Freedom of speech is the concept that one should be able to express themselves, whatever opinion they may hold. It has never existed as an absolute, and generally the various Western philosophers and thinkers who developed the concept never considered it to be unrestricted – rather most have accepted that there have to be limits upon expression, in order to protect society. Every society has red-lines – limits upon what constitutes lawful expression – and these depend upon the values of that society, contradicting the idea of a universal absolute freedom of speech.
In the West, these limits sometimes depend upon the political considerations and historical context – for example, holocaust denial is criminalised in Germany is understood in the context of the role of Nazi Germany in the holocaust, and the fear that permitting holocaust denial would encourage or allow for far-right ideas to gain legitimacy in the society again. Another example is the French Senate bill criminalising the denial of any genocide recognised by French law, generally considered to be targeting at Turkey with respect to the manner of identification of the conflict in Armenia in 1916. In the UK – for all practical purposes it has been recently shown that denigrating soldiers is considered unlawful, with the conviction for “grossly offensive communications” applied to someone who wrote British soldiers in Afghanistan should die and go to hell. In her ruling upon the case, Judge Goodwin stated that while the law was not there to stop legitimate political opinions being strongly voiced, the test was whether what was written was “beyond the pale of what’s tolerable in our society”.
Read the full article at There is Power in the Blog
(The article is also published on New Civilisation, Eurasia Review and elsewhere online)
In the West, these limits sometimes depend upon the political considerations and historical context – for example, holocaust denial is criminalised in Germany is understood in the context of the role of Nazi Germany in the holocaust, and the fear that permitting holocaust denial would encourage or allow for far-right ideas to gain legitimacy in the society again. Another example is the French Senate bill criminalising the denial of any genocide recognised by French law, generally considered to be targeting at Turkey with respect to the manner of identification of the conflict in Armenia in 1916. In the UK – for all practical purposes it has been recently shown that denigrating soldiers is considered unlawful, with the conviction for “grossly offensive communications” applied to someone who wrote British soldiers in Afghanistan should die and go to hell. In her ruling upon the case, Judge Goodwin stated that while the law was not there to stop legitimate political opinions being strongly voiced, the test was whether what was written was “beyond the pale of what’s tolerable in our society”.
Read the full article at There is Power in the Blog
(The article is also published on New Civilisation, Eurasia Review and elsewhere online)
