Daily Archives: February 27, 2020

The beautiful thing about the mad reaction to Toby Youngs Free Speech Union (FSU) is that it proves why the union is so necessary. No sooner had Young unveiled his censorship-busting union than the illiberal liberals were out in force to mock it and ridicule it and to insist that, actually, there is no free-speech crisis in the UK. Its a right-wing myth, they claim. There is no widespread censorship. People arent being shipped off to gulags for expressing an opinion. Apparently, the free-speech grift God, I hate the word grift is just a bunch of pale, male and stale blokes pissed off that they can no longer say the N-word or talk openly about womens boobs. Freedom of speech is not under threat, the Young-bashers claim, and anyone who says it is is probably just an Islamophobe, transphobe or some other breed of phobe itching to spout bile with no consequences.

This rank denialism, this blinkered insistence that free speech is not in danger in 21st-century Britain, is exactly why we need the FSU and as broad a discussion as possible about the importance of the liberty to express oneself. Because the fact that so many inhabitants of the chattering-class bubble cant even see that free speech is dying right now confirms how naturalised and uncontroversial the new censorship has become. They dont even see it as censorship. They see it as perfectly normal, and good, in fact, that certain views cannot be expressed in public life or on social media. Thats how cavalier the new war on heretical opinion has become. At least in the past, from Torquemada to the McCarthyites, authoritarians were honest about being censors. Todays self-elected moral guardians of correct opinion are so hubristic, so taken with their own mortal rectitude, that they dont even see themselves as enemies of freedom, but rather as decent, unimpeachable maintainers of a natural intellectual order.

Things have come to such a pass that these people will literally seek to censor you in one breath and then express alarm at being called censors in the next breath. Hence the Guardian could publish a piece last week claiming that the idea that there is a culture of censorship in British universities is a right-wing myth while simultaneously defending censorship on campus. In an act of extraordinary moral contortionism, Evan Smith mocked the idea that there is a free-speech crisis at British universities and then, without missing a beat, he defended the policy of No Platform and the creation of safe spaces because the university cannot be a place where racism and fascism as well as sexism, homophobia and transphobia are allowed to be expressed. The Orwellianism is staggering. There is no censorship on campus. Except the censorship I approve of. Which is not really censorship. That is what is being said here. The intellectual dishonesty is almost impressive.

This Orwellian denialism of the existence of censorship by people who actually support and enact censorship cuts to the heart of the free-speech crisis in the UK. The reason the illiberal liberals and woke McCarthyites and Twittermobs dont consider themselves to be censors even as they gleefully agitate for the censorship of feminists, secularists worried about Islamist extremism, and right-wing people opposed to mass immigration is because they have convinced themselves that certain forms of speech are not free speech. That certain beliefs should not be afforded the liberty of expression. You hear it in their telling, baleful mantra that Hate speech is not free speech. And if hate speech is not free speech, but rather some kind of toxin, a pox on public life, then crushing it is not censorship. It is more like an act of public health: cleansing the public realm of diseased thoughts that are liable to harm certain groups. These people see themselves not as censors, but as public-health activists delousing the community of germs spread by evil men and women.

This is why they balk and protest when the words free speech are used against them. They detest the idea that they are enemies of liberty. But of course that is precisely what they are. Just consider that nonsensical chant Hate speech is not free speech. There are two profound moral problems with this idiotic tautology. The first is that, actually, even genuinely hateful speech, including racist gibberish and misogynistic blather, should be free speech. By its very definition freedom of speech should extend to all speech, even speech we detest. And secondly, hate speech has become a slippery, amorphous category that now covers not only foul old nonsense like Holocaust denial, but also trans-sceptical feminism, criticism of Islam, opposition to mass immigration, and so on. Hate speech really means thoughtcrime. It is an utterly ideological category used by the cultural and intellectual elites to demonise and censor ideas, beliefs and moral convictions they disapprove of. The war on hate speech is the new war on heresy, on free-thinking, on minority opinion, on challenging beliefs. It is blatant censorship.

