Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘freedom of speech’

Initial reports that CHUM radio had pulled 20 anti-war songs off the playlists of one of its radio stations are false, much to my relief. When I first read the story, I couldn’t believe it . . . and apparently, neither could the station:

The original report claimed the banned songs included Give Peace A Chance by John Lennon, Soldier Boy by The Shirelles (a love song), Revolution by The Beatles and One Tin Soldier by The Original Caste.

“No songs have been banned on 1050 CHUM — none,” Brad Jones, the station’s program director, said yesterday. The station yesterday even played at least two of the purported banned songs, including Give Peace A Chance.

Rob Farina, program director of 104.5 CHUM-FM, said his station also has not banned any war- or peace-themed songs.

Jones said pulse24.com’s story was the result of a breakdown in communication during an interview between a pulse24.com reporter and CHUM-FM music director Barry Stewart. The reporter asked Stewart which war-themed songs were being pulled. Stewart thought the reporter meant pulled off the shelf for broadcast, whereas the reporter meant pulled from the playlist.

I’m certainly glad that the rumours turned out to be false. But the fact that the media was so willing to believe and publish the story in the first place raises an interesting question: where does the line get crossed? Being sensitive to controversy is one thing, but I could never condone all-out censorship, and neither could most people.

But while this report was false, reports that MTV Europe is practicing censorship unfortunately seem to be true:

MTV has banned music videos with war-related titles, lyrics or images, including Paul Hardcastle’s 19 and Outkast’s Bombs over Baghdad, for the duration of the conflict in Iraq.

The leading music channel will not show pop promos that feature “war, soldiers, war planes, bombs, missiles, riots and social unrest, executions and other obviously sensitive material”, according to an internal memo seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk.

[ . . . ]

“MTV, like many other broadcasters, feels content should reflect audience sensitivities at this time of war,” an MTV spokeswoman said.

“Any changes to playlists are only a temporary measure,” she added.

I sincerely hope that this policy is reconsidered. After all, isn’t freedom of expression one of the things we’re fighting for?

A Palestinian-American was just acquitted of sending online death threats to Jews.

A federal court jury found Fowad Assed, a Palestinian-born U.S. citizen living in Brooklyn, innocent of sending threatening e-mails, referring to three messages to the Jewish Defense League that threatened bombing businesses in Borough Park, a heavily Jewish neighborhood.

Assed, 33, never denied sending the e-mails, which were sent to the militant Jewish group the day after the Israeli army declared it was going after Palestinian groups following suicide bombings.

Defense Attorney Deborah Colson had argued that while the messages might be offensive, Assed was exercising his rights to free speech.

One e-mail stated: “If you kill an Arab today over there, we will kill a Jew in the U.S. … We should go to 13th Avenue in Brooklyn and set bombs in the stores there.”

Times like these test our desire for certain freedoms. In Canada, Assed would almost certainly have been convicted under hate legislation. But in the U.S., he’s apparently free to threaten to blow up as many Jews as he wants.

Of course, that’s the whole point, right? Once you start curbing your enemies’ freedoms, you’re also giving them leverage to curb yours. Deny freedom of speech to the devil, and he can turn the tables right back on you. And the true test of a democracy’s commitment to freedom is whether it grants that freedom to its most flagrant and despicable abusers. Fowad Assed being a case in point.

Daniel Pipes gave a speech today to a student group, despite every effort to stop him.

First the administration, caving to threats of violence, initially cancelled the speech. Then, showing great courage, they decided to let it go ahead after all. Then, York was forced to bring in tons of riot police in hopes of avoiding a reprise of the Concordia fiasco. It seems to have been averted, but not without incident. Leftists “occupied” a floor of the administration building in attempt to get the university to cancel the speech. And after Pipes left, someone called in a bomb threat to the building.

Freedom of speech means freedom for speech you don’t agree with to go ahead as well. When will the Left get it?

York University could have waffled and cancelled Pipes’ speech, but it didn’t. It took a stand for freedom of speech and against threats and intimidation. And the students who invited Pipes could have caved as well, but they didn’t. Kudos all around (except to the idiotarians who felt it necessary to try to shut down Pipes’s speech).

I just love it how international journalists complain about Israeli restrictions on its generally free press, but say nothing about things like this:

Three journalists were formally charged Tuesday with slandering Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and harming Jordan’s reputation in an article that discussed the sex life of the prophet and his wife, Aisha.

Muhannad Mubaideen, 29, Roman Haddad, 28, and Nasser Qamash, 33, were also charged at the trial’s opening with “destabilizing the society, propagating perversity and circulating false rumors.”

The charges, outlined in an indictment sheet read out at Jordan’s military State Security Court, are considered misdemeanors punishable by up to three years in jail and a fine.

Under the law, the verdict and sentencing are irrevocable.

Yeah, sure, good ol’ freedom of the press.

