Freedom of Speech and Press

my theme is the question is there a US death squad?  I write about CIA assassination of honestly elected foreign leaders and of course the North American mafia make war against other families over territory.  I limit my list to only those cases with hard evidence or someone was scheduled to testify in court , at a grand jury, or at a Congressional investigative committee.

Esta obra es fruto de una perplejidad. En Chile se vivió con pasión el debate en torno a la libertad de expresión al retornar la democracia. Debate que estuvo alimentado por formas de limitación de la libertad de expresión que se arrastraban desde la época de la dictadura militar y, aún antes, como de cierta interpretación que dominaba los tribunales superiores de justicia en la relación de esta libertad con otros derechos, como la honra o la privacidad.

Con la dictación de las Leyes Nº 19.733 –Ley sobre Ejercicio del Periodismo– y Nº 20.285 –sobre Acceso a la Información Pública–, lo que estuvo acompañado a la vez de un cambio de espíritu de la jurisprudencia de los tribunales superiores de justicia en torno a su aproximación del derecho a la libertad de expresión, gran parte del debate amainó y la preocupación intelectual de los años 90 tendió a ceder lugar en favor de otro orden de intereses.

La reflexión en torno a la libertad de expresión quedo así postergada, si no olvidada.

Las nuevas tecnologías de la información, unidas a la nueva legislación en materia de medios de comunicación como en materia de derecho a la información, hacen imperativo volver a reflexionar acerca del problema de la libertad de expresión al tenor de los desafíos de la época, adoptando una aproximación que intenta distanciarse de una apreciación puramente liberal de esta garantía constitucional.

En este contexto, el libro se propone ser sencillo como complejo, al intentar entregar las herramientas pedagógicas necesarias para entender –en concreto y en abstracto– la libertad de expresión, el derecho a la comunicación y el acceso a la información. Al mismo tiempo, los autores no dudan en asumir el desafío crítico de profundizar en cuestiones de derecho que el jurista sabrá apreciar, y que dan cuenta de las tareas que aún están pendientes en Chile en materia de libertad de expresión.

The Internet may be free, but service provider’s indispensable to access services are not, to the extent that while the complexity and burden of the sites increases, it is becoming more and more expensive to surf the net. Blocking access under the guise of protecting us from offensive or sexually explicit content, to pages, chat rooms, newsgroups and other Web options is not anymore an excuse, but a lie. Government surveillance in the Internet, uncontrolled practices of data harvesting and restriction of free speech, open discussion of issues and even political activism has spread in the last 20 years to include countries that are considered democracies such as the U.S. Internet has become a battleground of power and therefore become increasingly militarized.

Until the 1960s, governmental limits on speech and expression,
particularly around issues of pornography and obscenity, were
common. These restrictions were enacted to reinforce a set of
standards that had broad support among the American people.
Since the 1960s, we have seen a great expansion of the right to
free speech and expression. Today, however, the libertarian consensus has fractured. The new censorship that favors regulating
hate speech confronts the underlying premises of the old censorship. Rather than comparing and contrasting the libertarian position with the censorship of hate speech position, as is so often
done, in this article, I will compare and contrast two pro-censorship
positions, one group favoring the censorship of hate speech, the
other favoring the censorship of pornography and obscenity. My
purpose is not to advocate for censorship. Rather, my idea is to
examine and explain the different rationales that exist in the two
opposing approaches to censorship, to better judge the merits of
censorship and free speech.

Үндсэн хуулийн 16.16-д үзэл бодлоо чөлөөтэй илэрхийлэх болон хэвлэн нийтлэх эрх чөлөөг анх удаа баталгаажуулсан. Эдгээр эрх чөлөө нь туйлын эрх чөлөө биш ч эдгээрийг хязгаарласан аливаа зохицуулалт нь Үндсэн хуулийн гол нөхцөлийг хангах шаардлагатай. Эрүүгийн хуулиар эсхүл Зөрчлийн тухай хуулиар доромжлол, гүтгэлгийг гэмт хэрэгт тооцож шийтгэх нь үндсэн эрхийг хязгаарлахад тавигдах эдгээр гол нөхцөлийн нэг болох тохирсон (зайлшгүй) байх зарчмыг хангадаггүй. Иймд, алдар хүндийг Эрүүгийн хууль эсхүл Зөрчлийн хуулиар бус харин зөвхөн Иргэний хуулиар хамгаалахад хангалттай.  Иргэний хуулийн холбогдох зохицуулалтыг үзэл бодлоо илэрхийлэх болон хэвлэн нийтлэх эрх чөлөөнд нийцүүлэн шинэчлэхгүй бол болохгүй.

