14 May 2010 | Uncategorized
This is really quite depressing. The Christian Institute has posted footage of the arrest of street preacher Dale McAlpine for alleged homophobic comments. McAlpine’s apparent crime was to state that homosexuality was sinful. He is entitled to believe that, and to say that.
But what’s absolutely absurd about this case is that the police arrest McAlpine for a racially aggravated incident. Now, whatever your stance on McAlpine’s beliefs, (though I hope you’re unequivocal about his right to hold his beliefs), surely saying that homosexuality is a sin doesn’t make him a racist.
Dale McAlpine was wrongfully arrested. It would be a real sin if this case were to be taken any further.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12LtOKQ8U7c
Hat tip: Mediawatchwatch
Read Nigel Warburton’s take on Dale McAlpine’s plight here
5 May 2010 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
The Dutch public prosecutor will challenge an April court ruling which acquitted a Muslim group of insulting Jews by publishing a cartoon denying the holocaust. The public prosecutor said yesterday the appeal was necessary to establish whether the cartoon added to public discussion or was “exceptionally offensive”. The Arab European League claims it was highlighting free speech double standards following the row over publication of cartoons featuring the prophet Mohammed.
5 May 2010 | Uncategorized
This is a guest post by Nigel Warburton
Zoo Magazine’s illustrious Agony Uncle Danny Dyer‘s advice this week to a broken hearted correspondent was to go out and break another woman’s heart. Either that or “the other option is to cut your ex’s face, and then no one will want her”. This is neither funny nor nice.
The Sun reports that Dyer claims he was misquoted. But whether or not that’s true, should such comments be legal? If this were a genuine incitement to violence, then clearly not. But it reads like a bad attempt at a sick joke. And do we really want to censor sick jokes?
The difficulty here is that literal readings are no good when we are in the realm of humour and irony. This is one of those classic problems of drawing the line.
The patron saint of free expression, John Stuart Mill, recognised that it’s not the words but the use that makes all the difference. “Corn Dealers Are Starvers of the Poor” was fine in a newspaper editorial, but waved on a placard in front of a corn dealer’s house would be an incitement to violence and so should not be tolerated.
But deciding in the Zoo case isn’t that simple. Imagine what we would feel if the correspondent took the advice literally. Would we say he just didn’t get the joke? Or would that advice then, retrospectively, have morphed into an incitement to an evil action?
Should all speech delivered in an ironic tone be tolerated even when it literally incites violence? The trouble with written words, as Socrates noticed, was that when the author is not present, they can’t tell you exactly what he or she meant. So no easy answer here (and I mean that literally).
Update: Zoo has issued an apology, blaming an “extremely regrettable production error”.
20 Apr 2010 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized
The anti-internet filtering software, Haystack, received the necessary export license from the US government last week to sell their product to Iran in an effort to help Iranian citizens gain free speech. Inspired by the internet restrictions during the June 2009 elections, the software uses mathematical formulas to mask users’ identities and to allow them to access and post items on government blocked websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and YouTube. Haystack was created by the non-profit Censorship Research Center in San Francisco, and according to the company’s executive director, Austin Heap, the only way to disable the software is by disabling the entire internet.