The illiberal liberals conflation of genuine hatred with moral opinion, all of which then gets cynically collapsed under the name of hate speech, was beautifully captured in an exchange on the BBCs Politics Live yesterday. Pushing back against the FSUs Inaya Folarin Iman, Baroness Kennedy arrogantly predicted that the FSU would be embraced by racists people who hate homosexuals, who hate trans people, [and] people who have hostile views towards Islam. Hold on. One of these things is not like the others. What is wrong with having hostile views on Islam? Is hostility towards a powerful world religion now a form of hate speech? Yes, it is. Kennedys conflation of criticism of Islam with racism and homophobia perfectly encapsulated the way in which hate speech is now used to police not only genuinely hateful ideas, but also blasphemy against religious ideas. Even that key freedom human beings fought so hard for the right to mock gods and prophets and religious ideology is now threatened by the censorious ideology of hate speech.

The cynical category of hate speech is openly used to police the parameters of acceptable thought and to punish those who are considered to hold heretical views that the guardians of moral correctness oppose. So not only are critics of Islam denounced as hate speakers so are feminists who question the cult of transgenderism, Christians who disapprove of same-sex marriage, right-wing people who want stricter immigration controls, etc. These are all entirely legitimate political or moral opinions. The branding of them as hate speech and therefore undeserving of the protections of freedom of speech is really a way of calling these views heresy. And of course heretics must be cast out. Feminists, Catholics, critics of Islam hound them off campus, get them off the airwaves, report them to the police for their crimes of hatred. This is an intolerant assault on heresy of the kind that has appeared many times throughout history. Those who say It isnt censorship protest far too much. Deep down they know it is. Deep down they know they are to the 2020s what Joe McCarthy was to the 1950s.

And what has been wrought by their rebranding of moral opinion as hatred? A new and vast system of censure, speech control, and intolerance. No free-speech crisis in the UK? This is now a country in which the police will visit you if you question transgenderism on the internet. In which Scottish police have created a database of people who make un-PC jokes online. In which feminist academics who believe in biological sex need security guards on campus. In which nine people a day are arrested for things they say online. In which you can be sacked from your job for taking the piss out of Islam in your own time. In which university after university has a policy outlawing transphobia or Islamophobia, severely limiting the expression of feminist and secuarlist ideas. In which the state, corporations and intolerant mobs the dire troika of the new intolerance enforce increasingly strict rules on what we can and cannot say.

It is essential we dont buy the myth that this new censorship is about protecting minorities. Leaving aside the extraordinary paternalism contained in the idea that minority groups require self-elected moral authoritarians to save them from offence, the far more important truth is that this new censorship is about guarding a new political order from heretical dissent. It is about ringfencing the ideology of multiculturalism, the ideology of genderfluidity and the ideology of political correctness from the pesky questions and barbs of dissenting thinkers. These are the new ideologies of the ruling class. These ideologies increasingly govern social life, the educational sphere, and the workplace. The phoney defenders of minorities are really defending new power structures and ideological orthodoxies from public questioning.

The FSU is a very good thing. We need more individuals and groups who are willing to defend freedom of speech and the rights of heresy. It is worth recalling the wisdom of Robert G Ingersoll, the 19th-century American political orator, Civil War veteran and, in his words, American infidel. He argued that progress is impossible without heresy, without the freedom to blaspheme against religion and to question political power and moral orthodoxy. Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress. Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought. Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.

Good on Toby Young for widening the space for heresy, for seeking to defend the rights of heretics (today defamed as hate speakers). Because heresy is essential to progress, freedom of speech is essential to democracy, and liberty of thought is essential to the good life. Society always, but always, benefits from the free, unfettered expression of ideas.

Brendan ONeill is editor of spiked and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan ONeill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy

Picture by: YouTube.

To enquire about republishing spikeds content, a right to reply or to request a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.

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Why we must win the fight for free speech - Spiked

Former NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat for the national anthem for the first time in August 2016. It took a few months for any outrage to begin, but once people noticed it, the outrage started pouring in against him and the NFL. It sparked a debate around racial injustice in the United States and whether kneeling during the national anthem is an acceptable form of protest.

What Kaeprnick was kneeling for is an important issue in itself. Set aside whether he should be able to kneel, his reasons for doing so represent ideas that need to be discussed relating to police prejudice against minorities in many areas of the country.