His scheduled speech was initially cancelled, but the university reversed its decision two days later.

Cim Nunn, a spokesman at York, said that while Mr. Pipes attracts strong opinions, and students likely would protest against him, the university is a place for free expression.

“We wouldn’t move forward with this event if we weren’t satisfied that we were going to be able to do so in a way that ensured that everybody participating was going to be able to do so safely,” Mr. Nunn said.

The public lecture was to take place at the Student Centre’s restaurant, the Underground, but it was cancelled when a number of student groups expressed concerns.

In other words, York was afraid of turning into the next Concordia. It wanted to avoid a riot. So it initially caved to pressure and cancelled the speech.

Granted, the Middle Eastern Students Association spokesperson claimed that he would urge students to protest “peacefully”. But then, the CSU and the SPHR claimed that the Netanyahu protest would be peaceful, too.

The tactic of the anti-Israel contingent to try to shut down any speech they disagree with is seemingly common. Daniel Pipes has been un-invited from several campuses across North America recently.

Pipes, best known for his site Campus Watch, where he monitors antisemitism on campuses, is persona non grata to many of Israel’s greatest critics. And, as with Netanyahu, they’ve decided that any speech that doesn’t fit with their politics shouldn’t be heard, and they threaten violence in every instance in effort to get most of them shut down.

Luckily, some universities are coming to their senses. Université de Québec à Montréal reversed a decision back in December and allowed a scheduled speech by journalist Gideon Kouts to go ahead, after initially shutting it down due to threats. And now, Daniel Pipes will be allowed to speak at York University after all.

It looks like universities are learning, albeit slowly, that caving to threats of violence is to let violence win. Academic freedom can only exist if everyone has a voice.

Another tip from an e-mail from Judith: If you thought Concordia was bad, life for Jewish students at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium is ten times worse. Ha’aretz reports that pro-Israel students are facing death threats on that campus:

“Jews in Belgium live today in a new reality, one in which they cannot express their sympathy for Israel in any way,” reflects a historian at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Free University of Brussels. His angry comment came in response to death threats aimed at two Jewish students who put up pro-Israeli posters on campus earlier this month.

Benjamin and Nicole, who agreed to be identified only by their first names, study natural sciences at the Free University, and belong to the Friends of Israel association. Two weeks ago, they and a few other students put up some pro-Israel posters in the student union area of the Brussels campus. The posters conveyed messages such as “Which was the first state in the Middle East which gave Arab women the right to vote,” or “Terror attacks against civilians are an abomination.” Along the bottom of the posters was written “If you’re for tolerance, don’t rip this off the wall,” in anticipation that a leftist group would be likely to remove the new posters.

The next morning, the two students received phone calls from an anonymous caller who had a Middle Eastern accent, and threatened to attack them. “We know who you are and where you live,” the caller threatened, in the call to Nicole. “We also know that you have a brother, as well as the license number of your car and the place where you park it.” The caller continued: “If the flyer isn’t removed by the evening, we’ll burn the car, and harm you and your family.” Benjamin, 22, received a similar phone call.

The students reacted by taking down the posters, because those threats and follow-ups convinced them that their personal safety was at risk. But they later helped stage a rally that drew 1,000 people in support of free speech.

The point is, freedom of speech doesn’t seem to extend to Israel’s supporters on campuses around the world. Incident after incident of this ought to be enough for the alarm bell to sound. You can put up posters in support of Palestinians, Iraqis, Pagans, Wiccans, the Falun Gong, snowboarding, amateur radio, or people who pick their noses. That’s all allowed. But any kind of pro-Israel activity is being met with extraordinary efforts to shut it down.

Jeremy Wallace and Anne and Max Bailey from the Centre For Human Rights & Cultural Diversity defended the CSU in a letter to the Canadian Jewish News this week.

In the wake of last year’s events, we decided some pro-activity was needed. We offered a speaker, Edwin Black, who wrote IBM and The Holocaust, to the student union. They helped to book a room, and put up posters around the school. [ . . . ] That subject was right up the alley of the anti-corporate types. The Jewish community has far too much pro-capitalist rhetoric, and apologists for corporate extremism.

Nobody’s disputing the CSU’s willingness to be accommodating to people whose speech agrees with theirs. Of course they roll out the red carpet for anyone who wants to bring in an anti-capitalist, anti-corporate speaker. That fits right in with the CSU’s politics. Nobody’s disputing the rights of someone like Edwin Black to be heard. I even agree that there has been too little attention paid to the role of certain corporations in the Holocaust. All that, of course, is besides the point.

No, this dispute is about freedom of speech extending to those with whom the CSU disagrees. True freedom means allowing anti-corporate types to speak, and also pro-corporate types. It means allowing pro-Palestinians to speak and also pro-Israel speakers. It means helping left-wing, right-wing, and non-wing alike to be heard.

