributed reporting.

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Faculty asked Zimmer for an open forum to discuss UChicago's free speech policy. Here's what they got instead. - The Chicago Maroon

We have witnessed plenty of bizarre things lately in the Through-the-Looking-Glass world of UK politics. Few, however, have been more surreal than yesterdays spectacle of the illiberal, press-hating Labour Party and its media allies posing as champions of press freedom and free speech against the Tory government. It was almost as if Corbyns Remainer Labour had suddenly started attacking Boris Johnson for not being sufficiently pro-Brexit.

This all started when the lobby the elite group of accredited political journalists who cover parliamentary and government business had a fall-out with Johnsons advisers and walked out of a planned briefing. Since some self-important lobby scribes apparently believe that they are the news, this tiff was broadcast as if the barricades were going up at the end of Downing Street.

According to the journalists, the government blocked certain members of the press from attending a briefing. Labour and the even-less-liberal-minded Scottish National Party quickly denounced this as a sinister, Trump-like assault on press freedom the cornerstone of our democracy. All of which might make you wonder why Corbyns Labour stood in the General Election on press-bashing policies that promised to reduce that democratic cornerstone to rubble.

What happened on Monday was that, after the governments normal morning press conference, 10 Downing Street planned a technical briefing on trade negotiations with the EU for some political editors. The select group included pro-Boris newspapers such as the Telegraph, the Sun and the Mail, alongside anti-Johnson outlets such as the BBC and the Guardian. This was not the first time the government has held a selective briefing, and Johnsons is not the first government to pick and choose which parts of the media it talks to.

This, however, took place in the context of rising tensions between parts of the media and the government. Johnson has barred his ministers from appearing on Today BBC Radio 4s flagship current-affairs programme and reportedly banned them from socialising with political journalists. His team recently infuriated the lobby by committing the cardinal sin of moving their daily briefings from parliament to just up the road in Downing Street. The prime ministers big Brexit Night message to the nation was also filmed by his own Downing Street team and broadcast on social media, with the miffed Remainstream TV channels refusing to carry it live.

Against this background, some lobby members excluded from Mondays meeting from titles including the Mirror, the i, HuffPost, PoliticsHome and the Independent showed up at 10 Downing Street and demanded entry to the trade briefing.

According to the Guardian, journalists on the invited list were asked to stand on one side of a rug, while those not allowed in were asked by security to stand on the other side. The horror, the horror. The invited journalists, including BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg and Robert Peston of ITV News, then crossed the rug and walked out in solidarity with their excluded colleagues.

Now, lets be clear: this was a stupid and unjustfiable thing for the Tories to do. No doubt they are right to look upon the BBC and the rest of the Remainstream media as political opponents more than objective reporters. But so what? Press freedom is a universal liberty that needs to be upheld for all, warts and all, whether we like what publications say or not. Staging such a public show of excluding some journalists made Johnsons team appear petty-minded, petulant and proscriptive hardly a demonstration of its claim to be the most transparent government in decades.

None of that, however, explains the hysterical reaction of the opposition parties and their media allies yesterday. Desperately groping around for something / anything with which to hit back at the dominant Boris, they have shamelessly tried to pose as champions of press freedom and free speech to accuse Johnson of leading us down the road to authoritarianism.

Labour culture spokesperson Tracy Brabin (no, me neither; apparently she used to be in Coronation Street and EastEnders), raised the lobby spat in the House of Commons, declaring that press freedom is a cornerstone of our democracy and journalists must be able to hold the government to account. A senior Labour source accused Boris Johnson of using Trump-like tactics to avoid media scrutiny. If members of the Cabinet truly believed in freedom of speech, they would stand up to No10 and call out this disgraceful behaviour. SNP culture spokesman John Nicolson agreed: Its an approach to the press borrowed from Trump. Its sinister.

Invoking the dreaded name of Trump is of course meant to suggest that there is something almost fascistic about the Tory attitude to media freedom. Yet if there is a truly sinister threat to that lifeblood of democracy in British politics today, it comes from the likes of the Labour Party, the SNP and their elitist allies.

One of the few clear statements that the gormless Jeremy Corbyn made during the election campaign was when he declared that, I ask our media, as good journalists, to just report what we say. Corbyns Labour was outraged by the freedom of the media to ask awkward questions, reveal embarrassing truths and hold politicians to account. Thats why Labour promised to stage another Leveson II showtrial of the popular press and to implement punitive laws to force publishers to sign up to Britains first state-backed press regulator since 1695. Corbyn once even dreamed of effectively nationalising the news, with state-funded media outlets promoting public interest journalism as defined by the authorities, not the public, of course.

In short, Corbyn said that if you want to read government-approved journalism in a state-sponsored media vote Labour. What was that about authoritarianism?

Anybody who imagines this will change under a new Labour leader should recall that the apparent front-runner, Sir Keir Starmer, was the director of public prosecutions who launched the biggest state witch-hunt of journalists in a modern democracy. Dirt-digging Sun journalists were arrested in dawn police raids on their homes and spent years in limbo, before being cleared by juries who found them guilty only of doing their jobs.

The media must indeed be free to hold the Tory government to account, and we need to defend media freedom for all. But we also need to settle accounts with the more sinister enemies of free speech in British politics, and not let Labours authoritarians get away with staging a phoney war for press freedom as an anti-Tory stunt.

Mick Hume is a spiked columnist. His latest book, Revolting! How the Establishment is Undermining Democracy and what theyre afraid of, is published by William Collins.

Picture by: Getty.

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No, Boris is not the most 'sinister' threat to media freedom - Spiked