These issues are vitally important to be able to openly debate, but in this piece, I want to talk directly about the act of his kneeling in protest and why it is absurd to suggest anyone does not have the right to protest in such a way.

Kneeling during the national anthem is, by definition, a peaceful protest. No violence is being incited, no one is put in harms way and the person kneeling is able to make clear they disagree with an injustice in the United States.

Despite this fact, many people still feel even this peaceful form of protest should not be allowed, as it disrespects the people who have died fighting for this country. But even if that is true, it is completely irrelevant. Free speech is still free, whether it offends you or not. As long as it is not directly inciting violence, such as if someone in an angry mob of people yelled lets go flip a police car, it is legal and allowed under the First Amendment.

There is also precedent for this. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that it is illegal to prohibit the burning of an American flag, as such an act is considered to be protected free speech. So, theoretically, Colin Kaepernick could kneel for the national anthem while dragging an American flag across the ground with one hand and holding a lighter in the other trying to set it on fire, and legally he is perfectly justified and you cannot stop him unless it poses a physical danger to anyone.

Now all this does not mean you are unjustified in being offended. In fact, if the scenario I mentioned of Kaepernick aggressively burning the flag during the national anthem were real, I may be quite offended myself. But I wouldnt be able to do anything about it, because he can protest in whatever manner he desires as long as he is not harming anyone.

Kaepernick said it well himself in a statement to the media in August 2017: I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone. Thats not happening. People are dying in vain because this country isnt holding their end of the bargain up, as far as giving freedom and justice, liberty to everybody.

Whether you agree with his form of protest, or whether or not you believe there is injustice in our police force and our country, and even if you feel highly offended and feel he is disrespecting every man and woman who has died for this country, he is allowed to exercise his freedom of speech by kneeling and you have no right to stop him.

What disturbs me most is that we seem to have forgotten Kaepernicks whole story and are somehow still debating the legality of his kneeling. Conservatives like President Trump seem to use this example as proof liberals are unpatriotic and hate the United States. But in reality, this form of protest shows liberals love this country enough to want it to change for the better, and wont settle for what we have now, which is a system that unjustly oppresses many minority populations both socially and economically. The protest is an acknowledgement that our country can still do better for the people it forgets.

What will the United States become if we start being forced by the state to stand while our anthem plays? How has kneeling against injustice become equated to treason?

The story of Kaeprnicks protest needs to be remembered, both as an example of free speech being exercised despite outrage, and as a reminder that not everyone in the United States enjoys the freedom from injustice some of us take for granted.

Patrick Doyle is a freshman studying journalism and political science. Follow him @PatrickDoyle100.

Continued here:
Kaepernick's protest is a utilization of free speech - Daily Aztec

I could not ignore the hypocrisy of Northwestern University College Republicans (NUCR) Vice President Dominic Bayers comments in a February 19 story Northwestern community shares perspectives on free speech ahead of the 2020 election. Bayer is quoted in the story as saying, I do believe its appropriate to have protests outside the buildings or take advantage of the Q&A section during events to express disagreement with a speaker.

However, in November, when former Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke at a NUCR event, ushers distributed index cards before the event and encouraged audience members to write questions for the speaker. I and many others submitted questions. Bayer prohibited the audience from taking advantage of the Q&A section by visibly and vigorously shuffling through the many notecards submitted by angry onlookers to lob softball question after softball question to Sessions. He was the only one who asked questions.

Bayers hypocrisy is emblematic of NUCRs behavior. Its one thing to invite a sexist, racist, homophobic and xenophobic man to our campus under the guise of free speech. Its another to promise a question and answer section before cherry-picking questions and refusing to allow a portion of the audience the ability to question the speaker.

Free speech is a two-way street. The speaker can say what they wish to, but listeners should be given the chance to respond. Thats dialogue which is what I assume NUCR, which loves to praise unfettered free speech, was looking to facilitate. Its not what they got.

Sessions wasnt asked about the kids who died in cages under U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody under his watch. He wasnt asked about his support for banning certain Muslims from immigrating to the United States. He wasnt asked about the time he was denied a federal judgeship for being too racist. He wasnt asked about his long history of support for mass incarceration. Its naive to think Northwestern students didnt plaster questions on those issues all over the notecards.