Nowadays, with new technologies like the internet we have more opportunities than ever to express our opinions and ways of thinking to a large amount of people. And that can be an extraordinary thing. We can denounce injustices, learn new things, share information and promote positive changes in society. But it can also be used to promote hate, to spread false information and to cause harm to people, among other things. So, the following question arises: should there be limits to freedom of speech? And, more specifically, should there be restrictions to freedom of speech on the internet? The ethical dilemma I will address on this essay is if freedom of speech is affecting other values, such as human dignity, respect, empathy and truth, and if free speech is effectively more valuable in society than this other values. Ultimately, this essay is not made to propose certain legislations to implement restrictions to freedom of speech, it is only to reflect and discuss the ethical problem that too much freedom of speech on the internet has become. I think this is an important topic because we currently live in a world that evolves faster in a technological matter than the laws and institutions can keep up with. And, though this advancements provide great benefits to humankind, they also pose threats that should be addressed.

The global outburst after a series of arrests, detentions, harassments, and intimidation of journalists and whistleblowers in Bangladesh amid lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic has shaken the myth of transparency and accountability of the Covid-19 healthcare management and food aid to disadvantaged people.
The outburst of civil society and rights group after 11 persons, including journalists, writers, cartoonists, bloggers, and micro-bloggers on social media were arrested and booked under the controversial Digital Security Act, allegedly for “spreading rumours and misinformation on Facebook.

""ABSTRACT.
This research is mainly focused on the topic, “Independence of Judiciary and Administration of Justice in Tanzania: A Critical Assessment of its Interpretation and Practical Application by the Courts in Tanzania”, hence research will be divided in four main chapters. 
Chapter One which will discuss the background of the problem, the statement of the problem, the aims and objectives, research methodology and significance of this study.
The focus of Chapter Two will be on the Overview of the doctrine of independence of judiciary in Tanzania. Hence, this chapter will provide for the definition of the doctrine of independence of judiciary, discuss the laws governing the doctrine in Tanzania, the rationale of the doctrine in the administration of justice in Tanzania, advantages of the doctrine and finally the conclusion.
In Chapter Three there will be a discussion on assessment on the interpretation and application of the doctrine of independence of judiciary in Tanzania from which a reflection will be made on the interpretation of the doctrine in the Tanzanian context, different interpretation of the doctrine by scholars and legal practitioners, the practical application of the doctrine in Tanzania and Frictions for disparities in interpretation of the doctrine and the implications of the narrow interpretation of the doctrine of independence of judiciary in Tanzania. And to wind up the research Chapter Four will provide for the Conclusion and Recommendation of this research.
Independence of judiciary has become a problem in Tanzanian due to the fact that the misleading interpretation of the doctrine which allows the Executive and Legislative organs of the state to overpower the Judiciary in course of application of the doctrine by interfering its decisions and sometimes command it to comply with their decisions. 


""

The right to free speech is perhaps a suspect virtue. In other words, writers and commentators may have the right to say what they want and artists, to express what they think or feel curious about. But they are morally obligated to maintain some degree of checks and self-censorship, and consider the socio-religious values and conventional morality that people cherish in a given cultural setting. A book or an artistic piece that insults people’s long-held views, beliefs, convictions and cultural practices and thus can potentially incite violent street demonstrations and can cause death/s is perhaps better not to be produced at all. Perhaps, the debate, whether or not freedom of expression is absolute, may remain a contentious issue for a long time. However, it is almost certain now that Muslims are currently the primary victims of a conceivable hypocrisy in the free speech discourse. While Muslim societies are maligned for a perceived lack of freedom of expression, Muslims do not have equal right to freedom of expression.

La libertad de expresión no sólo puede ser afectada por la prohibición lisa y llana de la posibilidad de expresarse, sino que el Estado o los particulares pueden desarrollar acciones o prácticas tendientes a silenciar voces. El autor analiza la práctica estatal de manipular la expresión por medio de la distribución de la pauta de publicidad que compra el Estado, impidiendo una real diversidad de voces

En esta contribución examinaremos cómo la libertad de expresión se ha convertido en un derecho esencial de las sociedades modernas (II), tanto en su caracterización general (II.A) como, en particular, por parte de los medios de comunicación (II.B). Pero veremos también cómo ese derecho encuentra un límite infranqueable en el llamado discurso de odio (III), cuya conceptualización no es siempre una tarea sencilla (III.A). Nos detendre- mos, concretamente, en la labor protectora que en esta materia han desarrollado el Con- sejo de Europa, con el relevante papel del Tribunal de Estrasburgo (III.B), para pasar posteriormente a analizar la actividad en el mismo campo de la Unión Europea (III.C), con el mucho más limitado rol del Tribunal de Luxemburgo. Finalizaremos esta comuni- cación con unas breves reflexiones motivadas por las consideraciones analizadas (IV).

