OFF: Freeedom of Speech

[M Holmes]

Jonathan Jarrett writes:


> I thought that the reason Mike was going on about foreigners coercing us
> into the loss of our freedoms referred to the recent narrow defeat (in
> the UK) of the Religious Hatred Bill, which would have made something like
> these cartoons, even the `clean' ones, illegal (here).

I'm certain it would have. I wonder whether that's a big part of why
nobody risked publishing them here.

> This is why I was attempting to argue that the real threat to such
> freedoms as he was defending came not from outraged imams but from
> that bunch we call a government

Freedom of speech will certainly be at risk as long as we have a
government. It's in the nature of government to notice that there are
things inconvenient to them to have said openly.

> as that bill's been on the table for
> a long long time before this whole cartoons mess blew up, and in fact
> I wonder if the newspaper furore over that didn't help to keep the
> House of Commons empty and stopo Labour putting in the whip to make
> sure it went through...  Would be odd if that's what saved us this
> time, eh?

Most people on the inside are fairly clear that the Bill was a sop to
the politicians claiming to represent "Moderate British Muslims",
effectively extending the Blasphemy laws to Islam.

Obviously FoS campaigners would rather the Blasphemy laws were abolished
entirely (which would also be fairer to Muslims) in order to enhance
freedom of speech.  We can take it as read that such abolition won't
happen soon and that the Blasphemy laws will almost certainly continue
to die on the vine.

FoFP

P.S: Boris For Rector!