The proposal to change Wisconsin tenure rules comes up for a vote by the state’s full Senate and House later this month. What will be the consequences?
Happier times: Jacob Rezaian and his wife Yeganeh Salehi in Tehran, 2013.
EPA/STR
Last month President Obama welcomed the film Selma into the White House – a first-family showing that, as it happens, occurred a century after the first-ever screening of a movie inside the White House…
No platform policies are morphing into bans that threaten free speech.
Chris Radburn/PA Archive
Freedom of speech is at the heart of academic life and a university should be a place where every issue is discussed and debated. Not so, according to the findings presented in the first ever Freedom of…
Foreign PR campaigns have been waged for decades. Films like 1930’s All Quiet on the Western Front were significantly altered to appease Germany’s Nazi Party.
filmjunk.com
Feature films and television shows notoriously play fast-and-loose with the facts. When prologues proclaim “Based on a True Story,” they’re gracefully implying that what follows is mostly fiction. Awards…
Under orders to keep watch.
Surveillance via bikerriderlondon/Shutterstock
The Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill 2014-15, having been rushed through the House of Commons with alarming speed and ease, has passed its second reading in the House of Lords. It is now in the final…
What does free speech mean for today’s young generation?
Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
One of the many debates generated by the recent terrorist attacks in Paris has been centred on the different ways that older and younger generations understand and support the concept of free speech. In…
What happened to “bless those who curse you”?
Francis R Malasig/EPA
Approaching his third year as head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis appeared to be doing so well. That is, until after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, he’s said that those who mock faith should be…
Family First senator Bob Day’s proposed changes to Section 18C have been given fresh prominence since the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Early in 2014, federal Attorney-General George Brandis released a proposal to significantly amend our law against racial vilification, Sections 18C and 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act, on the strength…
French comedian Dieudonné has just been charged as an ‘apologist for terrorism’ for his Facebook posting ‘Je me sens Charlie Coulibaly’ (I feel I am Charlie Coulibaly).
EPA/Didier Jouret
Recent commentary about the so-called “French” idea of free speech is fuelling confusion and misinformation in the debate about Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 in Australia. Human Rights…
The latest edition of Charlie Hebdo is nothing out of the ordinary. Today’s response to the attack on its offices on January 7 is precisely what sets it apart from other newspapers. The front cover, a…
Stéphane Charbonnier (Charb) lost his life in the Paris shooting.
thierry ehrmann
They think and work differently, cartoonists. Anyone who has spent any time in an editorial office will know that cartoonists dream and draw on their own, working to the rhythm of their thoughts – if they…
Anger has quickly spread after the murders in Paris.
EPA
France has been the target of several attacks perpetrated by so-called Muslim fundamentalists over the past few years, but the shooting of editors and cartoonists at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie…
The shocking events at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris did not happen in a vacuum. They are not the actions of a few outcasts on the edge of society. These brutal murders, apparently in the name of…
Is it ever okay to depict the assassination of living person?
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Sony’s decision to cancel the Christmas Day release of its film The Interview is drawing harsh criticism from Hollywood’s elite. George Clooney is asking everyone to stand up against the cancellation…
Who’s attacking who?
Freedom via alexskopje/Shutterstock
There may well be an outcry from student unions and lecturers’ organisations against proposals in a new counter-terrorism bill from home secretary Theresa May for a new statutory duty on universities and…
Some images are illegal even to see, an online crime scene.
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A cartoon can land you in court, as happened to a man recently convicted of possessing non-photographic images – cartoons, drawings – of a sexual nature featuring children. Clearly child pornography, more…
George Brandis wants to protect the ‘right to be a bigot’ in the name of free speech. But the government may seek to remove such a right in relation to corporations.
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
The federal government has indicated that it is considering repealing an exemption in the Competition and Consumer Act that provides for boycotts of companies on environmental grounds. The government is…