When Sessions was asked about LGBTQ+ policy under the Trump administration, he said the administration did not roll back any protections. Thats a lie. Bayer did not correct or challenge Sessions on this falsehood.

This wasnt free speech; it was a carefully orchestrated echo chamber serving NUCR and the man at the lectern. Bayers words are out of line with his actions and the actions of his organization. In the future, NUCR and Bayer should stand by their public statements and let students question speakers.

After all, a grown man should be able to defend his ideas in front of a bunch of college students.

Jacob Jordan, SESP junior

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Letter to the Editor: NUCR is hypocritical on free speech - Daily Northwestern

This is preposterous and illogical. Trans people make an effort to pass as the gender they identify as, so forcing a trans man who is on testosterone and had top surgery into the women's restroomor a trans woman who is on estrogen into the men's restroom makes no sense. Even with her harmful views about trans people,I still think throwing drinksand swearing at her is unjustified.

I dont getBennetts whole shtick. Bennett, who rose to fame as The Gun Girl, first gained traction at Kent State University, walking around with a gunwith police for backup. A recent graduate, her activisms emphasis was to protest the campusrulewhichprohibitsstudents from open-carrying. Now, Ifor one, am definitely someone for SecondAmendmentrights.However, asking police from the same district as those who historically murdered students makes no sense to me. The police force at Kent State University may be comprised of different people than in 1970, but it doesnt erase history.

Her methodology is also abrasive.

Do you guys think we should abolish the death penalty? Bennet asked while dressed as her alter-ego, Jenna, at the Womens March in January.

The woman she was interviewing responded, saying she believe[s] in the death penalty, actually, to which Bennett countered, Is that why youre pro-choice?

Now, regardless of what your views are on either abortion orthe death penalty, you can agree this framing is incredibly disrespectful. It doesnt give the interviewee the benefit of the doubt and automatically assumes she gravitates towards policies which support murder. Of course, there are other reasons for being both pro-choice and pro-death penalty, most of which dont support a consistent murder ethic. What Bennett is doing aims just to get a rise out of people, not to have a calm, level-headed discussion. If she wanted to have a level-headed discussion, she wouldnt paint her political opponent as a murderer.

Even so, despite Bennetts apparentlack of disrespect for people she disagrees with, the borderline violent behavior of students at Ohio University was uncalled for, and the police should have intervened. There is a difference between a heated debate and splashing someone with hot beverages while behaving in a manner that could be determined as a precursor to violence.

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I disagree with Kaitlin Bennet but I will protect her free speech - UConn Daily Campus

Liam Al-HindiCONTRIBUTOR

If I were to name the biggest accomplishment of the 21st century, it would be that we as a species have created so many new and powerful ways of communicating. I dont call it a gift or a privilege. I call the internet the natural evolution of our basic human right to express ourselves. We dont just have technology to thank for that: We also live in a country founded on the right to say what we mean without legal repercussions, the right to free speech. But this has also inevitably led to what I would call abuses of this freedom.

I think people are well-acquainted with their rights, but not well-acquainted with their responsibilities, said Hugh Reilly, director of the UNO School of Communication. The responsibilities are accuracy and the willingness to tolerate other points of view. I think its our responsibility [as a society] to be well-informed.

No one can conceivably spend even an hour on the internet and not come across an opinion that they oppose. This is how progress is made: An individual expresses an idea, the opposition voices their side and discourse ensues. But it is nave to expect this model. We, as a culture, have grown used to good and bad ideas getting equal exposure on the same platform. Because we see both sides in the same space, we assume that they both must have equal merit. But in my experience, this is far from the truth.

Everyone reading this can come up with plenty of benign examples that they have experienced. Maybe its within something related to popular culture, or entertainment, or art, where a dichotomy forms in the comment section of a movie review, and the battle lines are drawn. This exercise of free speech is, of course, without any real stakes. But things change when its no longer about whether or not The Last Jedi was good and is instead about medical decisions for newborns. I wont get into the specifics of Jenny McCarthy and her fear mongering campaign, but I do want to cite the effects. McCarthy is a widely known advocate for the anti-vaccination movement, which convinces parents that a dead child is better than an autistic one. Just last year, the United Nations Foundation named Vaccine Hesitancy a global threat. They cited a Center for Disease Control and Prevention tally that determined a quadrupling of unvaccinated children since 2001. Because Jenny McCarthy was given the same platform and arguably more exposure than actual medical professionals, the waters have been muddied.

