Freedom of Expression/Threatening to government

Freedom of Expression

Is this right often perceived as threatening to government authorities?

At times, states have felt intimidated by different instances and types of expression.

Historical concerns about expression have been documented as far back as ancient Rome, where laws were put in place that made offenses against state leaders and the country in general a criminal act. Later, this legislation evolved to enact severe punishments on those who caused offense to the sovereign, whether through verbal or other attacks (“Lese Majesty”). In Medieval England, heretics - those that expressed sentiments and performed acts contrary to the Church of England and its teachings - were prosecuted and burned at the stake for threatening religious authority (Statutes of the Realm, 2:12S-28: 2 Henry IV). Centuries later in 1798, the US government made it illegal for any citizen to print, state, or distribute words about the government or its members that were considered to be spiteful and untrue by passing the Sedition Act. Those who were prosecuted for such crimes were largely Democratic-Republican Journalists, indicating that the ruling Federalist party passed the legislation to suppress opposition figures whose speech threatened their authority (“Alien and Sedition Acts ” 1798).

In the current era, studies evaluating freedom of expression suggest that the right continues to be viewed as a threat to many national governments. In fact, according to the 2023 Freedom in the World report, the number of countries that are classified as having the lowest possible score in terms of freedom of expression have doubled. Additionally, statistics show that 109 countries approved some sort of legislation that restricted this same right in the year 2022 (Gorokhovskaia, Shabaz, and Slipowitz 2023). In many cases, both recently and in the past, regimes of all types have justified limitations on the freedom of expression as actions meant to protect public interests in some way, shape, or form.

Governments may demonstrate that they feel threatened by free expression through police crackdowns or legal actions. As an example, in 2022 Iranian authorities began to violently crack down on citizens protesting the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who had perished at the hands of the country’s morality police. Demonstrations grew, with many opposing the Islamic republic’s policies, including mandatory veiling. As a result, authorities reacted by employing internet blackouts, arrests, imprisonments, and more (Ziabari 2023). President Ebrahim Raisi justified these repressive actions and threatened further crack down on dissidents, stating that they were opposing Iran’s “security and tranquility” (The Guardian 2022), making it necessary to curtail freedom of expression.

Fears that freedom of expression may compromise public security have also been demonstrated in countries such as the United States. A primary example is the Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio, decided in 1969. The proceeding was based around a Ku Klux Klan leader who had spoken at a rally for the organization, “advocat[ing]... the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform” (Brandenburg v. Ohio 1968, 444-445), according to prosecutors. As a result of this reasoning, the plaintiff was convicted under the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism statute, a decision that was later appealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violated freedom of speech and expression as defined by the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. This piece of legislation was described by the court as a way to prevent the teaching “of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence” (Brandenburg v. Ohio 1968, 448), indicating that Ohio’s state government had produced the law due to concerns that certain types of expression could lead to public corruption or insurrection. Ultimately, the Supreme Court deemed the state’s Criminal Syndicalism statute unconstitutional, widening the scope of freedom of expression in the United States (Brandenburg v. Ohio 1968, 448-449).

The interests and values of a majority group often play a contentious role in governments’ feelings and responses to certain expressive acts. Offending a dominant religion, ethnicity, or other social group tends to be perceived as a threat to the government, which can be viewed in the 2005 case heard by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), İ.A. v. Turkey. The applicant, a citizen of Turkey who was referred to throughout the case as Mr. İ.A., owned and directed a publishing house which had released the novel “Yasak Tümceler”, which discussed various religious and philosophical issues. Turkish prosecutors deemed the book an offense to Islam and charged him with blasphemy against the nation’s dominant religion based on Article 175 of Turkey’s Criminal Code (İ.A. v. Turkey 2005, 1-2). As a result, Mr. İ.A. appealed to the ECHR, saying that his conviction infringed upon the right to freedom of expression as defined by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. For their part, the Turkish government insisted that “the book had fallen short of the level of responsibility to be expected of criticism in a country where the majority of the population were Muslim” (İ.A. v. Turkey 2005, 4), and thus freedom of expression had to be limited. The ECHR eventually sided with the Turkish government, agreeing that “as paragraph 2 of Article 10 recognises, the exercise of that freedom carries with it duties and responsibilities. Among them, in the context of religious beliefs, may legitimately be included a duty to avoid expressions that are gratuitously offensive to others and profane” (İ.A. v. Turkey 2005, 5). Given this reasoning, the court confirmed that the limitations authorities placed on the applicant’s freedom of expression were justified and a “pressing social need” (İ.A. v. Turkey 2005, 5-6). The Turkish government’s actions and legislation to protect the religious majority’s feelings from an expression that abused it, backed by the ECHR.

In some cases, freedom of expression can be viewed by the government as a threat to public morality. This justification for limiting the right can be viewed in another ECHR case, Handyside v. The United Kingdom, which, similar to İ.A. v. Turkey, was based around the publishing of a book. The applicant, Mr. Handyside, owned a publishing company that bought the British rights to a work titled The Little Red Schoolbook, aimed towards school-aged audiences and including a section that discussed sexual matters (Handyside v. The United Kingdom 1976, 3-6). After it was released in the UK, many complaints about the book’s contents were made, with authorities eventually convicting Handyside of possessing obscene books for publication for gain under the Obscene Publications Acts of 1959 and 1964 (Handyside v. The United Kingdom 1976, 5), as well as confiscated the copies found in his office. Mr. Handyside then appealed these convictions to the ECHR on the grounds that the United Kingdom’s actions violated his right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and breached several other rights laid out in the same document (Handyside v. The United Kingdom 1976, 13). However, the British government argued that they were justified in their actions, explaining that the limitations on expression were “necessary in a democratic society… for the protection of… morals” (Handyside v. The United Kingdom 1976, 16). This sentiment was backed by the ECHR, which found “that the 1959/1964 Acts have an aim that is legitimate under Article 10 para. 2 (art. 10-2), namely, the protection of morals in a democratic society” (Handyside v. The United Kingdom 1976, 16).

References:

“Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)”. n.d. National Archives. Accessed June 7, 2023. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/alien-and-sedition-acts#sedition

Gorokhovskaia, Yana, Adrian Shahbaz, and Amy Slipowitz. 2023. “Freedom in the World 2023: Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy.” Freedom House.

The Guardian. 2022. “Protests Spread in Iran as President Raisi vows to crack down.” September 29, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/24/protests-spread-in-iran-as-president-raisi-vows-to-crack-down

Handyside v. The United Kingdom, Application No. 5493/72, ECtHR judgment of 7 December 1976. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57499

İ.A. v. Turkey, Application no. 42571/98, ECtHR judgment of 13 December 2005. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-70113

“Lese Majesty.” The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, 2013, https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/lese+majesty. Accessed 7 June 2023.

Parliament of the United Kingdom. Obscene Publications Act 1959. 7 & 8 Eliz. 2. c.66 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/7-8/66/section/1 Statutes of the Realm, 2:12S-28: 2 Henry IV Supreme Court Of The United States. U.S. Reports: Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444. 1968. Periodical. https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep395444/.

Ziabari, Kourosh. 2023. “Iranian Protests and the Crisis of Free Speech.” Arab Center Washington DC. February 23, 2023. https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/iranian-protests-and-the-crisis-of-free-speech/