EVEN IN THE WEST, FREE SPEECH IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT
By Maura Jane Farrelly
06 March 2006
Voice of America
March 7 2006
New York
Freedom of speech has been a hot topic in the news lately. It is
one of the pillars of Western society, but, as newspaper editors in
Europe recently learned, free speech is a concept some people in the
world believe ought to be limited.
Riots in predominantly Muslim countries over the publication of
religiously offensive cartoons have caused some to assert that the
debate is one of “The West versus The Rest.” But even in Western
societies, the right to express oneself is not absolute.
Next month, for example, America’s Public Broadcasting system, or
“PBS,” will air a documentary called “The Armenian Genocide.” It will
explore the circumstances surrounding the deaths of an estimated 1.2
million Armenians who lived in the Ottoman Empire during and after
World War I.
The overwhelming consensus among Western scholars is that these deaths
constitute the first genocide of the 20th century. But the Turkish
government disputes that conclusion, saying the deaths were not
the result of state-sponsored extermination, and cannot, therefore,
be called “genocide.”
Following the documentary, PBS plans to air a 25-minute panel
discussion that includes two scholars who embrace the widely dismissed
view of the Turkish government.
“We’re certainly concerned about this, and we feel this program really
has no place on public television,” says Elizabeth Chouldjian of
the Armenian National Committee of America, which has called on PBS
not to broadcast the panel discussion. “Just as one would not give
equal time to Holocaust deniers to get up on PBS and talk about their
incorrect views,” Chouldjian says, “similarly one shouldn’t cloud the
issue and misguide viewers by bringing known genocide deniers to this
type of equation.”
British historian David Irving holds his book “Hitler’s War” when
arriving at a court in Vienna, on Monday, Feb. 20, 2006.
PBS did not respond to VOA’s requests for an interview. But Elizabeth
Chouldjian’s assertion that the network would never give airtime to
deniers of the Jewish Holocaust has captured some people’s attention,
particularly in light of the recent conviction of David Irving, the
British historian who was sentenced in Vienna to three years’ jail-time
for breaking an Austrian law that forbids denial of the Holocaust.
According to Robert Kahn, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who
has written extensively about laws governing Holocaust denial,
free speech in the West is not an absolute right. It is tempered,
Kahn says, by a complex system of legal and self-imposed censorship
that’s almost always derived from a society’s history.
Brooklyn law professor Robert Kahn specializes on legal restrictions
on holocaust denial “The countries that tend to have the laws that
specifically ban Holocaust denial — France, Germany, and Austria —
either participated in the Holocaust or had serious problems with
collaboration,” he says. “Even though the United States and Canada
have large Jewish communities, and have survivors and people who
experienced the Holocaust, it’s not the same type of thing.”
It is not illegal in the United States to deny the Holocaust, just
exceedingly undiplomatic, given the number of survivors who came to
this country after the war, and no one who wants to enjoy mainstream
credibility would ever do it. That does not mean, though, that speech
in America is without any legal restrictions. Robert Kahn says there
are a number of state and federal laws that limit expression.
“There are some types of speech, like cross burning, which, when
done to intimidate, are illegal,” Kahn says. “In a lot of states,
particularly in the U.S. South, you’re not allowed to demonstrate
while wearing a mask. These rules are basically connected up with the
role of the (Ku Klux) Klan in American history, and tend to show that
societies are very concerned about speech that talks about prior acts
of racism…they have committed.”
But it is not just negative, or “ugly” history that causes some
western societies to impose official and unofficial limits on free
speech. Professor Kahn points to the fact that no major American
newspapers chose to publish the cartoons of Mohammed that generated
controversy when they were distributed throughout Europe. “The United
States is a religious country and understands the idea of respecting
or disrespecting someone else’s religion,” he says. “Whereas you
could make an argument that Europe is much more secular, and that
therefore the idea that you would run something that profanes the
Prophet is not as big a deal.”
Meanwhile, PBS has not announced any plans to cancel its broadcast
of the panel discussion, which was taped in early February, and is
scheduled to air on April 17th.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress