Approximately 6 billion people, constituting about 85% of the global population, associate themselves with a religious belief. Take a moment to ponder over the consequences if people start burning each other’s sacred texts or insulting religious symbols and figures in the name of freedom of expression. In such a scenario, can you envision a peaceful world? Following the burning of[Read More…]
Former Twitter co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey, claimed that India had threatened to shut down the micro-blogging site unless it complied with government orders. The ex-CEO revealed this on the US Based YouTube show Breaking Point. Dorsey’s revelations have set off debates on freedom of expression and journalistic freedom in India. Twitter has long been the ground for citizen journalism[Read More…]
by Edward Liger Smith, Carlos L. Garrido, and Noah Khrachvik The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law… Abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Yet in 2023 the United States[Read More…]
Eminent Australian and Indigenous journalist, Stan Grant, was driven to resign from the ABC (the Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) as compere of the high-rating Q+A TV program by a flood of devastating racist abuse after he participated in a frank and truthful ABC discussion of the British Crown and colonialism that prefaced the ABC coverage of the Coronation[Read More…]
On the 26th of April 2023, Mohammad Mofijul Islam, the officer in charge of the Jatrabari police station of Dhaka Metropolitan Police in Bangladesh, recorded a general diary alleging that I, William Gomes, a freelance journalist and Bangladeshi living in the UK, committed a crime under Section 21 of the DSA. The general diary accused me of engaging in propaganda[Read More…]
Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize recipient in Economic Sciences said, “Free speech and a free press not only make abuses of governmental powers less likely; they also enhance the likelihood that people’s basic social needs will be met. Secrecy reduces the information available to the citizenry, hobbling people’s ability to participate meaningfully. Essentially, meaningful participation in democratic processes requires[Read More…]
As J.M. Coetzee has written, taking ‘offence’ at something is usually a reaction of powerful and oppressive groups in the face of any challenge to their power or the possibility of losing it. Throughout the ages and across the world, the censorship of views, speech, depictions, expression, etc. has been rationalized in the name of ‘morality’, ‘decency’, ‘blasphemy’, and whatnot. In[Read More…]
Academic free speech is under great threat in Australia (and elsewhere) from authoritarian university managers of corporatized universities, state and federal governments, secret government, foreign governments (notably the US and Apartheid Israel and their lobbyists), mendacious oligopoly Mainstream media, and lack of a Bill of Rights guaranteeing free speech. Back in 2001 I gave a paper entitled “Current Academic Censorship[Read More…]
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell[Read More…]
Seizure of books before publication is a worst restriction than pre-censorship, which is not permitted under fundamental rights of our Constitution. But it happened recently in Telangana. Right to think, right to write, right to read and right to publish are significant components of freedom of speech and expression which cannot be deprived of without approved constitutional grounds. Prohibition of[Read More…]
I watched Vir Das’ performance with a sense of awe. His words were pure poetry, poignant and powerful. He had chosen each word carefully, with precision and perfection in every word, the essence of those words deeply disturbing yet patriotic. The video was equally communicative, and the loud applause followed by an eery silence at the end was extremely impactful,[Read More…]
BUJ and DUJ Condemn Arrest of Journalists in Tripura; Welcome Bail; Demand Withdrawal of all Cases and End to Intimidation of Journalists covering Tripura violence The Brihanmumbai Union of Journalists (BUJ) and the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) have strongly condemned the arrest of Samriddhi Sakunia and Swarna Jha, two journalists from HW News Network, by Tripura police on Nov[Read More…]
The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, published on 25 February 2021 under the Information Technology Act, 2000 will have a chilling effect on the freedom of expression of ordinary individuals, social media writers and the journalists working in print and electronic media. The Government of India is trying to usurp the power of Parliament[Read More…]
Statement by writers and readers of Gujarati literature about threats issued against them in the journal Shabdsrushti Gujarat Sahitya Akademi whose autonomy was wrested by the Gujarat government, which then turned it into a government institution, publishes a journal named Shabdsrushti. The June 2021 issue of Shabdsrushti carries an anonymous piece of writing titled “No, This Is Not a Poem,[Read More…]
Whether Government of India is extending its censorship power to news and current affairs’? The notification by President Ramnath Kovind extends the power to pre-censor cinema content on the Internet platform. At the same time, does it surreptitiously attempt to censor news and current affairs also? The Constitution of India authorised[Read More…]
Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) admininstrators have stopped the screening of the students’ documentary film Hora directed by Harishankar Nachimuthu raising security concerns after receiving threats from ABVP. The film mainly revolves around Kabir Kala Manch. This is what we have always been afraid of! Most of our earlier GBMs during strike was about how the new appointments,[Read More…]
Four men assaulted a young Muslim writer in Kerala on Sunday night for allegedly insulting God in the title of his new collection of short stories. P Jimshar, 26, whose collection of short stories — “Padachonte Chithra pradarshanam” (The Painting Exhibition by the Creator) — is slated for release on August 5. In Malayalam, the word Padachon means (Creator), a[Read More…]
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
