Media

In conversation: FSU International
sara@irr.org.za
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Jan 24, 2023

Toby Young, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union UK was joined by Sara Gon, Director of the FSU South Africa and Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the FSU New Zealand to discuss a wide range of topics including how free speech is curtailed in the media, the importance of hearing contrary opinions and the commonalities experienced by our respective organisations.

Not seeing colour is not racist
sara@irr.org.za
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Jan 10, 2023

The woke insist that 'I don't see colour' or 'I am colourblind' are actually expressions of racism in that you ignore a fundamental feature of a person. We don't agree. We believe they are positive terms that merely reflect that a person's colour is not the basis upon which a person is judged.

The Reith Lectures - The Four Freedoms: 1. Freedom of Speech
sara@irr.org.za
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Dec 15, 2022

Best-selling Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives the first of four 2022 Reith Lectures discussing freedom of speech. This lecture and question-and-answer session is recorded in London in front of an audience and presented by Anita Anand. The year's series was inspired by President Franklin D Roosevelt's four freedoms speech of 1941 and asks what this terrain means now? It features four different lecturers. In addition to Chimamanda, they are: Freedom of Worship by Rowan Williams Freedom from Want by Darren McGarvey Freedom from Fear by Fiona Hill

How woke language distorts the world
sara@irr.org.za
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Nov 21, 2022

Peter Boghossian writes on how the woke use ordinary words and fills them with new ideological context. So words with a set meaning come to mean something else entirely - an ordinary meaning and then an activist meaning.

Press release: Fish Hoek High ‘social justice’ saga: we told you so – IRR
sara@irr.org.za
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Nov 07, 2022

The FSU, a division of the Institute of Race Relations, issued a press release about the Fish Hoek High School debacle over the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion intervention initiated by the Western Cape Education Department to conscientise 800 pupils about their racial biases. It didn't end well and parents were outraged.

Hate Speech Bill in late 2022: Still a threat to free expression?
Martin van Staden
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Nov 03, 2022

The "Hate Speech" Bill should not provide for as many "protected grounds" against hate speech as it does: it should be limited by the narrower terms contained in Section 16 of the Constitution. The Bill's definition of "harm" is too wide as well. In fact, it can be scrapped in its entirety as the existing Equality Act is more than sufficient.

Hate speech will hobble free speech*
sara@irr.org.za
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Oct 11, 2022

Supporting free speech vigorously means accepting that people are entitled to express hate speech. The response to hate speech should not be to criminalise it, subject only to the Constitution and existing legislation; the Hate Bill speech is unwanted and unnecessary.

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© Free Speech Union SA