The letter goes on to criticize the Jewish community leadership compared to the CSU:

And let’s not keep calling these people anti-democratic. We never voted for the leadership of Montreal’s Jewish community. In fact, we find their unabashed support for Israel, no matter what is done there, to be an embarrassment. When will our community welcome dissent, as a sign of strength and not of weakness?

Ah, but there’s a key difference. Nobody voted for the Jewish community leaders because we all have a choice whether or not to be represented by them. We don’t pay tax to these people, we give donations. We can choose to agree with some of these community groups some of the time and disagree other times. These groups are interest groups, and their views are pro-Israel. Mr. Wallace and Mr. and Ms. Bailey have every right to dissent.

Concordia students don’t have this choice. They have to pay fees to the CSU or else they can’t take their classes. The CSU legally represents all students, whether they like it or not. CSU fees aren’t voluntary – they’re compulsory. And that is why the CSU’s flagrant abuse of democracy is so disturbing. When CSU executive members illegally annul by-election results and appoint themselves to remain in power after being recalled by the students, when council members elected to represent their constituents instead use their positions to advance their own political views, and when thousands of dollars of student money is used to defend people who assaulted some of those same students, then that’s abuse.

The CSU may act nicely towards people with whom they agree. But the true judge of an elected representatitve is his or her ability to act nicely towards people with whom they disagree.

Speaking of the Gazette, yesterday’s editorial about antisemitism on campus is highly worth a look. It argues that UQÀM was right to allow Gideon Kouts’s scheduled speech to go ahead, but that should not lull us into a false sense of security. Hatred is alive and well on campuses, even when disguised as something else – or when very thinly disguised, as was the case at Concordia on September 9th.

UQÀM officials would doubtless protest – without question truthfully – that they haven’t an anti-Semitic bone in their bodies. And yet they evidently failed to discern the larger pattern: Kouts, after all, is not the only prominent Israeli recently prevented from speaking at a Montreal (read: Canadian) university. In September, glass-smashing thugs silenced former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia.

Apologists quickly absolved the pro-Palestinian hooligans responsible for the window breaking. Blame, they argued, belonged to Mr. Netanyahu for being so controversial. Concordia, they maintained, was at fault for letting such a controversial politician speak. No violent controversy would have occurred, they insisted, had the university foreseen the security risk inherent in Mr. Netanyahu’s appearance.

Mob violence, in other words, wasn’t the fault of the violent mob. Responsibility, rather, was placed on those who saw no reason for a mob or violence. Windows were smashed because the university failed to install glass strong enough to resist pounding fists.

Sounds an awful lot like Jaggi Singh’s arguments, doesn’t it?

Concordia -2: Minus 2 years, that is. Nearly exactly to the date.

The following article, entitled Student ‘tolerance’: Palestinian activists brook little opposition on a Montreal campus by Shafer Parker first appeared in Report Magazine on December 18, 2000:

Simmering discord between the two groups erupted into open conflict last month when the local chapter of Hillel, an international Jewish student support group, displayed on their information table a widely circulated column entitled “Myths of the Middle East,” by Arab-American journalist Joseph Farah, who serves in the U.S. as editor and chief executive officer of the on-line magazine WorldNetDaily (www.worldnetdaily.com). The column, which first appeared in the Jerusalem Post, argues that the Palestinian fight for a homeland and for control of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem are merely a cover for the Arab world’s intention to erase Israel from the Middle East.

[. . .]

But instead of refuting Mr. Farah’s assertions, an Arab student group, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), insisted that the offending material be immediately removed from the information table. It then passed a resolution within the Concordia Student Union (CSU) condemning Hillel for disseminating material that was “racially, ethnically and religiously discriminating.”

Hillel spokesman and Concordia business major Yossi Lanton says the official condemnation was unnecessary because Hillel took steps to undo the damage as soon as they were told their material was offensive. “We had that column off the table 20 minutes after it first appeared,” he says. “Later we apologized. But that wasn’t considered good enough because the apology was made in the CSU council meeting to the Muslim Students’ Association, not in public to the SPHR.”

But what rankles most with Mr. Lanton is his perception that the CSU supports a double standard in regard to the SPHR. “They repeatedly play videos in the student centre that show things like an Israeli policeman beating a Palestinian,” he says. “And when the SPHR held a march this fall to protest the ongoing violence in the Middle East, they had banners that equated the Star of David with a swastika. Someone tried to burn an Israeli flag, and when a Jewish girl ran to rescue it, the crowd started chanting ‘Down, down with Israel.’” When Hillel asked for an apology, spokesmen for the Palestinian group denied responsibility, blaming non-member “extremists” for the excesses.