Teknolojinin gelişmesiyle beraber her gün daha fazla hayatımıza giren internetin, bu gelişimine paralel bir biçimde hukuki düzenlemelere de konu olması kaçınılmaz bir zorunluluk haline gelmiştir. Zira hem yaşamımızın her alanına girmiş bulunması hem de sürekli olarak değişen ve gelişen bir alan olması, hukukun da aynı şekilde bu gelişmeleri takip etmesini gerekli kılmaktadır. İnternetle ilgili yapılan hukuki düzenlemeleri son olarak Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Genel Kurulu'nda kabul edilen ve sonra Resmi Gazete'de yayımlanarak yürürlüğe giren yasa takip etmiştir. Yasa, internet ortamında yapılan yayınlara Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu denetimi getirmekte ve Kurula erişimin engellenmesini talep etme yetkisi vermektedir. Bu yazımda, RTÜK denetimi getiren tasarıyı değerlendirebilmek adına öncelikle bilişim teknolojilerinin gelişmesiyle beraber internet ve internete ilişkin hukuki düzenleme yapma ihtiyacının doğuşunu detaylı bir biçimde açıklayıp; bu ihtiyacı karşılayabilmek adına düzenlenen 5651 sayılı Kanun ve Kanun'un ilgili hükümlerini açıklayacağım. Ardından RTÜK denetimi getiren tasarının özellikle 5651 sayılı Kanun kapsamında hukuka uygunluğunu denetleyip, bu noktada eleştiri ve endişelerimi dile getireceğim. Ancak 6112 sayılı Radyo ve Televizyonların Kuruluş ve Yayın Hizmetleri Hakkında Kanun'da yapılan ek aslında doğrudan internet iletişim hukuku ile ilgilidir. Dolayısıyla öncelikle internetin ve internetteki ifade özgürlüğünün ne anlama geldiği, 5651 sayılı Kanuna bu açıdan getirilen eleştiriler ortaya konulduktan sonra, bu makalenin konusunu oluşturan kanunda yapılan ek tam olarak anlaşılabilir ve nesnel bir biçimde eleştirilebilir.

J. Doomen and A. Ellian (eds.), De strijd van gelijkheid en vrijheid. The Hague: Boom Juridische Uitgevers, 2015. This study inquires the extent of freedom of expression in the present era. I wrote a chapter (pp. 107-123) and co-authored the general introduction (pp. 9-24).

Part I will provide an overview of the moral foundations of privacy – while brief, the goal is to establish the claim that privacy more than a mere interest. Part II will consider several arguments—or strands of argument—purporting to justify free speech rights. While these arguments, taken together, establish that free speech is important, they do not support the view that speech should nearly always trump privacy. In Part III I will suggest a way to balance free speech and privacy claims in the law.

Module- Intellectual Property
Breach of confidence- Final year project

‘Although the law of ‘old-fashioned breach of confidence’ has been well established for many years, and derives historically from equitable principles, these have been extended in recent years under the stimulus of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the content of the Convention itself. The law now affords protection to information in respect of which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, even in circumstances where there is no pre-existing relationship giving rise of itself to an enforceable duty of confidence. That is because the law is concerned to prevent the violation of a citizen’s autonomy, dignity, and self-esteem.’

(Mosley v Newsgroup Newspapers Ltd [2008] EWHC 1777 (QB) per Eady J at para 7.

Discuss critically the developing action for misuse of private information by reference to this quote.

If Ernesto Cardenal asks God for Marilyn Monroe, in his poem, it is because the American actress is an emblem of the American tragedy and the US Weltanschauung. And you will ask us, what tragedy are we referring to? In reality, she and the American people are one and the same. She and the American heroes, martyrs, and dissidents are one and the same.