There are people that are gonna want to believe that, Reilly said. Eventually she was discredited but the damage was done.

That is the true cost of free speech. A damn high price, Reilly said. The target [for persuasion] is the people in the middle that can have their mind changed one way or the other.

It is among those people in the middle that the damage is done. I am a Muslim, an Arab and the son of an immigrant, so when I see people online advocating for a mass deportation of Muslims, and the searching and seizing of people at our borders, I fear not for the opinions of the opposition, but for the opinions of those who still havent decided. Free speech is used not only as a tool to share ones opinion, but as a weapon to make people like me afraid. By no means do I want to restrict free speech. Conversely, I am asking those of you who share my fear to use your free speech. I see far more hate on the internet, taped to walls and handed out at booths than I do opposition to that hate.

The advantages are all to the people on the side of misinformation, Reilly said. This is unwaveringly true.

This is an opinion piece, and it is my opinion that the people with hateful, harmful and toxic ideas are far more vocal than those without. So, get vocal. Ignoring the opposition doesnt cut it the opposition has their platform.

Reilly said, Try to consider the other persons point of view, and I agree. Consider the oppositions point of view, so that we can fight it. As Reilly also said, we must use free speech to liberate and to inform.

Hateful people are using their free speech now its our turn.

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OPINION: What does "free speech" mean? - The Gateway

Toby Young has done something, again, and we have to talk about it. Its simply astonishing how often that sentence has had to be pulled out over the past 20 years, isnt it? There is some singular power to Young that pulls your forehead like gravity towards the nearest wall, and here he is again, talking about free speech and here we are again. Talking about Toby Young. Just like he wants us to. Hes done it again. The Michael Jordan of Being Wrong on the Internet.

Anyway, heres what Youngs done: hes very solemnly announced he is the general secretary of the new Free Speech Union (FSU), a sort of grift-cum-movement. For 49.95 a year (24.95 for retirees and students, though I would pay a sizeable amount of money to observe the day-to-day workings of any student who wants to pay Young to defend them on the internet) Youngs union will protect you if you want to start shit online. All members will be defended by the FSU if they are penalised for exercising their legal right to free speech, the silver-member tier promises. If youre targeted by an outrage mob on social media, well mobilise an army of supporters.

In the opening video, Young paints a vision of an all-nations union of people who are just furious that online discourse demands a degree of empathy these days, saying: Nobody is safe from these witchfinder generals, which is why mavericks and dissenters of all stripes will be welcome in the Free Speech Union. The protection level offered to you is known as Sword & Shield, which and if youll allow me a moment to exercise my free speech by pointing this out isnt a million miles away from the 2018 Shield and Sword far-right festival in Ostritz, Germany, that celebrated Hitlers birthday. I mean Im sure thats a coincidence as free speech advocates will point out, lots of things have associations with swords and shields, even Pokmon maybe Toby Young just thinks that Pikachu had some legitimate ideas among the loathsome pika, pika rhetoric. Still, come on, guys. Lets please not attack Youngs right to coincidence. I just bought Twitter insurance off this man.

My real fear, though, is: what if this isnt a grift? What if Young is being serious? Because there are shades of Nigel Farages early Ukip mobilisation to this

Theres a structure payment system for membership in place, so Gold Members are offered regular meetings with the directors, which means for 250-a-year Young will Skype you once a month and agree with you that there are just too many genders. In many ways, I do think this is brilliant by Young. Hes taken the sheer trauma of the trial-by-Twitter blockbuster cancellation he suffered in January 2018 and turned it alchemy-like into gold. In arguably one of the biggest and most crippling Twitter cancels Ive ever seen, Young took a position on the board of the new Office for Students university regulator and ended up resigning from five of his jobs and stopping all charity work just because some vile trolls went online and found every one of the hundreds of tweets hed made about women on Newsnight having breasts and yeah, maybe eugenics isnt that bad after all. As a result hes licked his finger and held it to the air and realised theres a groundswell of sub-100 follower Twitter accounts who are mad they cant drop the N-word online and still keep their jobs about it, and hes figured out a way to make them pay him protection money to let them keep doing exactly what they are already and were keep going to do. If you pay 50 a year, Young will wade into your next 12 Twitter fights and reply well said when you defend your right to call your dog an outdatedly racist name. What a stunning, stunning scheme.

