Category Archives: Freedom of Expression

Two weeks ago, on a freezing cold Saturday afternoon, I made my way to the Old Palace Yard in Westminster to support the Freedom of Expression rally organised by One Law For All.

The rally followed several incidents in London recently where freedom of expression was curtailed in favour of fear of causing offence. In one incident, a talk on sharia law by One Law for All’s Anne Marie Waters was cancelled following threats of violence. Rhys Morgan was told by his school to remove a picture of Jesus and Mo from his Facebook page – a picture he had used in solidarity with the University College London Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society who had been asked by their student union to remove the same image. Both UCL and the London School of Economics have since passed draconian motions which will further restrict religious criticism or satire at their schools.

Salman Rushdie was banned from attending the Jaipur Literary Festival. After even his video address to the Festival was cancelled, here is in an exclusive interview to NDTV’s Barkha Dutt. Rushdie says he is coming to India and the politicians will just have to learn to deal with it.

Watch the full interview.

Jesus and Mo (peace be upon them)

This is a press release from One Law for All

HOLD THIS DATE – 11 February 2012
A Day to Defend Free Expression

One Law for All is calling for a rally in defence of free expression and the right to criticise religion on 11 February 2012 in central London from 2-4pm.

We are also calling for simultaneous events and acts in defence of free expression on 11 February in countries world-wide.

The call follows an increased number of attacks on free expression in the UK, including a 17 year old being forced to remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon or face expulsion from his Sixth Form College and demands by the UCL Union that the Atheist society remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon from its Facebook page. It also follows threats of violence, police being called, and the cancellation of a meeting at Queen Mary College where One Law for All spokespersonAnne Marie Waters was to deliver a speech on Sharia. Saying ‘Who gave these kuffar the right to speak?’, anIslamist website called for the disruption of the meeting. Two days later at the same college, though, the Islamic Society held a meeting on traditional Islam with a speaker who has called for the death of apostates, those who mock Islam, and secularist Muslims.

Love is...

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi has an important and well-argued piece on the Charlie Hebdo firebombing and the failure of the liberal-left to stand up for it’s own liberal traditions. Last time it was the Guardian which capitulated to religious obscurantism in reaction to the Mo Toons. This time round it’s Time magazine (yes, that esteemed current affairs journal) which propped up a disgusting and cowardly justification of the incident by Bruce Crumley, on the basis that Muslims should not be expected to tolerate any form of offence to their prophet or their religious politics; not so much because Charlie Hebdo crossed the line of offence but because Muslims are incapable of rational self-critique. Disrespect Muslims at your peril. They might be inarticulate by ‘our’ standards, implies Crumley, but violence is the lingo of the offence takers.

100 lashes if you don't die of laughter

From the Huffington Post:

The Paris office of the satirical French MagazineCharlie Hebdo has been firebombed and its website has been hacked. It follows the announcement thatthe magazine would be ‘guest edited’ by the Prophet Muhammad.

It has been reported that the office was gutted by fire at around 1:00am Paris time, but there were no injuries.

Patrick Pelloux, a witness to the attack, told the AFP news agency that a molotov cocktail was thrown through the window.

“Everything was destroyed,” he said.

According to the Associated Press the director of the magazine said “the material damages are large”.

On Tuesday the magazine said that the Prophet Muhammad would be editing the magazine in “honour” of Islam’s role in this year’s uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Islamic countries.