Today, on this so-called "Super Tuesday" of dirty Potomac politics; the United States appears to us under the image of a drifting ship, in almost all its orders; the building of the American Ethos about to collapse, and this is not a simple metaphor; a country in which the "merchants of Twenty Century Fox..." -as Cardenal has written- or any of the "merchants" of the large transnationals, continue to profane the temple of both the moral and spiritual body -sacred- of the American people as well as that of Marilyn Monroe, as a type of the people and of the martyrs of this nation.

Wretched and soulless merchants, the tragedy of Marilyn Monroe is the tragedy of that people, outraged by avarice, greed and arrogance; the tragedy of a Nation, of a culture, of a religion, of the pale hope of the genuine American dream, vivified in the virginal geography of the country, in the verses of Walt Whitman or in the songs of Henry David Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson; of a United States with heart and soul, although “…destined by Providence – as Simón Bolívar, The Liberator,  wrote – to plague America with misery in the name of Liberty”. And I would add, with humility, to plague the world with misery in the name of its profaned Freedom, symbolized in that sphinx [Σφίγξ] without the body of a lion and without the wings of a bird but with a torch in its right hand extended towards the sky and whose name is actually “La Liberté éclairant le monde” [“Liberty Enlightening the World”].

Few concepts have proved as fertile in critical studies as the “public sphere,” yet many now regard Habermas’s concept of the public sphere as hopelessly flawed. Critics have faulted Habermas’s notion as an ideal fiction, exclusive rather than inclusive; they have challenged his dating of the public sphere’s emergence to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, noting that earlier periods witnessed robust public debate; and they have questioned the evidence on which Habermas bases his argument, including his claims about increased literacy, the beginnings of professional authorship, and, perhaps most important, the collapse of censorship. In my paper, I defend a modified version of Habermas’s public sphere. I argue not only that the permanent lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695 had a profound impact on both the public discourse and the publishing world in Britain, but also, against Macaulay and most modern scholars, that the press freedom that followed was no mere accident. By canvassing free speech debates from the period and by drawing on extensive statistics concerning publication patterns before and after 1695, I show that the Licensing Act’s expiry did indeed permit a public sphere to develop, along the lines delineated by Habermas.

This study delves upon the case of a local daily newspaper, Kashmir Reader which was banned during the unrest of 2016 for three months by the government without providing any concrete reason. The study looked upon the aspect of the content published by the newspaper before the ban seeking to analyse whether it was appropriate to ban the newspaper or not. A case-study method with a single retrospective case design was adopted. The research technique administered to study the case was content analysis. The aim of this study was to look deeper into the issue and dig out the facts which remained hidden.

विचार एवं अभिव्यक्ति मनुष्य के नैसर्गिक गुण हैं, जो उसे जन्म से प्राप्त होते हैं। वह इनका उपयोग भी अपने जन्मसिद्ध अधिकार की ही तरह करने की इच्छा रखता है। किंतु राज्य, संगठित धर्म अथवा व्यवस्था का कोई भी अन्य स्वरूप जो स्वयं के बने रहने को अपने अधिकार की तरह लेते हैं, उनके लिए आम जनमानस की अभिव्यक्ति की सीमा वहीं तक होती है, जहां तक वह उनके बने रहने के अधिकार के लिए खतरा न उत्पन्न करे।व्यक्ति और व्यवस्था के बीच अंतरविरोध का यह बिंदु दोनों के मध्य अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता के नैसर्गिक अधिकार के लिए संघर्ष का प्रस्थान बिंदु बन जाता है। यह पुस्तक मनुष्य के अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता संबंधी इसी नैसर्गिक अधिकार के संघर्ष से सीधे जाकर जुड़ती है, जो विवेच्य काल में भारत में आवश्यक रूप से स्वतंत्रता आंदोलन से संपृक्त रहा था।वस्तुत: औपनिवेशिक भारत में प्रेस और मुद्रित साहित्य द्वारा लड़ी जाने वाली लड़ाई इकहरी न होकर दुहरी थी। एक तरफ वह स्वयं अपनी स्वतंत्रता के अधिकार के लिए संघर्षरत तो था ही, साथ ही वह भारत के स्वतंत्रता संग्राम में राजनीतिक कार्यकर्ताओं के ऊर्जित विचारों को आम जनमानस तक पहुंचा रहा था।

उसकी इस दोहरी भूमिका के कारण औपनिवेशिक प्रशासन की ओर से उसे दोहरे प्रतिबंध सहने पड़े किंतु भारत के आम जनमानस को स्वतंत्रता के विचार से जोड़ने वाली उसकी इस भूमिका ने उसे जीवित भी रखा। यह पुस्तक भारतीय प्रेस की उस जीवनी शक्ति से सीधा संवाद है।

