Blasphemy – Page 6

Jerry Springer - The Opera, with a red line through it; from BBC website. On the day when the teacher convicted of blasphemy in the Sudan for allowing a class of young children to name a teddy bear Mohammed is pardoned and allowed to return home (BBC | Irish Times (sub req’d)) comes news of another relevant case. It has one of those very-legal looking, but uninformative, English case-name titles: R (on the application of Green) v The City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court [2007] EWHC 2785 (Admin) (05 December 2007), but for all that the title is uninformative, the judgment itself is significant. For the Green who made the application is Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice (their website sees A Nation in Pain and A Government in Rebellion, and therefore perceives A Need For Jesus, and A Need For Prayer); and the reason he was seeking judicial review of the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court was that a judge in that court refused to allow Green to commence a private prosecution for blasphemy arising out of the BBC’s broadcast of Jerry Springer – The Opera. The Daily Telegraph said of it at the time:

It’s filthy, it’s funny, it’s brilliantly original and, taken all in all, about as much fun as you are likely to have with your clothes on.

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Give speech a chance

26 November, 20077 August, 2009

| 8 Comments

| Blasphemy, Censorship, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

Three free speech stories in the BBC News and Guardian websites caught my eye this morning. Indeed, the first two were almost side by side on both sites. In the first, there is widespread dismay at the arrest of a British school teacher in the Sudan accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad (BBC | Guardian). In the second, protests are expected later outside the Oxford Union (see also wikipedia) when Nick Griffin (see also wikipedia), Chairman of the British National Party, and David Irving (see also BBC | Holocaust History | Kizkor | wikipedia), Holocaust denier, arrive for a forum on The Limits of Free Speech (BBC | Guardian).

There is an inconsistency here; and the incongruous but serendipitous placement of these two stories side by side demonstrates it: we cannot be outraged both at the arrest of the teacher and at the speech of Nick Griffin and David Irving. Society cannot have it both ways, it is not free to pick and choose which speech to support. Those in favour of speech must afford it both to the teacher and to Griffin and Irving.…

To do a great right

10 October, 200712 July, 2016

| 2 Comments

| Blasphemy, Cinema, television and theatre, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

And I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong,
And curb this cruel devil of his will.

The Merchant of Venice: Act 4, Scene I

I think it is rather as though Jack Straw has been seduced by Bassanio’s arguments. For, to do a great right by the gay community, he has this week chosen to do what he must regard as no more than a little wrong to the right to freedom of expression.

The UK already has legislation on incitement to racial hatred (as does Ireland, also here), it has recently extended that legislation to cover incitement to religious hatred, and just this week Straw announced the UK government’s intention to extend it further to cover incitement to hatred based on sexual orientation. …

Unwritten books, unshown art

28 June, 200713 March, 2008

| 4 Comments

| Blasphemy, Censorship, Freedom of Expression

Salman Rushdie’s knighthood has provoked many responses in the print and broadcast media and online, including a post on this blog. But the best I’ve seen is by Andrew Anthony in this week’s Observer: Sir Salman is a godsend to literature and free speech.

Anthony’s piece is very well written and definitely repays reading; here’s a flavour:

… Few appeared to realise that a massive symbolic attack had been launched [by Khomeni’s 1989 fatwa against The Satanic Verses] against the most vital freedom, not only in art but in society, the freedom of expression. Still less that our rather timid and repentant response would encourage religious extremists and censors.

Who can calculate how many books have subsequently gone unwritten and artworks unshown? We do know that the play Behzti was closed down in a theatre in Birmingham by a Sikh mob. We know that John Latham’s God Is Great was removed from the Tate gallery, even without complaints, due to the fear that it might cause offence. We know that the Danish cartoons were not published in this country, when they were the biggest story in the world. And abroad, countless intellectuals, writers and politicians now require round-the-clock police protection.

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The best reason for freedom of expression …

24 June, 200726 March, 2009

| 5 Comments

| Blasphemy, Freedom of Expression

… is commentary like this, from the always-incisive Martyn Turner in the Irish Times on Thursday (21 June 2007) (click on the image for the full-size version from the Irish Times website):

On the issues raised in the cartoon, Michelle Malkin is always good value – especially this important post (even if I don’t usually agree with her other opinions; oh, wait – respecting her right to express the opinions with which I disagree is what freedom of expression is all about!). And, following on from my own post on the issue some time ago, Martin George has another excellent post on Cambridge and the Muhammed Cartoons Again.…

cearta.ie

Category: Blasphemy

Seeing Green on Blaphemy

Give speech a chance

To do a great right

Unwritten books, unshown art

The best reason for freedom of expression …