Friday, November 22, 2024
MAKE A DONATION
Get in Touch
Member Login
BECOME A MEMBER
Join Today

In the Media

Articles That Mention the Free Speech Union

New Zealand’s culture wars backlash

Click here to read the article

I’m in New Zealand on a speaking tour organised by the Kiwi Free Speech Union, and in some ways it’s like visiting Britain in a more innocent era. This struck me when I went on a tour of the Hobbiton movie set, where The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed. The Shire of Tolkien’s imagination, lovingly created by Peter Jackson, is an idealised version of rural England – and New Zealand, with its perfectly manicured lawns and open-faced, friendly people, is a bit like that. Although, to be fair, I may be viewing the country through rose-tinted spectacles because Labour was heavily defeated in the most recent election, winning just 34 out of 120 seats.

Toby Young,The Spectator, 22nd June 2024.

Bowen to the rescue

Click here to read the article

As we mentioned last week, we are delighted to welcome Toby Young, associate editor of The Spectator in the UK, to the Antipodes. Toby is here on a tour of our major cities to promote the excellent Australian and New Zealand branches of the Free Speech Union, which he originally founded in Britain in 2020.

The Spectator Australia, 22nd June 2024.

Death by red tape

Click here to read the article

Luckily, the Free Speech Union agreed to cover the excess charges, and the event was able to proceed as planned. However, the obstacles did not stop here. The process of arranging security was an uphill struggle against what seemed to be a never-ending volume of red tape, paperwork, meetings, and bottleneck dynamics.

Rhianwen Daniel, The Critic, 20th June 2024.

Social media platforms are still stifling debate

Click here to read the article

The Free Speech Union reported on June 9th  about the sudden purge of Instagram  accounts belonging to those with sex realist views.
One of these accounts was Sex Matters, who were permanently suspended for breaking the website’s “community guidelines”. Sex Matters is of course the registered charity set up by Maya Forstater in the wake of her 2021 court victory which established that a belief that sex is real and it matters is worthy of respect in a democratic society and protected by the Equality Act.

Sarah Phillimore, The Critic, 18th June 2024.

The football world’s war on free speech

Click here to read the article

Earlier this year, for instance, it emerged that Newcastle United Football Club (NUFC) supporter and Free Speech Union member Linzi Smith has been banned from attending home matches during the season just ended and for the next two for expressing legally protected gender critical views online. Her “crime” in the eyes of her hometown club was to criticise the view that men who identify as women should be treated as if they were indistinguishable from biological women, including being able to access women’s changing rooms, compete against women in sports like football and rugby and be housed in women’s jails. The fact that Linzi was prevented from supporting her beloved team in this way is bad enough. But while supporting Linzi, the FSU has also discovered a shadowy investigation unit with an opaque remit embedded within the Premier League that spied on her at NUFC’s behest.

Freddie Attenborough, The Critic, 13th June 2024.

Free speech concern after Ipso rule against open court reporting

Click here to read the article

Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, said: “Ipso acknowledges that journalists’ right to report on court proceedings is an essential part of open justice and in the public interest. Why then is it seeking to curtail that right? How much detail to include in a newspaper report about proceedings in open court is an editorial judgment and not a matter for the regulator. I worry that if Ipso crosses the line in this area, what’s to stop it interfering in other editorial judgments?”

Hayley Dixon and Robert Mendick, The Telegraph, 6th June 2024.

“Illiberal” and “alarming”: University statute amendments criticised

Click here to read the article

Toby Young of the Free Speech Union said: “From the Free Speech Union’s point of view, the most egregious element in the proposed amendments to the disciplinary code is the reference to causing offence. As has already been pointed out to Congregation by our Chairman, Nigel Biggar, and others, the law prevents the University from prohibiting or sanctioning speech solely on the ground that it is offensive.”

Martin Alfonsin Larsen and Gaspard Rouffin, The Oxford Student, 6th June 2024.

Russell Group apologises after suggesting gender-critical beliefs akin to anti-Semitism

Click here to read the article

The Free Speech Union, which advocates for freedom of speech and defends those whose right to expression has been violated, said: “Forty per cent of the cases we’ve taken on this year have involved gender-critical feminists getting into trouble for saying something perfectly reasonable that a majority of people would agree with, e.g. male sex offenders shouldn’t be housed in women’s prisons, even if they claim to have ‘transitioned’.”

Neil Johnston, The Telegraph, 24th May 2024.

Welcome to the Free Speech Union


If you’re looking for information and guidance, or in need of immediate help, please click the button below:
GET IN TOUCH