I’ve just discovered the wonderful new(ish) blog Human Rights in Ireland, a group blog about – well, the clue is in the name – human rights issues in Ireland and Irish scholarship about human rights more generally. With apologies for the nkotb title, I can say without fear of contradiction that there’s lots of great stuff there; one piece in particular caught my eye, by Fiona de Londras (pictured above left):

Terrorist Propaganda or Political Speech?

In Ireland we are quite accustomed to our freedom of expression being significantly limited where that freedom is abused. This results from the express limitations in both Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Irish Constitution) and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. International law also prohibits propaganda to war as our colleague Michael Kearney has explained and examined in detail in his book The Prohibition of Propaganda for War in International Law (2007, OUP). In the United States, however, the constitutional protection of free speech (First Amendment), while not absolute, is certainly broader than is the case in Ireland or indeed under the ECHR. This makes the appeal argument by counsel for Al Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul—the only person currently in Guantánamo Bay to have been convicted of an offence relating to the ‘War on Terrorism’—all the more interesting. …

If you want to know more about the Irish position on this issue, I’ve blogged about it briefly in a post on Terrorism and Speech as well as in my more general posts on Sedition. If you want to know more about the argument that counsel for al Bahlul is making, read all about it in the remainder of Fiona’s post. Welcome to the Blawg O’Sphere, Human Rights in Ireland – I am certain that you will rapidly establish yourself as the pre-eminent online forum for discussion of human rights issues in Ireland and abroad. Go n-éirí go brea leis an dea-obair!