(00:00:00) For those of you who have not read some of the material on Professor Boyle. I like to start by quoting from an article that we ran in the Star Tribune a couple Winters ago. It was a pickup from an article in the Globe and Mail and it began this way. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression the United Nations General Assembly optimistically stated in Article 19 of the universal Declaration of Human Rights 40 years ago, but saying it hasn't made it so said Kevin boil the executive director of the london-based Article 19, which monitors censorship and takes its name from that declaration later in the article. It mentions that Article 19 models itself on Amnesty International what that Nobel prize-winning agency has done for political prisoners Article 19 hopes to do for the controversial thoughts for controversial thoughts in words. Henry Kissinger of whom I'm not a super fan has said and talked often about aligning oneself with great purposes in great causes and I would say there is no greater purpose or greater cause than that, which Article 19 has been established to Champion. Professor Boyles topic today is freedom of expression in the developing world. He founded Article 19 the International Center on censorship in 1986 Article 19 as the as the newspaper article. I just read said is a london-based international organization established to protect freedom of expression and defend victims of censorship worldwide. Another little point in that article. There was a quote from Professor Boyle for which I felt great Affinity because he was talking about defending victims of censorship and the article mentioned that racist and pornographers also are among the targets of censure by those who might call themselves liberals and as somebody who at the newspaper business were often defending censorship against some things that we don't wouldn't don't actually prefer Professor boils quoted. They're saying it would be nice to get a better class of clients prefer Professor Boyle said with a smile, but we're doing this for principle and I felt great affinity for that particular quote. Professor Boyle served as the founding director of Article 19 from 1986 to 1989 and the University of Minnesota materials. It mentions that Professor boils topic is especially timely because it coincides with the one-year anniversary of Salman rushdie's threatened execution Article 19 played a leading role in creating the international center for the defense of Salman Rushdie a composed of 1000 writers from around the world Professor Boyle was born in Northern Ireland and educated at Queen's University Belfast Cambridge and Yale, we're impressed with the former to but we're not so sure about the latter of those. Former dean of the faculty of law University College Galway Ireland from 1978 to 1986 this article again that I referred to in the Star Tribune referred to him as a soft-spoken lawyer, which would be if true a delight in this day and age currently professor professor of law at the University of Essex and director of the University's human rights Center Professor Boyle has been active in the Civil Rights Campaign in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and the 1970s and continues to work for the peaceful resolution there. He has written extensively on Ireland Ireland and on global human rights issues. He serves as a barrister-at-law arguing cases before the European Commission of human rights in Strasbourg, and he has undertaken missions for Amnesty International most recently in Somalia. Thank you very much Roger. It's one of the perks of the journeyman academic that one has time and the opportunity to travel across continents to other centers of learning to renew friendships exchange information ideas and a word to enjoy full freedom of expression. and it's a particular joy to be in Minnesota and the Twin Cities because seen from outside this country uniquely in these United States there has developed here and cooperation between ton gone between University and community that has taken the form of working for the advancement of Human Rights not on a local or a national basis, but on a global scale The human rights Center had adopted by Professor weisbrod the Humphrey Institute through the MacArthur program for peace and international cooperation. the lawyers international human rights committee of Minnesota and project tandem which works for tolerance for religious diversity in the world together seemed to me to present an extraordinary Testament to the potential of full citizenship exercised in Freedom for a better world. And there is a particular personal reason for my pleasure being here and did returning here to Minnesota because when I took up my post as founding director of Article 19 that Roger hasn't explained to you the non-governmental organization working for freedom of expression in the world my first opportunity on my appointment to discuss my priorities to sharpen. My theory was in the company or as the context of the seminar put on by Professor wise, but at the human rights center now three years later, I'm in the somewhat less hectic roller have the Summers somewhat less hectic role as a law teacher and I'm able to think a little more about the nature of this vital freedom freedom of expression Freedom, which was termed in the early years of the United Nations in a memorable resolution as the Touchstone of all freedoms to which the United Nations. (00:06:39) consecrated (00:06:44) as we meet our efforts are being made to bring food to three to four million