‘O significado da liberdade‘ in The Economist

At first glance, the resolution on “religious defamation” adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council on March 26th, mainly at the behest of Islamic countries, reads like another piece of harmless verbiage churned out by a toothless international bureaucracy. What is wrong with saying, as the resolution does, that some Muslims faced prejudice in the aftermath of September 2001? But a closer look at the resolution’s language, and the context in which it was adopted (with an unholy trio of Pakistan, Belarus and Venezuela acting as sponsors), makes clear that bigger issues are at stake.

The resolution says “defamation of religions” is a “serious affront to human dignity” which can “restrict the freedom” of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence. But there is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you compare this resolution with the more rigorous language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 in a spirit of revulsion over the evils of fascism. This asserts the right of human beings in ways that are now entrenched in the theory and (most of the time) the practice of liberal democracy. It upholds the right of people to live in freedom from persecution and arbitrary arrest; to hold any faith or none; to change religion; and to enjoy freedom of expression, which by any fair definition includes freedom to agree or disagree with the tenets of any religion.

In other words, it protects individuals—not religions, or any other set of beliefs. And this is a vital distinction. For it is not possible systematically to protect religions or their followers from offence without infringing the right of individuals.

What exactly is it the drafters of the council resolution are trying to outlaw? To judge from what happens in the countries that lobbied for the vote—like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan—they use the word “defamation” to mean something close to the crime of blasphemy, which is in turn defined as voicing dissent from the official reading of Islam. In many of the 56 member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has led the drive to outlaw “defamation”, both non-Muslims and Muslims who voice dissent (even in technical matters of Koranic interpretation) are often victims of just the sort of persecution the 1948 declaration sought to outlaw. That is a real human-rights problem. And in the spirit of fairness, laws against blasphemy that remain on the statute books of some Western countries should also be struck off; only real, not imaginary, incitement of violence should be outlawed.

Good manners, please; not censorship

In much of the Muslim world, the West’s reaction to the attacks of September 2001, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, has been misread as an attack on Islam itself. This is more than regrettable; it is dangerous. Western governments, and decent people everywhere, should try to ensure that the things they say do not entrench religious prejudice or incite acts of violence; being free to give offence does not mean you are wise to give offence. But no state, and certainly no body that calls itself a Human Rights Council, should trample on the right to free speech enshrined in the Universal Declaration. And in the end, given that all faiths have undergone persecution at some time, few people have more to gain from the protection of free speech than sincere religious believers.

The United States, with its tradition of combining strong religious beliefs and religious freedom, is well placed to make that case. Having taken a politically risky decision (see article) to re-engage with the Human Rights Council and seek election as one of its 47 members, America should now make the defence of real religious liberty one of its highest priorities.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13413974&source=most_commented

JPTF 2009/04/08

A censura provoca cegueira e corrompe a democracia

‘O holandês voador‘ e a derrota da liberdade de expressão no Reino Unido, in Guardian, 13 de Fevereiro de 2009

Editorial

We live in censorious times: the Dutch MP Geert Wilders has been turned back at Heathrow, Prince Harry is attending a racial awareness course, Carol Thatcher is still puzzling over the offence implied by "golliwog" and, in what is surely a case of otiose activity, the General Synod of the Church of England has formally proscribed membership of the BNP for its clergy. It is also 20 years tomorrow since Ayatollah Khomenei issued the notorious fatwa on Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, renewed by the Majlis in Tehran yesterday. The tension between free expression and respect for racial and religious sensitivities is always present.

Setting the boundaries to this is invidious. Any attempt risks becoming a victim of a battle for sectional capture as faith vies with faith in a league table of offence. That is why free speech is only limited by its potential to cause harm to others. But even that limitation has to be exercised with extreme caution, if at all. Take the latest example. Mr Wilders is an egregious example of a racist provocateur. But his principal campaign is not his claimed struggle to defeat the ideology of Islam. It is to promote himself by exploiting the ordinary if unlikable human mistrust of strangers. Look back 20 years and see how the row over The Satanic Verses was inflamed by political ambitions within Muslim communities. Mr Wilders and his opponents are up to the same tricks.

Few would ever have heard of him, let alone his hectoring exercise in filmic propaganda, had he not set out to promote it as a test of what was permissible. He openly declared his intention of depicting the Qur'an as a violent and warmongering text. He has done so (and faces prosecution in the Dutch courts as a result). A Ukip peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, invited him to show the film in the House of Lords. On Tuesday the government warned Mr Wilders that he threatened community harmony and told him he would be refused entry to the UK, but of course he came anyway. The consequences of the entry ban are greater than those of allowing his nasty film to remain unknown. Responding to the fear of violence does not always reduce disorder; it can make it more likely. Any faction might now see the potential of making alarming noises. Meanwhile Mr Wilders's deliberately distorted view of Islam has been widely circulated.

