Category: Freedom of Expression

Daniel O’Connell and Free Speech: “speaking bold truths boldly and firmly”

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| Freedom of Expression


O'Connell's home at Derrynane

A fascinating post on Daniel O’Connell and free speech was published on the excellent Irish Philosophy website last Monday, in honour of Daniel O’Connell‘s birth on 6 August 1775, near Cahirciveen, Co. Kerry; here’s an extract (emphasis added):

Given his political philosophy, it is not surprising that Daniel O’Connell was a champion of free speech. … [At] the Monster Meetings of the 1840s, … huge crowds gathered to hear O’Connell speak. … Though the meetings were orderly, the government grew worried trouble would break out. Sir Robert Peel outlawed the next Monster Meeting, planned for Clontarf on 8 October 1843. Though O’Connell called off the rally, he was still arrested and charged with conspiracy.

O’Connell spoke in his own defense, pointing out the “conspiracy” was neither secret nor criminal, arguing that calling such a movement as his a conspiracy would prevent improvement of any institutions …

Do not attempt to take away from your fellow subjects the legitimate mode of effecting useful purposes by public meetings, public canvassing — speaking bold truths boldly and firmly.

O’Connell was found guilty … The verdict was appealed to the House of Lords, reversed, and O’Connell left prison after three months, a hero in the fight for freedom of speech.

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Oh no, not again – another heckler’s veto in Trinity

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| Freedom of Expression, Universities

TCD Campanile, via WikipediaThe following headlines have caught my eye:

After Protest, Society for International Affairs Cancel Event with Israeli Ambassador (from the University Times)

and

Trinity College Dublin event involving Israeli ambassador cancelled (from the Irish Times)

Update (21 Feb 2017): Planned talk by Israeli Ambassador at Trinity College is cancelled after protests (from theJournal.ie)

I don’t have time to write a considered post about this right now, but I could not let it pass unremarked, so I will content myself for the time being with noting: oh no, not again.

Update (23 Feb 2017): The protest and cancellation garnered headlines in Israel (Algemeiner | Jerusalem Post | Jewish Press | Times of Israel here and here) and further afield (Yahoo! news – even Breibart, with typical hyperbolic misrepresentation)

The University Times updated their piece and headline: After Event with Israeli Ambassador Cancelled, Trinity Criticises “Unacceptable Attack on Free Speech”; the Irish Times ran a follow up: Trinity condemns ‘unacceptable attack’ on free speech; and the Hearld also ran a story: Anti-Israel protest is ‘antithesis of what Trinity stands for’. These pieces refer to a statement from the Provost:

Trinity College Dublin regrets attack on free speech

Dublin, Tuesday February 21st 2017 – Trinity College Dublin regrets that Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, HE Ze’ev Boker, was unable to take part in a question and answer session on Monday evening after protesters from inside and outside the university threatened to disrupt the event.

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Free Speech University Rankings

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| Freedom of Expression, Universities

Spiked FSUR

I have written on this blog in the past about university free speech rankings in the UK and the US. The online current affairs magazine, spiked, has published its third annual Free Speech University Rankings (FSUR) of the UK’s universities (THE | The Tab | The Times here and here):

… it paints a grim picture. Our survey, ranking 115 UK universities using our traffic-light system, shows that 63.5 per cent of universities now actively censor speech, and 30.5 per cent stifle speech through excessive regulation. This marks a steady rise in censorship over the past three years. Now only six per cent of UK universities are truly free, open places.

Tom Slate, Deputy Editor of spiked, and co-ordinator of the survey, comments:

For anyone who’s been anywhere near a campus recently, this will come as no surprise. Students’ unions no longer just No Platform the odd edgy speaker – they ban ‘tarts and vicars’ parties and ‘offensive hand gestures’. But what’s perhaps most striking in this year’s findings is how fast universities are catching up. Though SUs are still far more censorious than universities, 23.5 per cent of university administrations are now ranked Red, compared with 15 per cent just last year.

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What are the constitutional issues facing the regulation of media ownership in Ireland?

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| Freedom of Expression, Irish Supreme Court, Media and Communications

Element of Media Report CoverA just-published Report on the Concentration of Media Ownership in Ireland (download pdfs here and here) directly addresses the question in the title to this post: what are the constitutional issues facing the regulation of media ownership in Ireland. The Report concludes that such issue do not prevent government action here, and calls on the Irish government to tackle Denis O’Brien’s media control. It seems that some media are ignoring it. That is a pity. It is a very important Report. It was commissioned by Lynn Boylan MEP on behalf of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) group of the European Parliament, and was prepared by Caoilfhionn Gallagher and Jonathan Price, barristers in Doughty Street Chambers, London, and Gavin Booth and Darragh Mackin, of the Belfast solicitors’ firm KRW Law. It was launched in Leipzig (panel | photo) on 6 October last, and in Dublin last night (press notice | photos).