It is rather common to witness or formulate peremptory invitations towards those in power to regulate the manner of their discourse, to avoid certain pitfalls of language, to eradicate hate speech. With the spectacular and unprecedented rise of social media, and in particular the development of a new public sensitivity, such calls for what may be called “linguistic responsibility” have grown more ubiquitous by the day. This linguistic regulation is applied to politicians, celebrities, and public figures in general. What is more relevant for the scopes of the present study, linguistic responsibility is largely ascribed to the necessity of “holding public figures to a higher standard” and “providing a good example”. However, from a libertarian point of view, such necessities cannot find their foundation on moral grounds. In this paper, I argue that freedom of only covers acts in their locutionary component (the component that carries meaning).

Declaration " I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified with appropriate acknowledgement and referencing and I also certify that no material is included for which a degree has previously been conferred upon me. " 2 Acknowledgement I would like to express my very great appreciation to my supervisor which

Access to information in Nigeria, prior to 2011, was an herculean task. Many journalists were imprisoned for publishing what was classified as confidential state information. Citizens' knowledge of public affairs was extremely poor, all because official information was shrouded in secrecy. Luckily, Nigeria's Freedom of Information Act was passed into law in 2011 after many years of agitations for its enactment in order to engender an era of transparency and accountability in public affairs in the country. This booklet discusses the Act section by section with explanatory notes so as to facilitate its greater use among the people.

The Republic of Ubuntu (Ubuntu) is an African developing country with a total population of 15 million (2007 figures), majority being peasants. There are a number of human rights violations complained about by the petitioners against the State of Ubuntu. In contention is the violation of national legislation and international human rights treaties

This symposium paper takes as its starting point the deeply-seated right of UK Members of Parliament to express themselves freely without fear of legal action in all matters relating to parliamentary proceedings and the historic right of the press to report thereon. Members of Parliament and journalists thus play a key role in the public interest, particularly when condemning corruption and malpractice. However, ethical, legal and regulatory questions arise regarding what constitutes the public interest as well as the weight to be given to competing claims and rights whenever Members of Parliament choose to go against pre-publication injunctions, commonly referred to as super-injunctions. The findings of this paper are based on archival work for the period since the passage of the 1998 Human Rights Act. Several key cases are discussed, beginning with Trafigura [2009] EWHC 2540 (QB) in the wake of a toxic waste dump in the Ivory Coast, which led The Guardian to coin the term super-injunction. This paper demonstrates how Members of Parliament and journalists contribute towards strategies of circumventing the judiciary in such cases despite the separation of powers.

The contemporary evolution of digital Information and Communication Technologies (ITCs) has generated a new field of constraints and opportunities for our freedom of expression, while causing the emergence of a new dimension of human interactions, the infosphere, which can be conceived as the global environment of information we live in.
This article suggests considering how and why the quantitative increase of the free flow of information in the infosphere does not necessarily coincide with the increase of political freedom, nor with the reduction of anti-democratic power asymmetries. Taking into account both recent case studies and classic philosophical questions about the freedom of the press, the author invites the reader to rethink and retheorize the evolving relationship of politics, power, democracy, educational innovation, and freedom in our increasingly technologized and re-ontologized world.

This article aims to develop a ground for freedom of speech that combines two justifications –democratic participation and autonomy. First, it is argued that consequentialist justifications, suchas discovery of truth and personal development, are far from providing a strong justification forfree speech due to their reliance on uncertain empirical validation. Second, it is claimed that astronger and better ground for free speech can be constructed by articulating two nonconsequentialist
justifications for free speech – democratic participation and autonomy. This articulation, which I call the double-grounded non-consequentialist justification for free speech, considers
autonomy and democratic participation as complementary principles. In this sense, a doublegrounded justification engages justification as autonomy and democratic participation in a dialogue in order to provide remedies for the specific weaknesses of these two positions.

