The Guardian believes uncompromisingly in freedom of expression, but not in any duty to gratuitously offend…Freedom of expression as it has developed in the democratic west is a value to be cherished, but not abused.
Guardian Leader Comment, 4 February 2006, on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.
In September 2005, a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of [...]
In the 1960s and 70s, two ultra leftist groups, the Weathermen in the USA, and the Red Army Faction in West Germany, used the same slogan to clarify the motivation for their violent response to the US invasion of Vietnam: ‘bringing the war home.’
There are two movements we can describe as ‘bringing the war home’ [...]
With all the furore about a French parliamentary committee recommending a ban on Muslim women wearing Islamic face veils in public, I thought it was a good time to bring up France’s long-standing history of banning items of clothing…
Historically religion isn’t the only area to fall victim to the fashion police in France, sartorial expressions [...]
Guest post by Carl Packman
While Sarkozy in France has realised that the burqa ban will be harder to enforce than originally believed – and so, therefore, will be shelved – another group of angry right wing men (and women), this time in Britain, have decided the issue is for them, namely UKIP, and for not [...]
Guest post by Carl Packman
Islam is enemy No. 1 of much contemporary criticism, either by the angry EDL men on the street, to new atheists asserting that Islam is incompatible with Enlightenment societies, to critics such as Nick Cohen and David Aaranovitch’s’ with their claims to present Islamic bad boys (and girls) as the real [...]
Walking through security at Portcullis House, the fabulously expensive building standing adjacent to the Houses of Parliament, is a bit like going through any airport anywhere in the world. But making your way through the spacious courtyard, past green trees and sun-dappled water features under the enormous sparkling glass dome towering overhead, you could be [...]
“He thinks we’re all bloody bourgeois” scoffed Austen Ivereigh, as he puffed on his Montecristo in a trendy bar in King’s Cross, whilst reading aloud David Broder’s response to yesterday’s Strangers Into Citizens demonstration. “This looks like it was written thirty years ago,” he chortled to himself. Ivereigh is a founder of the Strangers into [...]
Merseyside Police have ruined the academic career of a young muslim student.
This has totally changed what I have learned about this country and my time here,” he said. “They are clearly identifying Muslim students. It’s a big insult … The first thing I will do is leave this country as soon as possible. The police [...]
Have you condemned attacks on British Troops yet today? Better get it done soon, maybe round the water cooler or during lunch. You don’t want to be seen as an extremist now do you? This would be funny if it wasn’t so pernicious. The new government guidelines for defining extremists are reported to include the [...]
