31 January 2006 Blog Home : January 2006 : Permalink
I am concerned to know the exact boundaries of Freedom of Speech from all the persons who are supporting it. I think the unconditional supporters of this Freedom should analyze if they are actually misusing the term. I have already posted the questions in my previous comment but haven't got the answers. Another person (who has anonymously posted comment on 31.Jan.06 - 9:47) asked the similar questions though I don't agree the way he is putting up the questions. Can any one give a clear explanation to these issues? I have also explained that different people having different moral and religius values cannot be held as an example to each other, So if christians do not protest against the blasphemy then it doesn't imply that all other religions should also act in the same manner. By the way I believe that Islam doesn't allow muslims to support blasphemy against any other religion. So if even if any muslim is doing such act, then its not wise to condemn Islam for that, rather he is committing a sin and should be punished for that.
I reiterate that I strongly support the reasonable logical and non-emotional way of dealing all the matters. So if the concept of unconditional freedom of speech is reasonable and logical enough then I will not only support it myself but also try to convince people around me to support it.
The answer as far as I am concerned is that there is no boundary. Freedom of Speech means the right to say anything you please from "Jews eat human babies" or "The pope is Nazi pederast" to "Hindus have sex with cows" and "Preseident Bush is the new messiah" - I disagree strongly with all these statements but I would defend the right of people to say them; just as I would for example protect the right of Presdent Ahmadinejad or David Irving to say that the Nazis did not murder millions of Jews in WWII. The correct response to that sort of a claim is to make a factually backed up counter-claim that shows that the holocaust did actually occur. The only limit that I would place on it should be that an individual should be able to sue for libel against someone who prints as fact something that is provably false concerning that person.The religious hatred bill shifts the cultural balance away from free speech and towards appeasement
The culture of thought-crime and self-censorship is a creeping thing. Invisibly it chills debate and cautions editors, publishers and TV producers. It restrains the pen and puts marbles in the mouth of free speech. If only Voltaire were speaking in the House of Commons this evening when MPs have a chance to vote against a law that makes offending or insulting religion a crime with a seven-year prison sentence.
The incitement to religious hatred bill, put first by David Blunkett five years ago, has bounced back and forth, opposed by Tories and Lib Dems, The intellectual demolition has been led by the National Secular Society, with Humanists, Liberty, Pen the writers' group and comedy writers led by Rowan Atkinson now joined by Christian Institute fundamentalists afraid their hell-fire sermons will put them in peril.
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What's at stake here is the right to be insulting and cause offence. Many Muslim groups think it will protect their religious sensitivities - and so it will, by shifting the cultural balance away from free speech towards a sanctimonious right to feel offended. It puts religious belief into a sacred compound protected by legal razor-wire from robust mockery or public abuse. In this inquisition of a bill, religion will become a minefield, a no-go area in the world of ideas. Before you speak or write, ask yourself not only if you intend to abuse and insult, but if you are "reckless" about any insult that may unwittingly be caused to someone somewhere? Expect the degree of insult people feel to tighten a little more each year under case law. It is already happening under employment law with certain kinds of harassment: if someone says they feel harassed, then lawyers warn no other evidence is required.
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This free-speech guarantee seeks to protect "debate" and "ridiculing". However, unpick the language: a person can debate and ridicule "unless he intends to stir up religious hatred or is reckless as to whether religious hatred would be stirred up thereby", which immediately removes any extra safeguard. Lawyers say that instead it specifically draws "debate" and "ridicule" into the act's dragnet. Accept no assurances from Goggins on this. Even a senior Home Office lawyer admitted it was meaningless.