Political philosophical work on whistleblowing has thus far neglected the role of journalists. A curious oversight, given that the whistleblower's objective-informing the public about government wrongdoing-can typically not be realized without the media. The present article, therefore, aims to start remedying this neglect by exploring some of the most pressing questions. Accordingly, the paper will be structured as follows: Section 1 will explain why the authorities have treated whistleblowers far more harshly than the journalists who publish their disclosures. Still, the freedom of expression of media workers is (and ought to be) less extensive than that of ordinary individuals. Section 2 will explain why by arguing that the freedom of expression of the press, contrary to that of individuals, is not an unconditional good; instead, it is good merely instrumentally. Section 3 considers and refutes an argument for a more expansive press freedom based on the marketplace of ideas model and, in doing so, also discusses some important differences between the ethics of the traditional and the new online media. Often journalists, like whistleblowers, will justify their publications based on leaked classified documents by appealing to the public interest. Yet, this is problematic for two reasons: (1) the public interest is never clarified; and (2) this argument overlooks the fact that the public interest can also be a reason for not publishing about leaked classified documents, even if the leaks are verified (in the interest of national security, for example). Accordingly, Section 5 sets out to clarify the public interest. Section 4 then discusses two case studies-one concerning unverified leaks, and one concerning verified leaks-in order to demonstrate how we might employ the concept of the public interest in order to determine the permissibility of publishing about leaked classified information in practice.

Freedom of expression is a cornerstone in a liberal democracy. It enables open debates and exchange of ideas. The right was, however, challenged during the 2006-2006 Muhammad cartoons controversy. The controversy raised questions of the boundaries of the freedom of expression. It illuminated a cultural collision between the right of free expression and the idea of blasphemy. Cartoons of the prophet Muhammad published in a newspaper in Denmark sparked outrage Muslims worldwide. A fundamental right in liberal democracies was seen as "offensive" by Muslims.

Three arguments were provided to support the publication of the cartoons. Firstly, they were a response to self-censorship. All religious figures were mocked; Islam was no exception. No individuals or groups should threaten people to stay away from expressing themselves. Secondly, there were many Muslims who lived in societies, in which the freedom of speech was more important than blasphemy. They had to live with the fact that their prophets were subjected to mockery. The publication could serve as a means of integrating the Muslims.Thirdly, they were used to address violence in the name of islam. All the arguments differed with respect to the motive, but were united by the need of criticizing and scrutinizing islam.

Three counterarguments were provided. Firstly, the cartoons were blasphemous and disregarded religious sensitivities. Secondly, they they did not take into account the consequences they produced. Thirdly, they promoted cultural racism. Muslims were in particular targeted.     

I also draw upon the ICCPR to assess whether there were grounds to limit the freedom of expression in light of the Muhammad controversy. Although the right to free expression was endorsed by article 19, it also carried with it duties and responsibilities. Reputation, national security and public order seemed relevant for the case. All in all, the Muhammad case proves that the freedom of expression was (and still is) under pressure in Denmark.

Ante las lamentablemente numerosas noticias de casos de
violación de la libertad de expresión de periodistas mexicanos en los últimos años, se ha propuesto que el registro y documentación sistemáticos de los casos de agravios a este derecho es una herramienta indispensable para la prevención de este fenómeno. en este texto presentaré los resultados del análisis de los registros documentales existentes sobre casos de violaciones de la libertad de expresión de periodistas y trabajadores de los medios ocurridos en el estado de Jalisco entre 1995 y 2013.

To ensure a consistent approach, Zimbabwe needs to come up with a consistent, open and transparent framework which complies with the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 34 on Article 19 of the ICCPR. This will provide sturdy guidance in the application of human rights considerations in the Censorship Board’s decisions. That way, the government won’t have unfettered discretion- a situation where officials can make rules on a whim. This violates the principle of legality. They will also be constrained from simply applying the law out of political convenience but out of necessity, as spelt out in the three part test, ​set out in the covenant. A framework will ensure that in its approach the Board only responds to genuine social needs rather than to political pressures.

I discuss Charles Pigden’s paper ‘Coercive theories of meaning, or why language shouldn’t matter (so much) to philosophy’ and ask whether theories of meaning whose primary purpose is to discredit rival philosophies as meaningless necessarily employ artificially narrow conceptions of meaningfulness.  In the course of my argument I ask whether the colloquial-rhetorical use of words like ‘nonsense’ and ‘meaningless’ has made it difficulty for philosophers to see just how novel and radical their own accusations of talking nonsense are.

More than a month ago, a Bangladeshi journalist disappeared without a trace after reporting on a government scandal. Bangladesh has a track record of media oppression and ranked 151 in the 2020 RSF ranking.
His disappearance is symbolic of Bangladesh's ongoing crackdown on free speech under a draconian "fake news" law called the Digital Security Act. Since Kajol's disappearance, four other editors and journalists have been charged with various offenses under the act.