Letters
Free speech
The Labour Campaign for Free Speech has postponed its next meeting again, from April 24 to May 29, citing “diary clashes” - fair enough, if a little disappointing. Even more disappointing, I thought, was the agenda item (and I can no longer find the agenda on the website) on the discussion over a difference of opinion revealed at the opening conference in February.
This was regarding the ‘Charter for Free Speech’, item one. This reads, at the moment, in full:
“Without free speech and a free press there can be no democracy
“We stand for unrestricted freedom of speech and publication. Open debate and the right to question ideas, conventions, rules and laws are fundamental democratic rights. We oppose any form of blasphemy laws - religious or political. The concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few billionaire proprietors undermines free journalism. We support the development of an alternative and labour movement media not beholden to a handful of individuals. Free speech is not an absolute right. It does not include the right to ‘shout fire in a crowded theatre’ (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Schenck v United States [1919]). Free speech doesn’t, for example, include the right to incite racial hatred or advocate the harm of others because of their protected characteristics (race, disability, sexual orientation, gender, etc).”