Media

Welcome to 2025 and the year of "The Donald", like him or loathe him

FSU SA welcomes you to 2025 and right up will be President Donald Trump's first executive order today which is called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” Who'd have thought that a 14-word title could be clickbait?

Interview: Subduing free speech in Britain - a Daily Friend Show Special with Simon Lincoln Reader

In this Daily Friend Show Special, done in association with the FSU SA, Sara Gon talks to Simon Lincoln Reader about the bizarre and chilling clampdown on free speech in Britain.

Free Speech Matters Episode 5: Cancelled by a poetry group for being a zionist

Sara Gon interviews Associate Professor of Philosophy about being cancelled by a poetry group for being a zionist & talks about what it's like to be a classical liberal academic at UCT currently.

Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson faces investigation over reported ‘non-crime hate incident’

Free speech in the first world is, at times, a bizarrely dystopian experience. The original FSU in the UK, to whom FSU SA is affiliated on the International Association of Free Speech, has strictures of freedom of speech that South Africans would look aghast at. No more than the application of the Orwellian concept of the Non-crime Hate Incident (NCHI). An NCHI is a "non-crime" but can show up on an enhanced criminal records check! Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson is facing an investigation over such a bizarre allegation.

Lecture: Should hate speech be against the law?

Advocate Mark Oppenheimer unpacks the arguments for and against hate speech being criminalised. He uses reference to court cases and events that illustrate his arguments. Articulate and thorough - well worth listening to.

INVITATION: Should hate speech be against the law? A lecture by Adv. Mark Oppenheimer

The 45TH HOERNLÉ MEMORIAL LECTURE presented by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), in association with the Free Speech Union of South Africa, will be given by the Chairman of the IRR, Advocate Mark Oppenheimer. Please see details for responding to this invitation.

Press release: Freedom of speech at risk as UCT places guest lecture “on hold”

The 2024 Vice-Chancellor’s Open Lecture was to be delivered on 17 October by alumnus Claudius Senst, the chief executive of Bild newspaper, Germany’s largest daily by circulation. However, one day before the event the university announced that it had decided to put the event on ice “to allow for further discussions” in the light of “deep concerns” expressed by “stakeholders”. FSU SA is concerned that a postponed event will become a cancelled event, and that once again UCT will have caved to the anti-free speech lobby. We urge the Vice-Chancellor to uphold the right for the divergence of opinions.

John Kerry wants to end free speech

The worst assault on free speech by the climate change lobby has just come from John Kerry, unsuccesful presidential candidate in 2004 election, Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017 and US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate from 2021 to March 2024. Addressing a world audience at the World Economic Forum, he attacked the First Amendment of the American Constitution as a "major block" to "hammer it [disinformation] out of existence".