My real fear, though, is: what if this isnt a grift? What if Young is being serious? Because there are shades of Nigel Farages early Ukip mobilisation to this. We didnt take Ukip seriously at the start because it was just Robert Kilroy-Silk pouring excess energy from not being on TV any more into saying legitimate concerns a lot. But then, slowly, they started amassing support: Farage, who you thought was just a man who cared about two things and two things only beer that smells like eggs and white men who stand up to clap somehow became a quiet power player in the political realm. And then, oops, we all woke up and Brexit had happened. What if this is the next completely useless breath-wasting topic-dominator at the next election?

The year is 2024, and the Amazon is literally on fire, and Jeremy Clarkson is on his third month of a Balls To Eco stunt that sees him endless revving a Hummer in the middle of Trafalgar Square, and while we should all be worrying frantically about reversing the temperature of the sea, instead were having, night after night, endless ITV debates about Youngs right to tweet: Cor, knockers. We can laugh at the Free Speech Union now before anyone from the Free Speech Union kicks off at me about that, please check your own Statement of Values (We take no position on the validity of others opinions, political or otherwise, whether expressed in speech, writing, performance, or in another form), which says you legally cant have a go at me, ever but, in five years time, when Young is somehow deputy leader of the Conservative party and Free Spexit is in full swing, thats when well look back on today and go: ah, shit. Its happened again. Toby Young has done us again.

One of the personal joys in my life as a writer is entirely fake news, a particular niche of lifestyle reportage that is always led off some PR firm advertising something and surveying about 16 people to get the answer they want before dressing it up as a viable statistic. This week The Times went all in on just under half the flights taken by men aged 20 to 45 in 2019 were for stag dos (succinctly debunked in this very satisfying thread) before suggesting that, to reverse the irreversible carbon impact on the ozone layer, drunk men should simply stag at home, perhaps in Cumbria, or something.

On one hand, I do love the constant othering of the environment problem ah, I thought, gently, reading the news, thank goodness me and the recycling I tell myself I should do but dont ultimately do is not responsible for the environment thing. Its lads who are the problem. And on the other hand, which also agrees with the first hand, Im absolutely on board with outlawing stag parties abroad on false pretenses. Stag parties are always the same and theres really nothing you can get from flying to Latvia that you cant just get on a big night out at home. I can sleep in a room with no curtains and five bunkbeds at home. I can convince a bouncer in broken English that, nah, my mates alright mate, he puked on his shoes to feel better not worse, at home. I can go spend exactly one day too many in the company of six men called Gareth and, whenever conversation falls silent, spunk 30 on a tray of shots at home.

If Toby Young had his stag party at home, maybe people would have come to it. In this instance, I say: let the fake news stand. Sure, stag parties are killing the oceans. Go with it. Fine.

Joel Golby is the author of Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant

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Say what you want about Toby Young no, really, hell defend your right to say it - The Guardian

As bestselling authors from Jung Chang to Bernardine Evaristo prepare to gather in Abu Dhabi for the first Hay festival in the United Arab Emirates, leading figures have spoken out against the countrys compromised free speech. Stephen Fry - the festivals president has joined more than 40 public figures and organisations castigating its government for promoting a platform for freedom of expression, while keeping behind bars Emirati citizens and residents who shared their own views and opinions.

An open letter signed by Fry, Noam Chomsky, and a coalition of more than 40 NGOs including Amnesty and PEN International, is calling on the UAE to use the launch of the festivals Abu Dhabi branch which opens on Tuesday to demonstrate their respect for the right to freedom of expression by freeing all human rights defenders imprisoned for expressing themselves peacefully online.

The letter points out the disconnect behind the support shown for the festival by the UAEs ministry of tolerance in a country that does not tolerate dissenting voices.

Regrettably, the UAE government devotes more effort to concealing its human rights abuses than to addressing them and invests heavily in the funding and sponsorship of institutions, events and initiatives that are aimed at projecting a favourable image to the outside world, it says.