people in Eritrea and Tigre cut off by the Ethiopian Civil War. Of what relevance is the right to freedom of expression to these victims of famine? The obvious answer is none. The answer to starvation is food not speech but there is a less obvious answer which does not gainsay the need for relief. And a world response to avoid another Ethiopian tragedy such as in 1985. I would approach that will argue that freedom of expression has indeed a central relevance. If we are to avoid famine for the future and to ensure sustainable development policies in the poorest countries this week in London Article 19 has published a study. Which explores the relationship between famine and censorship? It argues that censorship has caused famine and the censorship has contributed to the delay in the relief response to famine with resultant large-scale and avoidable death from starvation. The study by Article 19 takes as case studies China's famine in 1959 261 and the three famines of the 1980s in the Horn of Africa in the countries of Sudan and Ethiopia. The report does not deny that the major and precipitating factors for famine include rain failure and crop loss but it argues in these studies that political factors National and international ensured the suppression of information which played a critical role in the scale of the starvation and death that Natural Factors had precipitated the study contrasts how another and huge developing country. India has responded to drought and threatened famine particularly in the 1980s while India has experienced famine in the past. The report argues that the reality of an independent, press at national and local level and the accountability that publicity can produce because of regular Democratic elections has ensured governmental preparedness in particular through the building of national buffer stocks of food. The Article 19 report starving and silence notes that the accessibility of reliable government information to the press and to local political Representatives about crop but crops in the areas of famine vulnerability constitutes a highly effective system of early warning of potential disaster to quote. The report famine is a subject of enduring interest among the general population in India. It has become a topic of national importance in the way that interest rates are discussed in Europe and the United States the independent press coverage is both a cause and an effect of that interest which contrasts vividly with the role of the media in the other countries (00:10:13) analyzed To (00:10:16) quote the report again government's like those of you theop has Sudan and China sensor information on famine in order to protect the national pride and most importantly to forestall any political Channel challenge to the government's Authority this can and does lead to more loss of (00:10:34) life. (00:10:37) The scale of death and suffering from hunger and malnutrition throughout the third world and the conditions of poverty that causes the Scandal must surely be without any question the challenge to face both the developing and the developed world. Every week every week one quarter of a million children die in the third world from infection and malnutrition unlike the case of famine. all of this death all of this misery is preventable. There is increasing recognition. Of the need to bring together the Heather to separate concerns of development policy and human rights in an approach that emphasizes human rights in development. My thesis ladies and gentlemen is that the right to freedom of expression is the bridge that can make such an integration of development work policy and study and human rights successful. Freedom of expression is the right which links the individual to the economic and social conditions and the political system and it is the right which makes it possible to challenge and ultimately change conditions and political systems for the better. Freedom of expression is part of the deep structure of democracy. A year ago when I mooted this topic to David Wise but it did not seem so obvious as it may strike you now to argue for Democratic policies of development the extraordinary revolutions, which have swept Eastern Europe in which people have struggled successfully to end. The Suffocation of censorship has made the proposition that democracy and development are one almost trite in the workshop for the MacArthur fellows held yesterday. I had the opportunity to develop draw out the lessons from the collapse of marxism-leninism for my particular theme. I cannot develop it in full here. But just just to make some of the key points that my my paper my paper (00:13:01) makes (00:13:04) What was implemented in Eastern Europe since the 1940s and in the Soviet Union since the revolution in 1917 was a theory of development. It was a theory that disparaged. Individual human rights in the pursuit in the belief in the pursuit of Economic Development. It was a theory that disparaged in particular the right to freedom of expression and it was a theory that (00:13:39) failed. (00:13:42) The second point of relevance from the events in Eastern Europe from my theme. concerns the power of information The crucial event that has led to a more optimistic world was the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in (00:14:03) 1985. (00:14:06) He recognized and his advisers that the political and economic Transformations that the Soviet Union had to undertake to survive need it Freedom of Information needed an end to the tight control of ideas and criticism exercised for so long