About That Free Speech Thing

Increasingly, it seems that free speech and freedom of expression are contingent upon whether the powers that be approve of your views. Recent events surrounding the Israel-Gaza war underscore that reality.

Close to home, Humber College has expressed 'regret'  over a recent incident where a student was removed from campus for his views. 

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Dozens of students organized a walkout at Humber College in Toronto on Tuesday after one student was removed from campus for putting up stickers of the Palestinian flag amid heightened tensions on many Canadian university campuses.

Hani Alaf, a Syrian-Canadian postgraduate student, says he plastered about a dozen stickers around Humber's Lakeshore campus last Tuesday. The stickers depicted the Palestinian flag and read "Boycott Israeli Apartheid."

Two days later, he was sitting in class when a staff member of Humber's public safety department approached him and asked him to leave campus and not return, he says.

"[I was told] that I have been accused of spreading hate speech, of spreading antisemitic rhetoric and of desecrating and vandalizing property," Alaf told CBC Toronto.

Told that he would be arrested should he return. Hence the student walkout, and now that the incident has been held up to the sanitizing rays of public scrutiny,  the college has expressed its regrets and he can return to campus.

And slightly farther afield, there is the great exception American Republicans are taking with Palestinian-American House Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who has tried to emphasize the humanity of victims on both sides. To their shame, a number of her fellow Democrats voted for the censure, the final count being 234-188 in favour of her censure.

But she is not prepared to accept this:

In remarks on the House floor, Tlaib defended her criticism of the country and urged lawmakers to join in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“I will not be silenced and I will not let you distort my words,” Tlaib said. “No government is beyond criticism. The idea that criticizing the government of Israel is antisemitic sets a very dangerous precedent, and it’s been used to silence diverse voices speaking up for human rights across our nation.”

She also said she had condemned the Hamas attacks on Israeli citizens several times.

Finally, across the  pond, English PM Rishi Sunak has no tolerance for a pro-Palestinian protest on Armistice Day, one that the Met Commissioner, Mark Rowley refuses to block:

Rishi Sunak has vowed to hold the Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark Rowley, “accountable” for his defiance of demands for a ban on a pro-Palestinian march in London planned for Armistice Day.

Downing Street would not say whether the government would overrule the Met’s decision.

Asked whether it would intervene, the official said: “The Met are operationally independent and obviously the focus on the discussion today is about their approach. It is a poignant weekend of remembrance where people from across the UK come together. Planning a march to coincide with that which, based on previous marches, may include incidents of expressing racial hatred, for which there were a number of arrests last weekend, would be provocative and disrespectful.”

Sterling examples of free speech and freedom of expression, something we are always told are legacies of those who fought and died in both world wars, seem no longer the tradition when dealing with Pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Irony, anyone?

 

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