The authors and academics also emphasise their support for festival participants who decide to speak out against the UAE governments actions during their visits.

There has long been a strain between the UAE government and its human rights record, and the international cultural events held there. In 2018, authors including Antony Beevor and Frank Gardner pulled out of the Emirates Airlines festival of literature following the jailing of the British academic Matthew Hedges. The former UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson pulled out the following year after an open letter, signed by authors including Fry, MPs and campaign groups, called for the release of the jailed Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor. Mansoor is serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of insulting the status and prestige of the UAE and its symbols including its leaders over his human rights campaigning. Mansoor is currently being held in solitary confinement, with no bed or books, and has only once been allowed outside for fresh air.

With authors set to appear at Hay festival Abu Dhabi including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, a major advocate for human rights who has spoken out repeatedly against oppression, festival director Peter Florence said no subjects are off the table in Abu Dhabi.

Engagement is important to us. In Abu Dhabi, as in our other festivals, writers will host conversations and ask questions touching on the biggest issues of our times, including these questions of free speech. The programme is focused on Arabic-language writers, including many of our Beirut 39 novelists and poets, alongside anglophone and francophone writers who are writing about the Arab world, said Florence.

A spokeswoman for the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, a signatory to the letter, said the organisation decided not to ask authors to boycott Hay festival Abu Dhabi because the event could spotlight abuses.A spokeswoman for the International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE, another signatory, said the festival could provide a good platform for free expression in a country where even posting the wrong tweet can land you in jail.

It is a rare opportunity to draw attention to the UAEs systematic human rights violations [in situ] where, hopefully, the impact is the biggest, she said. It is important to note that the Hay festival is a private event - as opposed to the sham Tolerance Summit or the Emirates Airlines literature festival, which are solely designed to project a favourable image to the outside world. We did mention in our letter, however, that Hay Abu Dhabi is sponsored by the so-called ministry of tolerance, which we consider problematic and which we sincerely hope wont undermine Hays integrity.

The letter comes just as Sharjah, the third-largest city in the UAE, is set to be guest of honour at the London book fair in March, a decision that has raised eyebrows among some in the book world. All previous choices for the fairs market focus have been a country or huge regions spanning multiple countries, and never a single city.

In addition to Mansoor, the Hay letter also highlights cases including human rights lawyers Dr Mohammed Al-Roken and Dr Mohammed Al-Mansoori, both of whom have been detained since July 2012 serving 10-year sentences. Al-Roken had devoted his career to providing legal assistance to victims of human rights violations in the UAE.

With the worlds eyes on the Hay festival Abu Dhabi, we urge the Emirati government to consider using this opportunity to unconditionally release our jailed friends and colleagues, and in the interim, to at least allow prisoners of conscience to receive books and reading materials, to have regular visits with family, to be allowed outside their isolation cells to visit the canteen or go outside in the sun, the letter reads, saying that such a move would demonstrate that the Hay festival is an opportunity to back up [the UAE s] promise of tolerance.

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As Hay festival opens in the UAE, authors condemn free speech abuses - The Guardian

In this episode, Laura interviews author and Yale historian Greg Grandin about his new book The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. They explore how America's foundational myth of progress has given way to protectionism. Will opposition to the wall finally force us to reckon with the white supremacist conquest the frontier myth has always but thinly veiled? And what can we do to replace destructive myths with productive truths?

The Laura Flanders Show leads the field in new economy media, reporting on the social critics, artists, activists, and entrepreneurs who are building tomorrows world today. While mainstream media looks for ways the world is falling apart, The LF Show brings us stories that will piece it back together better.

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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

Bernie Sanders has been notified that Russia is trying to help him win the Democratic primary, a report which has thrown both the right and parts of the left into disarray. David Pakman responds to both the news of Russia's involvement in helping Sanders in the Democratic primary as well as the reaction to it.

The David Pakman Show is a news and political talk program, known for its controversial interviews with political and religious extremists, liberal and conservative politicians, and other guests.

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2020 Bernie Sanders David Pakman Democratic Primary Russia The David Pakman Show

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Bernie Notified That Russia Trying to Help Him Win - Free Speech TV