Tag Archives: Free speech

These World Leaders Are a Worse Threat to Free Press Than Terrorism

These World Leaders Are a Worse Threat to Free Press Than Terrorism

Andy Cush

On Sunday, 3.7 million people gathered all over France to mourn the lives of those killed in last week’s Charlie Hebdo attack. It was almost a moving collective stand for freedom of expression in the face of terror and fear—except that its most prominent supporters are much greater threats to a free press than terrorism.

As the non-profit Reporters Without Borders noted on Sunday, and as London School of Economics Middle East Society co-president Daniel Wickham elaborated in a widely disseminated series of tweets, the world leaders given prominent photo-op placement at the Paris rally are not only free-press hypocrites—they’re by any measure worse threats to the world-changing possibilities of a free press than a couple terrorists with guns.

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Free speech

I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.