in the name of the party. Glass lost was to be and has proved to be the source of energy for perestroika. The restructuring is inconceivable looking back since now back to 1985 restructuring is inconceivable without the frankly quite amazing openness certainly compared with Britain that has developed in the Soviet Union. A few years ago in the gdr in the German Democratic Republic incredible as it may now signed the Honaker regime actually censored Pravda newspaper from the south of the Moscow paper. The paper was suddenly not available citizens had to queue up at the Soviet Embassy to read what Gorbachev was saying. But they had another source of information. That the regime could do nothing about. Neither the Berlin Wall nor the minefields On the Border could prevent the West German television and radio broadcasts from being watched and listened to in the most parts of East Germany and understood in the common language. Some regimes particularly the bloodiest Romania did succeed for years in constant in creating total censorship in Romania censorship was developed into the requirement of constant Praise of sesker. It wasn't enough to keep your thoughts to yourself. You had to speak out the correct thoughts one particular memory of that regime now dismissed to the Dustbin of History which comes to my mind as I was writing. This was the explanation of a Soviet Diplomat who attended at the dictators last performance just the at last fall at the Party Conference where in the typical five and a half hour speech of praise to himself this Diplomat stood up no less than 50 times to applaud the speech and he said rather pathetically later. Well, everyone else was doing it. So I didn't feel I had any option. I further lesson from Eastern Europe. Is that in the long run? There is no security in repression. And that is some common to make some hope because of our memories our awareness of what happened. Last June in Tiananmen Square in China. The collapse of the regime in Eastern Europe has exposed the fruits of the denial of Human Rights bankrupt economies, widespread pollution and ecological disaster corruption secret police and people scarred by years of denial of freedom of speech the collapse of these undemocratic systems demonstrates, the linkage between censorship and the abuse of power it also demonstrates the falsity of the traditional claim of the Eastern European socialist states that freedom of expression on the Press were Bourgeois rights were empty of substance and that the rewrites were the economic and social rights of the workers guaranteed by the state. The truth is that neither were guaranteed our can be without each other. For the third world the relevance of events and Eastern Europe. Is that as I say what has collapsed is a theory of development a theory that argued for the disjuncture between the development of socialist man and the need for individual rights. It is now clear that such a disassociation is the road to tyranny and the Tyranny is among inimical to the development needs of the poor of the world. This is not an attack on socialism. It is not attack on the subordination of the individual personality two systems of ideas, which the individual is not free to change or shape through Democratic participation. The lessons to be drawn from Eastern Europe by Third World developing States apply to those that claim to be capitalist as much as those those who claim to be socialists the pursuit of development policies through an elite whether the military a party Clan or tribal group linked to a repressive political structure has proved a bankrupt strategy for development the effects of such policies in the third world Latin America Asia, and Africa are plain to be seen the need is For a different theory of development that is based on human rights not an opposition to Human Rights and at the heart of such a policy it is my contention is the protection of freedom of opinion and expression sustainable development requires participation by the population participation requires respect for people's opinions and the acceptance of the freedom of the media to analyze and criticize governmental proposals the freedom of the media to disseminate ideas that differ from govern government policy and the acceptance that through open debate policies can be both improved and legitimated. The relevance of this thinking to the poorest continent Africa has recently been made in an important report from the World Bank that I should just like to mention this report. Sub-Saharan Africa from crisis to sustainable growth sets out in startling terms. The Christ is now facing the 45 independent African States below the Sahara while much has been achieved in the 30 years since Independence and these countries the Stark truth is that Africa is almost as poor as it today as it was at Independence. There has been an enormous population growth. And Independence in the 60s decolonization. The population was 100 million. It is now 450 million and it is expected to be 1.1 billion in the year 2020. The total gross domestic product for this entire region of 400 myth 50 million 50 million people is 135 billion. Our dollars are no more than that of Belgium. No more than the the country of Belgium, which is a population of 10 million inhabitants. The report calls for new policies of human-centered development and it argues powerfully in my opinion that without a democratic system new policies cannot work in that puts the point baldly underlying the Litany of Africa's development problems is a crisis of governance by