Here’s a flavour of the Report, from the executive summary [with added links to relevant posts on this site]:

1.8 In our view, taken together, the combination of the highly concentrated Irish media market, Mr. O’Brien’s threats and initiation of a large number of legal proceedings against media and other critics, and serious shortcomings in the defamation framework create a perfect storm which threatens news plurality and undermines the media’s ability to perform its watchdog function.

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Free speech for Trump but nobody else? Let’s see what Denis O’Brien might have to say about that

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| Defamation, Freedom of Expression

Denis O’Brien (above left) and Donald Trump (above right) are classic crybullies: they cry in public when criticised, whilst bullying others – claiming to be victims, whilst intimating their critics. So, Denis O’Brien (among the 21 Irish lawsuits initiated by him since 2010) seeks to sue the Oireachtas for a TD’s speech about some of his business dealings, to to redact RTÉ’s publication of the same material, and to sue a PR firm for conspiracy and defamation, all the while claiming never to have experienced the level of abuse, venom and hatred resulting from taking a stand to protect privacy in relation to his financial affairs. Donald Trump is notorious for his cheap personal attacks, on the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq, on a former Miss Universe, and a judge who is hearing a fraud case against his defunct university, all the while decrying media criticism and threatening to change the law to weaken the First Amendment and muzzle the press.

The sanctimonious hypocricy at the heart of this strategy is egregious. The First Amendment, against which Trump inveighs when it is used against him, is the very thing on which Trump relies when he harangues everybody else.…

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National Anthems and Political Dissent

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| Freedom of Expression, National Anthem, US Supreme Court

Obama Hand on Heart for AnthemFor various reasons (set out here, here, here, and here), I have been musing recently about what should and should not be in a National Anthem Bill. In the US, legislation provides that, when the national anthem (since 1931, “The Star-Spangled Banner“) is being played, “persons present should … stand at attention with their right hand over the heart” (emphasis added). Although the photograph left shows Barak Obama doing so as President in 2009, there was a minor controversy during the 2008 election when he neglected to do so at a campaign event. More recently, US gymnastics gold medalist Gabby Douglas apologized in the face of criticism when she neglected to do so during the playing of national anthem at an olympics medal ceremony. Neither Obama nor Douglas meant anything by it. Obama said his grandfather taught him to put his hand on his heart only during the pledge of allegiance, and only to sing during the national anthem. And Douglas was just overcome by the emotion of the moment.

But some people do take advantage of the anthem to make a political point. At the 1968 Olympics, US 200-metre medallists Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) raised their own gloved hands during the national anthem while looking down as a way of opposing US state-sanctioned racism.…

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Is the President’s spouse “constitutionally required to be perfect”?

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| Freedom of Expression

I came across the above quote in a newspaper article over the weekend. It was about Bill Clinton’s role in a Hillary Clinton White House. But it reminded me of a war of words which broke out a little closer to home a few months ago, concerning remarks made by Sabina Higgins, wife of President Michael D Higgins, to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland in Trinity College Dublin. Her ex tempore comments, about abortion, were controversial (eg here; here; here; and here) and she was immediately criticised – for the words she chose, for the point she made, and for the fact that she made it.

It is upon this last strand of criticism that I want to focus here. The headline to an article by David Quinn in the Irish Independent at the time captures the essence of this objection: The presidency must stay above the fray – otherwise you rob it of prestige. The controversy over Mrs Higgins’s remarks poses the question whether the spouse of the President should be subject to similar bounds. At the time, there was a great deal of public support for this position.…

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On World Press Freedom Day, the inevitable calls for reform of Irish defamation law focus on the wrong issues

| 7 Comments
| 2016-17 Reform, Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Information

World Press Freedom Day 2016, via UN website
Today is World Press Freedom Day. The UN/UNESCO Declarations on Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Media were adopted on 3 May 1991, at a seminar on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press, held in Windhoek, Namibia, from 29 April to 3 May 1991. Article 1 provides (with added link):

Consistent with article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the establishment, maintenance and fostering of an independent, pluralistic and free press is essential to the development and maintenance of democracy in a nation, and for economic development.

On foot of a recommendation (pdf; see proposal II.B, p2) from UNESCO, on 20 December 1993 the UN General Assembly adopted (pdf; see p29) 3 May, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, as World Press Freedom Day.

To mark the day, President Michael D. Higgins toay issued a statement highlighting the crucial role of the media, and of the fundamental principles of media freedom, pluralism and independence, in democratic societies:

This year, 100 years since the momentous event of the 1916 Easter Rising, we are reminded of the importance of a free and democratic society and of the central role that journalism must play in the quest for a full and accountable democratic republic.

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