Free Republic

The trial of Austrian anti-Sharia activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff for “denigrating” Islam has major implications for free speech in Europe. (Also read Michael Ledeen: "Islamophobia") The “hate speech” trial of the Austrian housewife and anti-Islam activist Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff resumed at a Vienna courthouse on January 18, following a two-month break in the hearings. Sabaditsch-Wolff, who has been charged with “incitement of hatred” and “denigrating religious teachings” after giving a series of seminars about the dangers of radical Islam, faces a possible three year prison sentence. Her case, which is eerily similar to the one involving the Dutch politician Geert Wilders,...

It seems like, year after year, the number of words we Americans are allowed to say continues to shrink. That trend is particularly evident on college campuses, where almost once a month there’s a newly deemed offensive or non-inclusive word students and faculty are encouraged to avoid. Over the last 12 months The College Fix has chronicled several examples, striving to keep tabs on the ever-expanding list of verboten words and phrases, according to the campus PC police. ================================================================ Low-hanging fruit: At an event led by Elgin Community College’s Multicultural and Global Initiatives Committee, it was explained that the term...

Moscow, December 11, Interfax - Russian President Vladimir Putin has given the Foreign Ministry until March 1, 2021 to initiate discussions on international forums concerning measures to prevent actions insulting religious feelings of believers and fomenting interfaith enmity and conflicts. The presidential instruction was published on the Kremlin's official website on Friday, following Putin's recent meeting with representatives of religious groups. The Foreign Ministry has also been told "to consider the possible conclusion of international agreements and (or) the adoption of a UN General Assembly resolution on such matters." Ismail Berdiyev, the head of the Coordinating Center of Muslims of...

The Democratic Party obviously enjoys this privilege; look at the protective shield they placed around Joe and Hunter Biden. But Hollywood gets Iron Dome-levels of protection, especially when homophobic rape threats are hurled. Yeah, you read that right. Debra Messing will probably not lose any acting jobs over this, but wishing that President Trump gets raped in prison is pretty unhinged. You all know that. It’s truly despicable, but the irony is thick here. "Let me be clear: I said nothing about LGBTQI/queer LOVE. Rape is an act of violence. Trump has perpetrated violence on hundreds of millions of people....

On Thursday a far-left-wing activist posted to Twitter a “proposed map” of two new countries, the United States of Canada and Jesusland. Shortly thereafter, she deleted the map from her Twitter feed and apologized once she realized what she’d done. The mistake left-wing activist Amy Siskind made was assuming that conservatives would take offense to be separated into their own country. It turns out, in fact, that conservatives would absolutely love and adore the idea. Below is a screenshot of Siskind’s original tweet: In Siskind’s fantasy world, horribly-run far-left states such as California, Oregon, and New York would be annexed...

"I couldn't help but notice your Christmas light display. During these unprecedented times, we have all experienced challenges which casual words just don't describe what we're feeling. The idea of twinkling, colorful lights are a reminder of divisions that continue to run through our society, a reminder of systemic biases against our neighbors who don't celebrate Christmas or who can't afford to put up lights of their own," the letter, shared by Crime Watch Minneapolis, reads. "We must do the work of educating ourselves about the harmful impact an outward facing display like yours can have."

Without even holding a formal vote, Norway's parliament "outlawed hate speech against transgender people" last week, including in private conversations. Those found guilty will face fines and up to a year in jail for private remarks and three years for public remarks

Facebook is embarking on a major overhaul of its algorithms that detect hate speech, according to internal documents, reversing years of so-called “race-blind” practices. Those practices resulted in the company being more vigilant about removing slurs lobbed against White users while flagging and deleting innocuous posts by people of color on the platform. The overhaul, which is known as the WoW Project and is in its early stages, involves re-engineering Facebook’s automated moderation systems to get better at detecting and automatically deleting hateful language that is considered “the worst of the worst,” according to internal documents describing the project obtained...

A half-century ago, progressives used to push limitless free expression, blasting conservatives for their allegedly blinkered traditionalism. They boasted of obliterating once-normal boundaries in art, music, and literature to allow nudity, profanity, sexuality, and anti-American boilerplate. Now? The left is Victorian -- increasingly puritanical, regressive, and hypersensitive. Even totalitarian censorship and book-burning have weirdly become part of their by-any-means-necessary methods. University of California, Berkeley, professor Grace Lavery was so outraged by author Abigail Shrier's latest book, "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters," that she went beyond the usual calls to ban the book. Lavery advocated burning Shrier's book....