Governors has meant the exercise of political power to manage our nation's Affairs because countervailing power has been lacking State officials in many countries have served their own interests without fear of being called to account the leadership assumes broad discretionary Authority and loses its legitimacy information is controlled and voluntary organizations are co-opted or disbanded at worst. The state becomes coercive and arbitrary. this environment cannot readily support a dynamic economy a different outcome requires a systematic effort to build a pluralistic industry institutional structure and determination to respect the rule of law and vigorous protection of the freedom of the press and human rights. The World Bank report equally pointedly notes that the two most successful economies in that region Botswana and Mauritius have effect of parliamentary democracies and a vigorous Free Press are these quotations from the report are obviously selected to emphasize a point the report acknowledges the success of development policies to date it acknowledges the enormous problems Jen created by rapid population growth and outside economic factors. It calls for more sensitive economic restructuring policies policies largely being implemented at the behest of the World Bank and the international monetary fund. It does note the enormous debts, not only of Africa but the entire third world but it does not mention the scale of transfers of interest payments, which the poorest countries of the world paid to the developed and Rich Nations an estimated Thirty billion dollars in 1988. the report also might have also noted but did not the contribution of superpower competition in Africa not least the region I'm mostly concerned with in the Horn of Africa the competition between the superpowers the contribution of those that competition to the maintenance and the arming of dictatorships which use huge military budgets provided to them to repress their own people, but why responsibility for the failure of development and for the implementation of new policies are shared between the North and the South of the world the argument here must be firmly adhered to Development in this fool sense is not only about economic targets of growth. It's about the human qualities. of life respect for human rights is both the means and the end to all development. My last thing that I want to touch on briefly arising from our Workshop. Concerns Reflections on the freedom of the right to freedom of expression itself. I have not time to elaborate on the history of the right perhaps it'll emergent questions. But in this Century the first efforts to Define freedom of expression as an international right begin with the eloquent language of the universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19, which has not dated since it's a proclamation in 1948. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of Frontiers. In the early years of the United Nations efforts were made to give this General Norm definition some greater specificity. Initially at the proposal of the United States a conference on Freedom of Information was called at the United Nations in 1949. This did good work in preparing a draft convention on Freedom of Information a code of conduct for journalists and a u.s. Particular sponsored convention on international news Gathering. Sadly these efforts to strengthen the central at Central right of freedom of expression on the international level come to not the Cold War and deep division between Soviets the Soviets and the United States over the meaning of freedom and definitions of censorship scuppered progress. The point I make in my paper is that it may now be time in the new international atmosphere to return to the subject of the better protection at the international level and the elaborate of freedom of expression and the elaboration of what it means in detail. Once since the 1940s the issue has been raised in the 1970s under the auspices of UNESCO. This time the real conflict was between Western countries and the third world. There is not again time to review the bitter controversy over what became known as the new world information order which led indeed and part led to the withdrawal from UNESCO of the United States the basic concern in these debates about information at the international level between the developed and developing world was the indisputable reality that information flow in the world is overwhelming the north-south not south-north. The developing world is concerned about the imbalance in information and in the control of information between the North and the South and has called for measures to balance the flow. The resistance of Western Nations to this concept in the world information order draft with World information and communication order as it now is is perceived by the non-aligned and developing nations as in reality are concerned by will the Western countries to maintain what the developing World calls the media dependency of the third world through the dominance of transnational multimedia Enterprises the new capital of information and communication (00:28:18) Technologies. (00:28:21) The Western countries on the other hand have seen in the Socialist and unaligned support for the notion of a balance flow of information as endorsement for international censorship and the compliant national press. Even before the provided events of the last year there was some evidence in the debates of the committee on information in the United Nations that the extreme positions adopted by