Rowan Atkinson on Free Speech – UPDATE of 2020 post

April 17, 2021

Given the release by Newsroom , not the government I note, of a Cabinet paper, on hate speech and other related matters, including comments on political and religious matters, I am reposting this item.

Personally, I find, from what I have read, the proposals to be very concerning and a threat to freedom of expression. Furthermore, they may have provided a back door to the reimposition of blasephemy offences.

To suggest, what seems to be repressive and oppressive law with the clear effect, to my mind, of severely limiting free speech and thought, whilst simultaneously creating a state broadcasting behemoth and subsidising other media (potentially inhibiting them) gives the indication of authoritarianism and is the foundation of the type of control system found in dictatorships, theocracies, totalitarian and one party states.

This situation is exacerbated in NZ by the fact that many journalists are flag carriers for either Labour and the Greens, often acting more as party activists than objective journalists in their articles and broadcasts.

The August 06,2020 Post

The forerunner of the Defend Free Speech campaign was called “Reform Section 5”. This speech by Rowan Atkinson at the launch event in Parliament in 2012 should be heard by every politician, journalist and campaigner before they start calling for laws to silence those they regard as ‘extremists’.

Here is the sketch referred to

We need to bear this in mind constantly – especially today in the world of safe spaces, wokeness, identity politics, self-censorship, political correctness, and so called hate speech and social media hate mobs

Oh and in NZ, Andrew Little does not believe in freedom of expression

BTW this speech was in 2012, since then it has got worse, so much worse