PRO-PALESTINIANISM IS NOT TERRORISM

Where free speech is denied or curtailed, democracy is either flawed or does not exist. This universally embraced description of democracy declares that free elections alone do not make a democracy, but free speech, among other democratic principles, also matters.

- by Ameen Izzadeen

The emphasis on free speech imbues freedom with its fullest meaning. However, freedom is not the freedom until the last word is to be prayed. It needs self-discipline for its preservation. The old adage “my freedom ends where your nose begins” has a profound meaning. This is why states too intervene, imposing rules to safeguard national security and communal harmony, among other state objectives.

While recognising such conceptual and constitutional restrictions to free speech, this column today raises serious concerns regarding the government’s commitment to democratic values following the questionable arrest of a youth activist in Colombo on March 22.

He was arrested on March 22 after a couple of stickers critical of Israel appeared in a Colombo mall. While laws on vandalism would have provided sufficient grounds for arrest, law enforcement officers overreacted to the stickers’ content. They arrested the youth activist under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, a law widely condemned in democracy promotion circles as incompatible with democratic values.

While the government appears to be going to great lengths to defend the police action on national security grounds, as seen in the replies of national media spokesman Minister Janaka Nandana Jayasekera, the case raises a serious question about the thin line between free speech and terrorism.

Can the minister explain clearly where free speech stops and terrorism begins? A reasonable doubt arises if the minds of prejudice activists and perception-mongering people tell the police how trying to fabricate evidence to charge the youth with terrorism and justify detention under the flawed PTA.