both west and south can be modified and there may be some ground to stand together on the posture that state sovereignty over information the position of many third world countries formerly in any rate. That that sovereignty over information guarantees freedom to communicate is quite clearly discredited in the events. We have seen in Eastern Europe State control of the media lead leads to censorship and the destruction of (00:29:21) expression (00:29:23) but the recognition now General in the world of the need for a market economy does not mean that information is a commodity like any other the rights of the receivers of information are not simply commercial. There is a public interest in the role of information in a Democratic Society. There is a public interest in the independence of journalists, not only from State control, but from commercial pressures as well. And there is a public interest to link this fight. These final points to my theme. There is a public interest in questions of media concentration, which threatened diversity nationally and internationally developing countries with poor media infrastructures and capacities legitimately raised concern over the effects of Western imported television entertainment and advertizing which puts enormous strain on traditional culture languages and on efforts to assert economic self-reliance, which is in harmony with indigenous cultures. The right of access to means of communication is not only a concern in the third world in the developed world the rapid National and international concentration of ownership of all forms of media has led to new concern about new forms of self-censorship. The new phase of communication technology is having global and unclear consequences. There is an indisputable need in my view to seek International responses to ensure that this technology does not threaten the fullest flow of information and ideas are undermine Democratic development that is being encouraged through development policies in the third world. My view is that a return of the United States to UNESCO would be a first step in a new effort to seek to find the international consensus necessary to resolve some of these issues. a ladies and gentlemen two weeks ago the journalists Farzad bazoft paid for these freedoms that we have been discussing with his life. He was hanged in Iraq after a Military Tribunal held in camera convicted him of spying. I will finish with some words that mourn him from an Iraqi port and Exile now beagle janabi. From a poem intern that earned him five years imprisonment in his homeland. The word will continue to fly all over the world. No power can ban it or stop it from landing at any airport for the word is a bird that needs no entry visa for freedom for democracy. Thank you very much. Those you have questions. We'll put them on cards and they will pick those up while he's doing that. I took some notes and thought I'd write F and I have the podium. So I'll ask start out with asking a question and journalist always try to take you off your main points. I'm going to take you off and then maybe we'll come back to it. Did I hear you say and and if you did would you comment on this that I hear you say in your marks that you thought there was more openness in the Soviet Union today than there is in Britain and and if so, would you elaborate on that some? Yes, I thought came to my mind was typically Irish is not in my script. In a conference in a conference that I put on or a press conference to announce a challenge in the European human rights under the European Human Rights Convention to the British government's ban are gag on the television from reporting the speech of a number of Irish organizations including Sinn Fein. I was interviewed by someone from Tass the first occasion. I remember that a supporter ever turned up to any press conference. I hadn't ever been involved in and he asked me did I think that mr. Gorbachev was going one way and mrs. Thatcher was going the other so I agreed that that was the case. I think a major problem in Britain is not that it is not a liberal democracy and but that it does not take its freedom seriously and that without legal protection which is lacking constitutional written protection of these freedoms. There is a tendency to think of them as residual freedoms. That's to say whatever's Left over after all other interests and pressures are looked after that. We call freedom of expression. It does not in the legal structure of Britain have the priority that I believe and many others believe that it should have if Britain is to continue to deserve its reputation as the mother of the markussi. So if I could interpret you you think there's a real Challenge and things to be done in England, but you wouldn't say that it is that there is more there's less freedom of (00:34:40) expression and England and there is in Russia is that (00:34:45) Well II think I mean one of the points about Article 19 is in the past that really didn't get involved in horizontal comparisons. I think there is remarkable openness in the Soviet Union in areas that there is little openness in in the United Kingdom nevertheless the Press open this in the you know in the Soviet Union is inspired from the top for a purpose as I was arguing. I think before one can be satisfied with statement that press freedom and expression is secured in the Soviet Union one wants to see Independent Media and their independence from government guaranteed and that is in contemplation in a new press code. I'm going to read this without having read