[/caption]The big debate in atheist circles these days is the “tone debate”, which I’ve touched on here before. I’ve also mentioned American Atheists president David Silverman before in a criticism of his lousy philosophy in the (mis)handling of the “Burn a Koran Day” incident. Silverman is busy with a new philosophical defence – this time against a real philosopher – that relates to the “tone debate”, and this time… Silverman has it right on the nose. (more…)
[/caption]I read with great sadness today that Salman Taseer has been shot dead. Salman Taseer was the Governor of the Punjab region of Pakistan. He was shot by his own bodyguard with a sub-machine-gun. The reason? He was an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.* Those of us in the relative security of Western democracies sometimes don’t fully appreciate the bravery and committment needed to speak-out in other parts of the world. This is a timely reminder and I hope that people will use this occasion to reflect for a few minutes on this.
Well, I don’t celebrate any official holidays this time of year, but I get the time off so I use it. So, I’m off until
[/caption]Religious people often claim moral superiority because of the fact that there are so many religious charities, and so few explicitly secular ones. The reason for that, of course, is that atheists generally don’t care whether the charity is labelled “Christian” (or whatever other religion), so long as it does good work. Unfortunately, it turns out that in some cases, the label does matter, and one of those cases is The Salvation Army. (more…)
I couldn’t make this up, and if I didn’t have a real news source to back me up, I wouldn’t forgive you for thinking I was joking.
One of the major concerns listed in the recent Freedom House report on blasphemy laws was that said laws were often used solely to settle personal disputes, and not really for the sake of protecting the religion from “offence”. Well now, I submit, for your approval, the case of the sacred business card. (more…)
Recently I wrote about a report published by Freedom House about blasphemy laws around the world. While that report includes several disturbing examples of blasphemy law in action, they are only the tip of the iceberg. And the situation isn’t improving, either. From Pharyngula comes two more tales of blasphemy laws in action. (more…)
A couple of cases have arisen in the UK over the past few weeks that raise interesting questions over free speech and the ‘new’ media. These cases both relate to the use of Twitter.
In January, accountant Phil Chambers was arrested and prosecuted for tweeting the following :
“Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!
(This was in response to the airport (Doncaster) being closed due to snow on the runways.)
Chambers argued in court that he was obviously joking and it was clear that his message was not a serious threat. The court disagreed and he was convicted of ‘menace’ and fined £1000.
He appealed and the result was not what he hoped for. The Judge said the tweet contained clear menace and ordered him to pay another £2000 in court costs.
This week a Conservative Councillor was arrested after tweeting
“Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really.”
(Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a journalist and human rights campaigner and the tweet was in response to her comments on a radio breakfast show).
Now, clearly both these tweets were crass, stupid and, in the second case, offensive. That is not the point, however. I think it is quite clear in both cases that they were not serious. Someone planning to blow-up an airport is hardly likely to tweet his intentions, and the context of the ‘stoning’ tweet makes it clear that it is a (bad) attempt at humour rather than a serious incitement to violence. I find myself concerned that there is widespread acceptance that both were criminal offences – very few people have stuck their necks out to defend the principle of free speech in either case and people have been queuing up to condemn in both cases.
If either comment had been made by a comic during a show then would there have been any prosecution? I think not. The argument would probably be that the context made it quite clear that these were jokes and not serious threats/incitement . The question therefore arises – at what point does a joke, over twitter or email or any other medium, become unacceptable and liable to criminal action?
My personal opinion is that the law has got this wrong. Once comments obviously intended humorously are forbidden then we really are in dangerous territory.
Let me be quite clear – incitement to violence/murder is most certainly NOT permissable under the principle of freedom of expression, and neither are genuine threats of violence. It seems to me, however, that both of these cases require a perversely literal interpretation to arrive at any genuine threat/incitement, when it is obvious from the context in both cases that neither was meant literally. If a literal reading of text is established as being the intended meaning then what happens to metaphor? Am I to be prosecuted when, as I have, I mutter something about ‘killing that damn student’, after a particularly hairy lecture?
Surely we are sophisticated enough to be able to tell when a threat or incitement is not to be taken literally? Nobody I know would read either of these in that way and I submit that it would require a particularly perverse or naive person to do so. UK law is shot through with references to ‘reasonable’. We talk about what a ‘reasonable person’ would do, what force can be ‘reasonably’ exercised in self-defence etc. These two cases seem to me to be entirely unreasonable and, because of that, very dangerous.
