06 Sep 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index does not believe the UK needs new laws to protect women from abuse and violence.
The UK already has dozens of laws on its books that make criminal the kind of abusive actions that are disproportionately targeted at women: rape, harassment, stalking. Despite this, the most egregious crimes against women frequently go unpunished. In the case of rape, conviction rates are woeful. A report published in 2017 found that only one in 14 rapes reported in England and Wales ended in a conviction.
Creating new laws that make misogyny a “hate crime” will do little to change this, as lawyers argued earlier this week. Nor are they likely to help change attitudes. In fact they can do the opposite.
Laws that criminalise speech are deeply problematic. In a free society, thoughts should not be criminal no matter how hateful they are. Yet laws that make “hate” criminal – in a well-meaning but misplaced effort to protect minorities and persecuted groups – are on the rise.
We should all be worried about this. As the US delegation noted in a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in 2015, hate speech laws are increasingly being abused by those in power to target political opponents or to persecute the very minority groups such laws are meant to protect.
In addition, they do little to improve tolerance or treatment of such groups: “Such laws, including blasphemy laws, tend to reinforce divisions rather than promote societal harmony,” the US delegation said. “The presence of these laws has little discernible effect on reducing actual incidences of hate speech. In some cases such laws actually serve to foment violence against members of minority groups accused of expressing unpopular viewpoints.”
As if to prove their point, Russia used the same meeting to praise hate speech laws and the need to police hate speech in Ukraine so as not to ignite “nationalistic fires.”
Tackling hate requires changes in society’s attitude. Some of those changes need laws – such as those we rightly already have to outlaw discrimination in the workplace. Some require major changes in our institutions to the structures and practices that reinforce inequality. But prohibiting speech, or policing thought, is not the way to do this. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1536237430689-ea8c7414-e758-3″ taxonomies=”6534″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
14 Jun 18 | Events
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What is hate speech? What is behind the rise of hate-speech legislation and codes? Are some words and ideas just too hateful for public life? Is policing hate speech the best way to protect equality and freedom — or is free speech, more speech, the answer?
Join Index on Censorship, LSE Law, LSE Human Rights and spiked for this free panel, Q&A and book signing, to mark the publication of Nadine Strossen’s new book.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Speakers” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100809″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100810″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100808″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_single_image image=”100807″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
SPEAKERS:
Nadine Strossen is the author of numerous books. Her latest, HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship, is out now. Nadine was the first woman national president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), serving from 1991 to 2008. She is professor of constitutional law at the New York Law School and is a frequent speaker on constitutional and civil-liberties issues.
Jodie Ginsberg is the head of UK-based freedom of expression organisation Index on Censorship. A former foreign correspondent and business journalist, Jodie worked for more than a decade for the Reuters news agency and was Reuters’ London Bureau chief. She has also worked as head of communications for Camfed, an international charity, and as an editor at Chime for Change. Follow her on Twitter: @jodieginsberg
Joanna Williams is an author, academic and the associate editor of the online magazine spiked. Her latest book is Women Versus Feminism: Why We All Need Liberating from the Gender Wars. Joanna taught in schools, and further and higher education, for over 20 years, most recently as director of the University of Kent’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education. She writes regularly for numerous other publications. Follow her on Twitter: @jowilliams293
CHAIR: Peter Ramsay is professor of law at LSE. His research interests include: the theoretical connections between criminal law, democracy and civil liberty; the protection of security interests by criminal law; the construction of the vulnerable legal subject. See more here.
This is a free panel and Q&A, which will be followed by a book signing with Nadine Strossen.
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When: Monday 2 July 2018, 18:30 – 20:00 BST
Where: London School of Economics, New Academic Building, Alumni theatre, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE (Directions)
Tickets: Free. Registration required via Eventbrite.
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19 Mar 18 | Campaigns -- Featured, Statements, United Kingdom
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The UK government has barred a number of far-right speakers from entering the country in recent weeks.
Index on Censorship does not believe that preventing individuals from visiting the UK or speaking here is the right approach to tackling hateful views. We believe that the best way to tackle ideas with which you disagree, including bigoted ones, is to allow discussion about them to take place so they can be openly countered.
If you feel people’s arguments are hateful then the best way to expose that is in debate. Banning people simply adds to their status, often increases their profile and makes the arguments more popular. It does nothing to eradicate those views. The only grounds on which a speaker or speech should be banned is when it directly incites violence.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”2″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1521459623353-4984cb7f-fee6-7″ taxonomies=”737″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”Don’t lose your voice. Stay informed.” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator color=”black”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech. We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.
Join our mailing list (or follow us on Twitter or Facebook) and we’ll send you our weekly newsletter about our activities defending free speech. We won’t share your personal information with anyone outside Index.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Nov 16 | Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ladies and gentlemen, Rafto laureates. It is my pleasure to be asked to speak to you today on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Rafto Foundation.
I represent Index on Censorship, an organisation that was born, much like Rafto, to help give voice and support to dissidents behind the Iron Curtain but whose mission, like Rafto’s, quickly spread much wider. Index is a freedom of expression organisation that campaigns against censorship globally and promotes the value of free expression.