previously. So it says here in a capitalist system such as the u.s. Do we have freedom of expression if the media we're not going to continue with this question a lot and if the media and what is printed or published in the media, Controlled by money interests, or is it freedom of expression when it is published in mainstream thought and not Divergent thought. Well, let you interpret that (00:35:56) question. Okay, thank you. (00:35:58) Well, I'm not going to get drawn into an argument over whether freedom of expression is inimical inimical to capitalism or enemy called the socialism the position that Article 19 would take is that freedom of expression is a right which transcends ideology and that political systems legitimate political systems place a good deal of respect and regard for this freedom. I think that it is a simplistic to equate State control of all information with the effects that market forces have in a country like the United States where you have constant increasing concentration of ownership of the means of communication private means of information communication nevertheless. There is a clear risk. To a central element of expression which is in the question, which is the plurality and diversity of view. There is a clear risk if all media becomes concentrated in too few hands and if commercial policy of media owners begins to dictate editorial content, I think there's an undoubted issue there and one that needs to be confronted for myself the solution must lie in it's a big word the democratization of communication which it seems to me it is an agenda item. Not only for the United States democracy, but many other countries as well. Okay, here's one. It says please elaborate about issues surrounding censorship being based on cultural differences, especially in regard to differences between North America and Latin America. Please elaborate the the reality is that if one looks to the formal Norms of most of the Constitution's of the Latin democracies, they in fact are more even more adamant about the centrality of freedom of the press and freedom of expression down is the United States which has the first amendment, of course on much judicial elaboration of the meaning of that the contradiction in Latin America, as we know is between these constitutions which are very positive in their guarantees of freedom of expression and the reality of censorship and dictatorship. I personally am not impressed with the argument that the differences north-south in this particular hemisphere are linked to cultural factors at all. I think they're linked to other factors which have led to the rise of dictatorship, but that there is no evidence in what might be termed and I'm no expert in this but it's no evidence with I can see in the work that I've ever done it in Latin American countries to suggest that they are more prone or they devalue or have put less and try ality on freedom of expression. Then the North America. I think the answers lie elsewhere. I think also the point can be made that there is clear evidence where you have dictatorship and censorship that economic and social progress has also been retarded and I believe that one of the Great Essence of change in the world has also been in Latin America where there has been a reversal of many collapse of many dictatorships in the ending of many dictatorships. And if you look at chili, I mean clear celebration of the return to democracy. However concerned one might be about a certain gentleman in the military headquarters and his powers the the the clear celebration of that is in the possibility of people's ability to speak freely openly without fear. So I don't really think that there is any major difference between the two between the two sets of cultures in terms of the centrality they place on the notion of freedom. Will you comment on the lack of attention to women and women's issues worldwide? I think it's very good question and it's not really so much a question as one I want are in response to it one affirms that the yes quite clearly Communications whether indeed they be State controlled in the past and the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe or independent have reflected the reality of a power realities and power realities in the world are that women have played subordinate roles economic roles and social roles and political roles and that is reflected in the media. There is interestingly particular concern now in my readings on new development policy in the third world to emphasize indeed that Important role that women can play in economic production and in agriculture in development in leadership in the third world the whole if you look at development policies from the 19th as I understand it in the 1960s until now women were invisible in the third work, even though in the context of world illiteracy a good 60 percent of the illiterate are women. So I support the notion of more attention and concern with gender questions with reflection of what's called in northern Europe the second generation equality statutes moving away from Simply the denial or denial of sex discrimination or the outlawing of sex discrimination to more positive policies to ensure equality. in all senses between men and women This is something I missed. I'm regret to say so it says here that Michigan has passed the law undermining the United States first amendment corporations cannot spend money to disseminate quotes corrosive ideas and quote median in the state has not complained media is exempt. Would you comment please? I have just I just