Source/Credit: The Jakarta Post |
By TJP | November 19, 2011
Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, visited Jakarta last week to attend the Asia Civil Society Consultation on National Security and Right to Information Principles. On the sidelines of the event, the Guatemalan talked to The Jakata Post’s Bagus B.T. Saragih about the importance of upholding freedom of information without sacrificing security. The excerpts are below.
Question: Do you think freedom of expression threatens stability?
Answer: Freedom of expression is never a problem of instability. It is a necessary element to create harmony and governability. Many of the elements of cultural crisis in many parts of the world involve the intransigence in recognizing the cultural diversity of every group, especially minority, ethnic, racial or religious groups. When you don’t have freedom of expression, you will have conflict. Silencing freedom of opinion is to protect those in power, not the population.
How does this affect development?
Freedom of expression has two dimensions: access to information and the right to disseminate ideas. Both of them are essential to democracy. The people in a democratic society want to be informed of the government, what the government does, why it does it and how the nation’s resources are used. This is called transparency.
It should enable those who want to be able to speak of their minds, to criticize public officials or public policies. Without communication, a government will never have the participation of society in its development plan.
What do you think about the argument that freedom of expression has its drawbacks, such as allowing blasphemy that could incite hatred between communities?
Article 20 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights says all states should prohibit the incitement of hatred, hostility and violence and any form of discrimination on the basis of race, religion or nationality against anyone. I think this is crucial. I understand that religion, as well as philosophy, is in the contextual world of spirituality and concepts and ideas, and therefore they are open to discussion and debate, which should never be charged with blasphemy law. I don’t believe blasphemy should be a crime. Europe also has a blasphemy law, and this is a mistake. I believe in respect, but I don’t believe respect is designed and brought about by censorship.
So should there be limitations?
Limitations do exist but very few and not in favor of censorship. Censorship is always a political decision. Limitation is needed for the protection of children, for example. Child pornography, publication, propagation, commercialization, dissemination, etc, should be prohibited. This should be investigated and prosecuted, not just censored. But it’s not a problem of freedom of expression, it’s a problem of criminal activity.
What are other exceptions?
Article 19 of the covenant says that freedom of expression can be limited for national security, public order and public morale. Conventions on racial discrimination say that all forms of expression that talk about the superiority of one race over the other should be prohibited. The promotion of terrorism as well as other organized crime should also be banned. But those limitations are not because of the internet and social media, They are because of the content.
The number of social media users in Indonesia has been sharply increasing. Is it a good sign or should we worry about that?
Which are the most developed societies economically? Those that have more freedom of expression and information, those that have better communication, so I don’t think it is a problem.
Some officials here expressed concerns about false information spreading in social media that might damage the government’s reputation.
Do you think they should regulate newspapers? Then what prevents newspaper from disseminating false information? The public. The public can decide what newspaper they read. The government cannot pretend to present itself as the owner of the truth. We build the truth via dialogue. Yes, people do lie, but other people will understand it is a lie. You respond to it and arguments will come. This is what communication is all about.
Read original post here: We build the truth via dialogue: UN rapporteur
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