Postscript – Stephen Fry has offered to pay Chambers’ costs in full and a campaign is now in full swing by twitter users who are now reposting Chambers’ tweet as a protest. Read More Here
This issue is likely to run and run methinks….
The atheist/secular/humanist/sceptical world is currently abuzz with a long-running discussion about “tone”. This is a gross simplification, but essentially there are two camps: the confrontationalists, who refuse to moderate their criticisms, even when their criticisms make people uncomfortable, and the accommodationists, who believe that criticism that is too strident drives moderates away. [ref]I am not going to bother detailing either the argument any more than is necessary for the discussion here, or the positions of either side. There is a glut of discussion out there in the wild, wild web on the topic. For a good overview, and an article that has generated a lot of discussion, there is an New York Times article titled “Religious skeptics disagree on how aggressively to challenge the devout”.[/ref] We here at ARISE have stayed out of the debate, but it is relevant not only to how we present our arguments (the “tone” issue applies as much to us as it does to any current secular writers), but to the very issues we have chosen to focus on. Our position is that we support free expression in defiance of religious oppression, but we would be irresponsible if we did not also consider what kinds of free expression is good or bad. And, of course, the question of which kinds of expression are appropriate and which are not is an issue we have discussed before.
A lot of the debate between the two sides thus far has relied on straw men, or, at the very least, pointing to extremist cases on either side followed by a slippery slope argument. A recent case has come up that I believe serves as an ideal platform to analyze the case for confrontationalism using a practical test bed. (more…)
Personal Comment by one of the site authors
The unsinkable Christopher Hitchens, in a recent article in Slate titled “Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks.”, challenges the “untrammelled” free expression of religion. Hitchens cites a recent flurry of articles by “liberal” writers that he suggests are attempting to marginalize the concerns of people who assert that there should be limits put on the practice of religious beliefs. (more…)
We are building as we go, rather than opening our doors only after everything has been completely put in place, tested and settled upon. I’m sure you have noticed things being added and removed, some shuffling around and other changes (and if you haven’t, you will). Feedback is a big part of this process, so we have come up with several ways for you to give us your comments and (constructive) criticism on what we could add or improve on.
For starters, there is the comments section located on the bottom of almost every post or page. That is the easiest and most direct way to get hold of ARISE, and to make your voice heard. Currently, anyone can comment even without registering here, although your first comment will not be published until it can be checked. (I believe that so long as you make your second comment from the same IP address, using the same name and e-mail – and do not use any threatening terms – it will get published immediately.) You may have to do a CAPTCHA every time unless you are registered, but I don’t think that should be too much trouble. Incidentally, if you would like to have a personal icon, you just need to get a Gravatar for your e-mail address, which is handy anyway because it gets used on most blogs.
If you would prefer a slightly less public channel of communication, or would like to take a shot having a live chat with one of us, you can try our IRC channel on the freenode IRC network. Just open your favourite IRC client, connect to the server irc.freenode.net, and join the channel #arise. Hopefully one of us will be connected there, but the chances are very slim that we will actually be active and around to chat. You can either leave a message in the channel, leave a personal message (or query), or hang around and hope that you’re still awake when one of us is active. I should warn you that any message you send to me (at least, and probably to other members of ARISE) is sent under the condition that it may be published on the blog. I will not reveal any personal information about you unnecessarily, but if you insult or threaten me you may find your words committed to public scrutiny for a long, long time to come.
Check back here in the future, too, because these means of contact may also change as everything else around here does. Or, more means of getting in touch with us may be added.
I hope to hear from you soon!
Mike Labossiere at Talking Philosophy, has written a very good article about Islamophobia. I recommend you take the time to read the discussion in the comments as well.
If there is only one right I will never surrender, it is the right to speak freely, because if you take away all of my rights save that one, I can use that right to recover the others. (more…)
Hi.
My name is Chris Snowdon and I am one of the people responsible for this site. We are all committed to the message that this site sends out and furthermore we are not going to remain anonymous for out own safety. We will, instead, give a brief introduction to who we are and why we have involved ourselves in this issue.