read about this case. I haven't seen this particular decision of the Supreme Court which concerned limiting the political speech possibilities of Corporations other than media corporations. It does seem to me quite alarming. I have to say the what I find about it rather interesting is that sometimes abroad some of your representatives United States media Representatives tend to project a rather extreme free-market model for the United States try to tend to equate a total free market with economic the economic model as the best model for ensuring Freedom of Information in many countries in Western Europe. The state does not hesitate to interfere. Particularly Western Europe to interfere to prevent for example media media concentration limiting the the limiting the market in ensuring that diversity is not threatened by the concentration of ownership of means of communication and here it seems to me you have an illustration of the United States Supreme Court saying that state regulation of media freedom is not necessarily censorship. I would like that kind of question to be raised again at the international level as I said and to have an open discussion about the role of the state are about how one I want ensures responsible media how one rashers ensures a diverse media how one ensures access not only to by women, but minority groups to the media in a way that does not threaten the freedoms. Start a reality in the 1940s where the Soviet Union was particularly concerned with propaganda brought out two contrasting theories the Soviet view that Nazi propaganda and propaganda for war should be controlled by the state the American view the traditional View and one that has served America very well that the best answer to bad speech is more speech and therefore the answer to propaganda was even open or open policies on information and it was only collapse on the failure to bridge that Gulf the whole Freedom of Information information debate ended in the 1940s. So without going into the details on this case, it seems to me that it does put an issue the question that it is not necessarily certainly one can say it's not necessarily unconstitutional to look to regulate in Access or information in some larger interest of ensuring diversity, and that must be an answer. Must be relevant to those I think rather extreme positions which claimed that a wholesale free market is the only way it is served America very well, but I'm not sure that it is the way in the international Arena to ensure answers to the imbalances problems the problems of power the problems of gender. Here's a timely question how hopeful are you that Salman Rushdie will see his death red lifted and and if so how soon can it result from anything outside of internal Iranian politics. In other words what can be done effectively from outside Iran? well Just last November. the present Pope finally got around. to acknowledging that Galileo Galilei was right. and that the insistence In the 17th century 16th century that he should retract his theory. That the Earth went around the Sun moved around the Sun as heresy had been wrong. Obviously, I hope that Salman Rushdie will not have to wait that long. For some relief from his extraordinary predicament. I believe that the issue raised by the book. the interface between respect for belief on people's right to have respect for their beliefs and freedom of the imagination is again a major new agenda item in the world, but I do not believe that the fatwa the khomeini's edict was imposed. To reflect this particular problem. It was in fact an opportunist political Affair in which interests in Iran managed to persuade our had or got the Ayatollah Khomeini to make his statement make his extraordinary denunciation and the death sentence and therefore that had to do with political forces within Iran. I still believe that those who believe in both freedom of religion and freedom of expression must maintain pressure on Iran to ensure some modification are ending of that particular edict the the I do not believe that action outside and the sense of action and Britain withdrawing the paperback are not proceeding with the paperback will have any impact on this problem at all that it has to be a central question of the Iranian State facing the fact that it is illegal in international law to pronounce and to incite the death of a citizen of another country without trial or Justice. We have a lot of good questions. You were running short on time. I'm going to I love doing with strategy. So I'm going to have this is a broad question, but maybe we can make a quick answer. What do you see as the key strategies for bringing freedom of expression to censored (00:49:39) societies. (00:49:45) Well, I think the most important and the most important means is the creation of what's called in the jargon intermediate space in censored Societies. In other words the right of groups to organize the right of non-governmental groups to organize and the right of media to be independent of government to have space to criticize government. I have no objections to government newspapers as long as there's also non-government newspapers. I have no objection to state-controlled broadcasting as long as there's a another point if you available so I would see those two as key issue key ways of responding to censorship within countries won the freedom of people to organize because freedom of Association the right to strike if you like is the freedom of expression of the working class freedom of Association Freedom autonomy of organizations and