It was Mr Rushdie himself, 20 years ago, who argued that people "understand themselves and shape their futures by arguing and challenging and questioning and saying the unsayable; not by bowing the knee whether to gods or to men." He was right. Mr Wilders should have been allowed to come. His film is offensive. The ban is a defeat for the freedom of expression.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/13/free-speech-geert-wilders
JPTF 2009/02/13

O que aconteceu à liberdade de expressão no Reino Unido?: ‘Geert Wilders não devia ser banido‘ in Guardian, 12 de Fevereiro de 2009

por Padraig Reidy

How do you solve a problem like Geert Wilders?

The solution certainly doesn't lie in barring him from entering the country.

Wilders' film Fitna, for those of you who haven't feverishly YouTubed it yet, is an unpleasant rant about Islam, and the Islamicisation of Europe. He follows the line that Islam, more than any other religion, is inherently violent. It's a poorly made, poorly argued, diatribe.

But the poverty of the argument, and indeed the editing, is irrelevant. If we are to defend freedom of expression, then we cannot pick and choose what expression we defend. This point seems problematic for some liberals. Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, has previously – and rightly – argued against prosecution for Holocaust denier Frederick Töben, saying: "In Britain, we value freedom of speech too highly to see it sacrificed because of the racist views of an oddball academic."

No such leeway for an oddball politician. Speaking about Wilders, Huhne said: "Freedom of speech is our most precious freedom of all, because all the other freedoms depend on it. But there is a line to be drawn even with freedom of speech, and that is where it is likely to incite violence or hatred against someone or some group."

This is not in the least bit consistent. But the problem is not with Huhne. The problem is that a man who is legally entitled, as an EU citizen, to enter this country, has been barred from doing do because of his opinions.

This is bad enough, but it is made even worse by what the ban suggests.

I've spent the morning, in my capacity as news editor of Index on Censorship, debating the Wilders affair on various radio phone-ins.
Among many reasonable points made by callers, many, sadly, held the opinion that this was another sign of the government giving in to "the Muslims".

This, of course, is precisely Wilders' argument – and it's an argument that is reinforced by this attempt to censor him (nevermind that his film has been out for almost a year now).

Traditionally, censorship has been used in an attempt to quell dissent and opposition, and in large part of the world it is used against progressive movements. But when we seek to censor reactionaries, such as Wilders, the BNP, or Hizb ut-Tahrir, we allow them to see themselves, and portray themselves, as the dissenters, the truth-tellers. The notion of oppression, of suppression, is now almost essential to any political movement's sense of self.

Censorship lends an air of legitimacy to arguments that may not necessarily warrant it. In this sense, it is as insidious when used against bad arguments as when used against good ones.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/12/geert-wilders-freedom-of-speech-islam
JPTF 2009/02/12

‘O direito de expressão de Geert Wilders‘ in NRC Handelsblad, 11 de Fevereiro de 2009

The United Kingdom does not want to admit anyone to its territory that would threaten “community harmony and therefore public security.” This argument was used to deny member of parliament Geert Wilders of the populist party PVV entry to the country on Tuesday. Too high a barrier to the free movement of people and the freedom of expression has thus been erected. Besides the fact that the law of both the European Union and the Council of Europe seems to be violated by this, the political concept of a free European space has also been damaged.

Ironically, striving for freedom often entails the prospect of confinement. That has now occurred. The fact that the ban affects a member of parliament makes the decision political, in addition to symbolic. The British are concerned about a well-defined political program that is democratically legitimised in the Netherlands. Voltaire is often credited with pointing out that freedom of expression means defending someone’s right to assert that with which one disagrees. That certainly applies to Wilders, who gives plenty of occasion for disagreement. But his freedom to express such disagreeable sentiments should prevail all the more. As should the duty to defend that freedom. Moreover what is at stake here is political freedom, without which other freedoms are all but unthinkable.

Incidentally Wilders himself falls short as a politician when it comes to defending this freedom. On January 25 he urged in parliamentary questions that religious leaders of “radical mosques” be divested of Dutch nationality and deported. Limiting access to Europe and the Netherlands to all those to whom he objects is a main theme in his platform. The British entry criterion of “harmony in the community” should not sound unfamiliar to him therefore. It is however far removed from the fundamental right to express opinions anywhere in Europe that may “shock, hurt and disturb.”

On February 3 the European Court of Human Rights confirmed for example the right of Dutch abortion activists ‘Women on waves’ to moor a boat in Portugal. The decision by Portuguese authorities to deploy a warship was disproportional. The women were not planning anything illegal – Portugal certainly had less drastic means at its disposal to counter any disturbances to order. That is all the more true of Wilders, who wanted to show his film Fitna, at the invitation of the British Upper House no less. Would the security of the United Kingdom be threatened by what an outsider came to say in one of the world’s oldest parliaments? And by means of a film that was intended to provoke and which has long been available on the internet?

Extremists and radicals from all over the world used to find shelter in London. Russians, Chechens, Algerians, but also radical Islamic groups were able to settle there. Karl Marx fled there from Paris. Wilders will be buying a return ticket. That should be permitted, even with a tightened up entry policy.

http://www.nrc.nl/international/Opinion/article2149476.ece/Wilders_right_to_speak

JPTF 2009/02/12