The Daily Beast: U.K.’s Crackdown on Anti-Royal Protests Makes U.S. Free Speech Look Good

British police are using a new law meant to curb Black Lives Matter and environment protests—to stop citizens from “disrespecting” the monarchy. “Who elected him?” Shouting these three words led to the arrest of Symon Hill, a British republican activist in Oxford at a coronation ceremony parade of (now) King Charles III. Hill was arrested (although later de-arrested, which is a […]

WBUR: The history of the price of free speech

Author Salman Rushdie spent years hiding because Iran’s religious leaders wanted him dead for a book they didn’t like. Rushdie remained a fierce defender of free speech. In 2015, when gunmen killed 12 at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, he spoke out. WBUR is a nonprofit news organization. Our coverage relies on your financial support. If […]

StrasbourgObserver: A joke-telling lawyer: The case of Simic v. Bosnia and Herzegovina

Introduction In May this year, the Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held unanimously that holding a lawyer in contempt of court for a ‘caustic’ and ‘sarcastic’ comments amounted to a violation of his Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) right to freedom of expression. Facts In […]

New York Daily News: The larger legacy of Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’

The most surprising thing about the cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution in New York is that it has taken more than 30 years for a fired-up fundamentalist to get to Rushdie. Since Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa in February 1989, ordering all Muslims to kill Rushdie, the list of people attacked or […]