freedom. The media are Central to ensuring the feet the ending of censorship the ending of censorship in censored countries. Let me try another one here. We're dragging you into our local debates here. Do you think that the speech of a racist and other hate groups should be limited? If so, what conditions would you place on freedom of expression? Well, as a matter of fact, I'm dealing with a very interesting case at the moment arising out of program involving a Danish television company, which broadcast a investigation of the skinhead Group which had an ideological bag including its commitment to the Southern Cross and Klu Klux Klan whatever in which in this particular broadcast this group made some quite obviously racist remarks and the the station has been convicted of aiding and abetting their incitement to hatred. So that's being challenged on the ground that the motive of the television the purpose of the program which was to in inform people about the reality of racism ought to take priority in this particular case and it ought to be relevant in the decision as to whether or not they promoted racist speech. I'll avoid the question in this way by saying that certainly the American model. all of freedom of expression as I say has served it well But the International System as it has developed a date and is likely to develop it will have a clear acceptance of the limitation of freedom of expression where it involves the promotion of theories of racial discrimination or the advocacy of race hatred that is the international law at the moment. The problem as ever is to somehow harmonize respect for minorities and respect for the rights of others to privacy with the importance of Freedom of Information. I don't believe that the American solution if you like which is really to put all the priority on Freedom of Information is likely to be the international solution and I will live with a solution to these two balancing these rights which emerges out of an international consensus and open debate and accepted by the broadly by the many countries in the world Please always beware of questions to start with please discuss. It sounds like the blue book questions, right, please discuss freedom of expression and information in the Middle East particularly focusing on Israeli censorship of international media coverage of the West Bank and Gaza repression of Palestinian media and the new forms of communication arising out of the intifada, for example wall, graffiti symbols and drawings and paintings other subtle methods of expression circulation of pamphlets etcetera. I told her the article 19 with an organization in New York called the committee to protect journalists two years ago did publish a major study on censorship in the West Bank called journalism under occupation and undoubtedly, there is and has been Justified on Military grounds. And in many cases in our view questionable in international law priests prior censorship of Palestinian newspapers, whether published in East Jerusalem, there are the censorship was less or within the Gaza or the West Bank not only has there been censorship of newspapers. There has been also an effort to control the Palestinian type pill estate Palestinian culture where our information of who were pamphlets books that involved. The study even celebration of Palestinian identity have been stopped and prevent it from coming into these countries this censorship. I do not believe we condemned it is acceptable. There has also been efforts to prevent the transmission of artistic to jam television and radio in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip the truth, of course must also be made well has to be said that there is a part from Kuwait. No Arab state that takes these freedoms seriously at all, but that is not other than for stated other one for context. It does not take away from the reality that the Israel has used control of Freedom of Information as a part of its overall military policy. And therefore you return to your position what position people's take people take on the military policies in the occupied occupied. Is Article 19 has consistently condemned the arrest and the deportation of journalists the destruction of newspaper offices the detention without trial of John flick of particularly journalists and and will conduct and will continue to do so, we have sought interviews with the Israeli authorities in London where we are based to try to communicate to them are concerns about what are quite obviously open violations of freedom of expression the most recent one which in fact I raised in the longer version of this paper that you haven't heard is the decision by the Israeli authorities to impose a blackout on information on the immigration of Russian. Russian Jews to Israel. Some people think This is because there is a policy to settle the new people on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The government says that the policy has been introduced to for security reasons because this this this flow of people and we there's some evidence to this are at risk from Arab Arab groups who are opposed to policies of the Israeli government that raises one enormous dilemma in the censorship area that last particular area, which is the question of to what extent you can justify control of information for National emergencies our national security and I think the product the that is more difficult than the straightforward situation of censorship as I see it which is not which is not legitimate in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.