Students at Eton are pushing back against cancel culture and showing young people appreciate critical thinking and a free exchange of ideas.With the prevalence of cancel culture, far too often we have witnessed young and woke students demanding the firing of their teacher because something he or she said offended their leftist senses. In light of this, it’s especially refreshing to see students at Eton rallying to support a teacher who was fired over his speech. Founded in 1440 by King Henry VI and boasting a tuition cost of $57,000 (USD) a year, Eton College is one of the most...

Now would make a great time to determine that you will do what is right and stand up for what is right regardless of cost or consequence December 1, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – For more than 15 years, I have been saying that those who came out of the closet would want to put us in the closet, meaning that gay activists calling for “equality” and “tolerance” would want to silence dissenting voices. About 10 years ago, a Christian attorney said to me, “Mike, take that one step farther. Those who were once put in jail will want to put us...

We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in Europe. The move to criminalize speech has led to an insatiable appetite for new limitations and broader prosecutions. Norway is an example of this headlong plunge into speech controls and crimes in the West. This week the legislature adopted (without even a vote) a new criminal law that punishes people for saying anything deemed hate speech toward transgender people in their own home or private conversations.Minister of Justice and Public Security Monica Maeland declared victory because speech regulation must be “adapted to the practical...

For those of us who have been critical of the growing anti-free speech movement in the Democratic Party, the Biden transition team just took an ominous turn. The New York Post reports that Biden tapped Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. As I previously addressed in a column, Stengel has been one of the most controversial figures calling for censorship and speech controls. For a president-elect who just called for everyone to “hear each other,” he picked...

Richard Stengel, new ‘team lead‘ for Joe Biden’s agency for global media, wrote an op-ed last year arguing for free speech restrictions. Stengel, a former MSNBC political analyst until he was named to Biden’s transition team, argued that the First Amendment needed redefining and that “hate speech” should be a crime. “All speech is not equal. And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails,” he wrote. “I’m all for protecting ‘thought that we hate,’ but not speech that incites hate.” ‘Speech that incites hate’ was defined in Stengel’s op-ed by two examples – Burning the Quran,...

Democrat and George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley is warning that the Biden transition team has taken an "ominous turn" after former Vice President Joe Biden hired a number of anti-free speech zealots. "For those of us who have been critical of the growing anti-free speech movement in the Democratic Party, the Biden transition team just took an ominous turn. The New York Post reports that Biden tapped Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty," Turley writes...

Norway's parliament outlawed hate speech against transgender and bisexual people on Tuesday, expanding its penal code which has protected gay and lesbian people since 1981. People found guilty of hate speech face a fine or up to a year in jail for private remarks, and maximum of three years in jail for public comments, according to the penal code. "I'm very relieved actually, because (the lack of legal protection) has been an eyesore for trans people for many, many years," said Birna Rorslett, vice president of the Association of Transgender People in Norway. Norway is one of the most liberal...

Georgia Senate Democrat candidate Raphael Warnock in 2016 criticized white evangelical Christians and Catholics for supporting President Donald Trump. Warnock also charged that Trump campaigned in 2016 as a “fascist, racist, sexist xenophobe.” Warnock delivered a lecture at the Howard University School of Divinity on November 16, 2016, right after Americans elected President Donald Trump as the 45th president.

Moscow, November 5, Interfax - A ban on insulting the feelings of the faithful should be enshrined in international law, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. At his meeting with representatives from religious organizations on the National Unity Day on Wednesday, one attendee, Ismail Berdiyev, head of the North Caucasus Muslims' Coordinating Center, suggested that the president present to the UN Security Council an idea that all countries introduce a law making it unacceptable to offend religious feelings. "It is a good proposal. I don't understand, who could be against a ban on insulting the feelings of the faithful in any...

A Biden-Harris presidency promises not just the usual Democratic fare (e.g., publicly financed abortions and free contraception). They hope for a country where prostitutes are more honored than mothers, where young boys can be castrated, where talk of sex differences is banned as hate speech, where laws sow suspicion between would-be lovers, and where children are encouraged to sexual play.

Conversations at home that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the Scottish justice secretary has insisted. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill has been opposed by the Scottish Catholic Church, police representatives, academics and artists, but is set to introduce an offence of ‘stirring-up hatred’ against certain groups, including on the grounds of disability, sexual orientation and age. The Public Order Act 1986, which currently outlaws threatening, abusive or insulting words and behaviour, includes a “dwelling defence” that states threatening language cannot be prosecuted if spoken at home. The new bill will be based...