The Center for Inquiry is pleased to announce that Gregory Walsh and John Schmid of Maryland are the Grand Prize winners of its Campaign for Free Expression Video Contest, which asked contestants to submit short videos in the form of a public service announcement that addresses the importance of free expression.
Second-place went to Reilly Donovan of Washington for his video "The Loud Silence." Third-place went to Mia Holley of New Jersey for her video "PSA Freedom of Speech."
From the Pew Forum/Religion News Service:
The name change is meant to "emphasize the important connection that we think there is between blasphemy and the right to free speech," said Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of CFI. Lindsay said some critics "interpreted blasphemy in its crudest form" but "blasphemy is a wider concept than that." Although many people scoffed at last year's campaign, he said, the center believes religion is not, and should not be, immune from criticism. "Religious beliefs should be on the same level of political beliefs," Lindsay said.
From the Washington Post:
The reason? Brazilian TV and radio broadcasters are legally forbidden from making fun of candidates ahead of the nation's Oct. 3 election. With the first wave of on-air political ads starting Tuesday, Brazil's comedians and satirists are planning to fight for their right to ridicule with protests in Rio de Janeiro and other cities Sunday.
They call the political anti-joking law - which prohibits ridiculing candidates in the three months before elections - a draconian relic of Brazil's dictatorship era that threatens free speech and is a blight on the reputation of Latin America's largest nation.
"Do you know of any other democracy in the world with rules like this?" said Marcelo Tas, the acerbic host of a weekly TV comedy show that delights in skewering politicians and celebrities alike. "If you want to find a bigger joke, you would have to look to Monty Python."
Proponents of the restrictions say they keep candidates from being portrayed unfairly, help ensure a level playing field and encourage candor by candidates.
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Reen reports [from Afghanistan] countrywide blockages of Facebook, Gmail, YouTube, and Twitter. The Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC), one of Afghanistan’s two largest telecommunication companies, is referring people with questions to the Ministry of Communications.
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The proposal mistakenly conflates trusting a third party to not reveal your identity with actual anonymity — where third parties don’t know your identity. When Thomas Paine anonymously published Common Sense in 1776, he didn’t secretly register with the British Crown.
Indeed, the draft NSTIC barely recognizes the value of anonymous speech, whether in public postings or private email, or anonymous browsing via systems like Tor. Nor does it address issues about re-identification, e.g. the ability to take different sets of de-identified data and link them so as to re-identify individuals.
Ideas don't need rights; people do! The Campaign for Free Expression: Protect Dissent!
Are there topics you shouldn't be allowed to discuss?
Some governments and institutions—and even some individuals—want to keep certain topics off limits. This is especially true with religion. In many places, discussions and questions about religion are discouraged, even punished. But how can we come to our own conclusions about religion if we can't freely examine and discuss it?
The Campaign for Free Expression is a CFI initiative to focus efforts and attention on one of the most crucial components of freethought: the right of individuals to express their viewpoints, opinions, and beliefs about all subjects—especially religion.
Various United Nations bodies, including the UN's Human Rights Council, have recently adopted resolutions condemning so-called "defamation" of religion. These resolutions lend credibility to efforts to suppress dissent and criticism, especially in Islamic countries, but Western European countries are also debating, or have already instated, laws that would criminalize religiously offensive statements. For example, Ireland recently enacted a new blasphemy law that prohibits publication of material "insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion."
CFI believes we must increase public awareness of these threats to freedom of expression, discuss and develop plans to prevent curtailment of free expression, and demonstrate that people care about their rights to free expression and are eager to exercise them.