CSU president Rob Green brushes off Hillel’s accusation that the SPHR is allowed to distribute material offensive to Jews. “No one has ever shown me any SPHR material that opposes the Jewish culture, people or religion,” he says. “The SPHR is focused exclusively on the behaviour of the Jewish state.” Confusion over what materials are acceptable arises, he says, because “the minute anyone says something against the state of Israel, the Jews start crying anti-Semitism. But it’s not the same thing.” Which is a shame, he adds, because “a lot of Palestinian students want nothing more than a democratic debate on these issues.”

Hillel’s concerns over the abuse of democracy rose to new heights on November 27, when a CSU resolution calling for Israel to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 242 was supposed to be debated and approved. Resolution 242, which was originally approved in November 1967, calls on Israel to withdraw from all the territories it occupied at the end of the Six Day War and to “achieve a just settlement of the refugee problem.” Concerned that the Palestinians could easily approve the resolution in overwhelming numbers, Hillel called for a boycott of the vote.

Which may have worked, says dean of students Donald Boisvert, because only 411 students showed up, 111 short of the number needed to form a quorum. “But then again,” he says, “we’re approaching exam time. A lot of students may have decided they needed to study.” Mr. Boisvert says that even though Hillel was prevented from distributing a particular piece of information, he sees no need to defend their right to free speech. “We stand back from ruling on what is appropriate and inappropriate,” he says. Nevertheless, he insists he would never allow anyone to distribute hate literature. Asked about the banners equating the swastika and the Star of David, he replies, “Well, I can’t get into what an individual Palestinian decides to do or not do.” He acknowledges the Palestinians are numerous enough to dominate campus discussions. But he cannot say how many of each group are on campus. “We don’t ask for that kind of information,” he says.

The real issue, says Mr. Farah, whose column sparked Concordia’s recent unrest, is whether freedom still exists on North American campuses. He sees a growing intolerance for meaningful free speech within academia that, in his opinion, seems even worse in Canada than in the U.S. “But these days campus demonstrations everywhere are often in opposition to free speech,” he says, “which is ironic considering student activism began in the 1960s with the free-speech movement.”

Freedom is also the reason why even Arabs ought to support the existence of Israel, Mr. Farah says. “I’ve travelled extensively throughout the Middle East,” he says. “And I can tell you that unlike Israel, Arab-controlled lands are one giant police state. Until the Arab world demonstrates it believes in individual rights, Arab students in the West ought to be most concerned about what’s going on in their homelands.”

Just replace Yossi Lanton with Noah Joseph, and Rob Green with Sabine Freisinger. Anyone feeing a sense of deja-vu?

The Gazette’s Irwin Block attended Hillel’s press conference yesterday, and reported the following in today’s paper:

Lawyer Michael Bergman said yesterday he plans to file a civil action against the Concordia Student Union in Quebec Superior Court by next week seeking annulment of the suspension of Hillel’s rights and privileges.

The university will be named as a co-party to the action, and be asked to “take control of its own space and property” and enable Concordia Hillel to carry on its religious and secular programs.

If necessary, Concordia would be asked to place the CSU under trusteeship, Bergman warned.

Hillel would also seek “significant” punitive damages for infringing on “the freedoms, liberties and constitutional rights of Concordia’s Jewish students and their association, Concordia Hillel,” the group’s co-presidents said in a statement.

As many of you know, the CSU will be meeting tonight to attempt to pass motions forcing Hillel – and other groups – to sign agreements before their club can be reinstated. On this point, Hillel’s lawyer said the following:

The student government has since backtracked, saying Hillel can be reinstated if it signs a commitment not to distribute material that promotes war.

A motion is to be presented at a council meeting tonight calling for Hillel’s immediate reinstatement, while another restates that all campus clubs sign the commitment.

Bergman, acting as Hillel’s counsel, said the group will continue to refuse because “signing it would mean we are against the war on terrorism, a war against Iraq, a war in self-defence, a war to protect Canadian soil.”

Essentially what it comes down to is the CSU’s refusal to accept that others may not share their views, but still have the right to freedom of speech. The CSU’s politicians are anti-war. Hillel – from my view, normally a peace-loving organization – is being asked to sign an agreement to share that view, or else it will not be allowed to operate on campus.

Hillel’s views on peace or war are irrelevant. What is relevant here is the principle of the thing. The CSU cannot dictate to any of its member clubs what to believe or what political views to hold. If Hillel wants to be a pro-Israel club, the CSU can’t ban it from operating because the CSU is pro-Palestinian. If some other student group wants to endorse free trade, the CSU cannot ban it because the CSU is anti-free trade. And if tomorrow, a group of students wanted to form a pro-war group, then the CSU really has no right whatsoever to disallow it on the grounds that they are “demilitarized”.

Freedom of speech applies to everyone – agree or disagree. And that is the real issue at stake here. The CSU is going to try to pass more motions against Hillel tonight. See below for the appeal to the community to show up and protest.