Today I will talk about what I think is the hardest of all issues for free speech activists: the question of hate speech. And the question of whether it is possible to balance a belief in true freedom of expression for all with the recognition that, in many instances, hateful speech is used in such a way that can suppress the voices of minority and oppress groups.
What I want to offer today is a provocation. I want to argue that it is only by allowing free speech – that is allowing all forms of speech, including those espousing hateful views – that we can ultimately protect minority and oppressed groups. That the answer to hateful speech is not more bans or ever widening laws or definitions of hate, but finding mechanisms that better allow the speech of all groups to flow.
If the market for free ideas and the free exchange of ideas and opinions does not yet work perfectly, the answer is not to ban people from having a voice
I want to start by going back to basics and asking the question, why is free speech important? For me, and for Index, freedom of speech is the most important freedom because it is the freedom on which all others rest. If one cannot express freely one’s desires, one’s political or religious views, how can we be truly free? Without free speech, how can one speak out against the oppressor. Without free speech, the oppressed and marginalised are forced to suffer in silence.
John Stuart Mill wrote: “It is on the freedom of opinion and the freedom of expression of opinion, that the well-being of mankind depends” but I think Shahzad Ahmad, the 2014 winner of Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards said it better: “Freedom of expression. To me this is the ultimate freedom: it means the freedom to live, to think, to love, to be loved, to be secure, to be happy.”
Freedom of speech is enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, the First Amendment. It became a sort of mantra in the wake of the killings last year at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. You would think this was a freedom and a value on which we could all agree. And yet. And yet. The question of where we draw the line on free speech drives a wedge through our apparent agreement that free speech is a universal good with parameters on which we can all agree. And it is this ‘I am in favour of free speech BUT’ question that I want to address today.
Most commonly articulated in the aftermath of Charlie Hebdo was the position “I am in favour of free speech” but not when it is targeted against minorities. Definitions of what constituted a minority in these instances differed – from the religious groupings to ethnic grouping to socio-economic groupings. This sense that speech should not be used to punch down found its most powerful manifestation in the objection to many members of the American PEN center to Charlie Hebdo receiving a courage award in the months after the killings. This led still more – including a number of governments – to suggest that in order to deal with the effects of offensive speech, what was needed were more hate speech laws, not fewer. Those who objected to the works of groups like Charlie Hebdo argued that this would help protect minorities from words and images that they believe leads directly to more aggressive forms of discrimination, but also protect communities from the burgeoning non-violent, but nevertheless extremist messaging that many nations see as the source of violent extremism.
In practice, this sounds fairly reasonable. Cut out the hateful words, eliminate the violent behaviours, the discrimination, the racism, the homophobia. Except this is not how it works. And those who advocate and wish for additional hate speech laws, which – increasingly – seem to mark the advent of a return to blasphemy laws in many places where we thought they had been eliminated – should be careful what they wish for.
As the US delegation noted in a Human Rights Council meeting last year: “legal prohibitions on incitement are often used to persecute members of minority groups and political opponents, raising serious freedom of expression concerns.
“Such laws, including blasphemy laws, tend to reinforce divisions rather than promote societal harmony. The presence of these laws has little discernable effect on reducing actual incidences of hate speech. In some cases such laws actually serve to foment violence against members of minority groups accused of expressing unpopular viewpoints.
“In addition, legal prohibitions can displace societal efforts to combat intolerance. This occurs because disputes over hate speech are then seen as matters for courts to decide rather than society at large. Combating hate speech requires a change in the societal attitudes that give rise to discriminatory views. Prohibiting speech is a poor, if not counterproductive, means of achieving that goal.”
You need look no further than the discussions within the same Human Rights Council for evidence of the way in which hate speech laws are easily manipulated to target those with opposing view rather than protect minorities. During the debate, Russia praised hate speech laws, talking of the need to monitor “hate speech“ in Ukraine so as not to ignite “nationalistic fires.”
China – not celebrated for its tolerance of free speech – praised hate speech legislation, saying speech on the internet needed to promote the “norms of civilisation” and “harmony.”
It is easy to feel, particularly in the wake of Brexit in the UK and the rise of the so-called alt-right in the US, and the apparent rise in hateful, racist and misogynistic speech, that the best solution to support those affected such speech is to ban it. But I want to argue strongly that any acts that actively seek to limit the speech of one group, is ultimately detrimental for all. I want to argue against the current meme I see particularly in American discourse that says free speech is a construct for privileged white men to argue that free speech – genuine free speech that includes the ability to say things others find offensive, hateful and hurtful – is what protects all our rights to speak. If the market for free ideas and the free exchange of ideas and opinions does not yet work perfectly, the answer is not to ban people from having a voice, it is to work even harder – as everyone of you here does on a daily basis – to raise up the voices of those who are still not being heard, to demand the right to speak.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1480340935409-d0a11d11-e407-8″ taxonomies=”6534″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
