Freedom of speech by country
Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment. "Speech" is not limited to public speaking and is generally taken to include other forms of expression. The right is preserved in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations. Nonetheless, the degree to which the right is upheld in practice varies greatly from one nation to another. In many nations, particularly those with authoritarian forms of government, overt government censorship is enforced. Censorship has also been claimed to occur in other forms and there are different approaches to issues such as hate speech, obscenity, and defamation laws.
The following list is partially composed of the respective countries' government claims and does not fully reflect the de facto situation, however many sections of the page do contain information about the validity of the government's claims alongside said claims.
Certain sections of the Flag and Heraldic Code require particular expressions and prohibit other expressions.
[68]
Title thirteen of the criminalizes libel and slander by act or deed (slander by deed is defined as "any act ... which shall cast dishonor, discredit or contempt upon another person."), providing penalties of fine or imprisonment. In 2012, acting on a complaint by an imprisoned broadcaster who dramatised a newspaper account reporting that a particular politician was seen running naked in a hotel when caught in bed by the husband of the woman with whom he was said to have spent the night, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights ruled that the criminalization of libel violates freedom of expression and is inconsistent with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, commenting that "Defamations laws should not ... stifle freedom of expression" and that "Penal defamation laws should include defense of truth."[69][70]
Revised Penal Code of the Philippines
Blasphemy against decency and good customs is an offense which is punishable by a prison term, a fine, or both. Other offenses against decency and good customs include: public displays or exhibitions which glorify criminals or condone crimes, serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence, lust or pornography, offend any race or religion, tend to abet traffic in and use of prohibited drugs, and are contrary to law, public order, morals, and good customs, established policies, lawful orders, decrees and edicts; publishing or selling obscene literature; selling, giving away, or exhibiting films, prints, engravings, sculpture or literature which are offensive to morals; publicly expounding or proclaiming doctrines openly contrary to public morals; and highly scandalous conduct not expressly falling within any other article of the code.[72]
[71]
unauthorized handling of personal information (Article 180 of the Criminal Code), which protects the right to privacy,
[126]
defamation (Article 184 of the Criminal Code),
[127]
dissemination of pornography depicting disrespect to a human, abuse of an animal, or dissemination of any pornography to children (Article 191 of the Criminal Code),
[128]
seducing to use or propagation of use of addictive substances other than alcohol (Article 287 of the Criminal Code), which protects public health,
[129]
denigration of a nation, race, ethnic or other group of people (Article 355 of the Criminal Code), i.e. hate speech,
[130]
inciting of hatred towards a group of people or inciting limitation of their civil rights (Article 356 of the Criminal Code),
[131]
spreading of scaremongering information (Article 357 of the Criminal Code), e.g. fake bomb alerts,
[132]
public incitement of perpetration of a crime (Article 364 of the Criminal Code),
[133]
public approval of a felony crime (Article 365 of the Criminal Code),
[134]
public display of sympathy towards a movement oriented at curbing rights of the people (Article 404 of the Criminal Code), e.g. propagation of hate-groups,
[135]
public denial, questioning, endorsement or vindication of genocide (Article 405 of the Criminal Code), e.g. Holocaust denial,
[136]
incitement of an offensive war (Article 407 of the Criminal Code).
[137]
In 2002 Darren Lund, a professor at the , filed a complaint against Reverend Stephen Boissoin and the Concerned Christian Coalition with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, alleging that Boisson's letter to the Red Deer Advocate was "likely to expose homosexuals to hatred and/or contempt." The Alberta Human Rights Panel found that Boissoin and the Coalition had infringed the hate publication provision of the Alberta Human Rights Act.[283] The Panel ordered Boissoin and the Coalition to cease publishing disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals; to apologize to Lund; to pay $5,000 in damages to Lund; and to pay costs, up to $2,000.[284] The decision was overturned in 2009 when the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench found that the contents of the letter did not violate the hate publication provision of the Alberta Human Rights Act; that there was no evidence to support a finding against the Coalition; and that the remedies which had been imposed were either unlawful or unconstitutional.[285] The court's decision was upheld by the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2012.[286]
University of Calgary
In February 2006, Calgary leader Syed Soharwardy filed a human rights complaint against Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant. Levant was compelled to appear before the Alberta Human Rights Commission to discuss his intention in publishing the Muhammad cartoons. Levant posted a video of the hearing on YouTube. Levant questioned the competence of the commission to take up the issue, and challenged it to convict him, "and sentence me to the apology", stating that he would then take "this junk into the real courts, where eight hundred years of common law" would come to his aid. In February 2008, Soharwardy dropped the complaint noting that "most Canadians see this as an issue of freedom of speech, that that principle is sacred and holy in our society."[287][288]
Sufi Muslim
In May 2006, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities filed another human rights complaint against the Western Standard over the publishing of the cartoons. In August 2008, the Alberta Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint, stating that, "given the full context of the republication of the cartoons, the very strong language defining hatred and contempt in the case law as well as consideration of the importance of freedom of speech and the 'admonition to balance,' the southern director concludes that there is no reasonable basis in the information for this complaint to proceed to a panel hearing."
[289]
In 2007, the filed complaints filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, all related to an article "The Future Belongs to Islam", written by Mark Steyn, published in Maclean's magazine.[290] The complainants alleged that the article violated their human rights by exposing them to hatred, as did the refusal by Maclean's to provide space for a rebuttal. The complainants also claimed that the article was one of twenty-two Maclean's articles, many written by Steyn, about Muslims. The Ontario Human Rights Commission, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission all dismissed the complaints in spring 2008.[291][292][293][294]
Canadian Islamic Congress
In , human rights complaints were filed against Bill Whatcott alleging that four pamphlets he distributed in Regina and Saskatoon in 2002 promoted hatred against individuals based on their sexual orientation. The complaints were upheld in 2005 by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal, which ordered Whatcott to pay damages to each of the four complainants, totalling $17,500, and also ordered him not to publish similar pamphlets.[295] Whatcott appealed to the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench, which dismissed the appeal in 2007.[296] However, in February 2010, Whatcott succeeded in his appeal to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, which found that the pamphlets did not infringe the hate publication provision of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. Part of the judgment allowing his appeal commented that the pamphlets related to "... the manner in which children in the public school system are to be exposed to messages about different forms of sexuality and sexual identity." The judgment went to say: "This is beyond question an important matter of public policy and it is inherently controversial. It must always be open to public debate. That debate will sometimes be polemical and impolite."[297][298] The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.[299] In February 2013, the Court allowed the commission's appeal in Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission v Whatcott and held that, although Bible passages, biblical beliefs and the principles derived from those beliefs can be legally and reasonably advanced in public discourse, extreme manifestations of the emotion described by the words "detestation" and "vilification" cannot be.[300][301]
Saskatchewan
Press Freedom Index
Free Speech Movement
Freedom (political)
International Freedom of Expression Exchange
Media transparency
Linguistic rights
List of linguistic rights in African constitutions
List of linguistic rights in European constitutions
. Areopagitica: A speech of Mr John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England
Milton, John
. Free Speech For Me – But Not For Thee. How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other 1992Pietro Semeraro, L'esercizio di un diritto, Milano, ed. Giuffè, 2009.
Hentoff, Nat
International Freedom of Exchange
ARTICLE 19, Global Campaign for nudist freedom
Index on Censorship
International PEN
Committee to Protect Journalists
International Federation of Journalists
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media
Arab Press Freedom Watch
International Press Institute
– Canadian Charter of Rights website with video, audio and the Charter in over 20 languages
Fundamental Freedoms: The Charter of Rights and Freedoms
in the New York Times, 22 September 2012