Since we at the Center for Inquiry first launched the
Campaign for Free Expression website in 2012, a lot has
changed, and a lot has stayed the same.
Let me start with what has not changed: There remains a
global crackdown on freedom of expression, blasphemy laws
exist in more than 50 countries, and often times, in
countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, these laws are
still viciously enforced. Governments are still too often in
thrall to political pressure from extremist religious
movements, rather than responding to the rights and needs of
all people. Countries with dreadful human rights records
still hold too much sway at the United Nations, and
organize to resist — and reverse — progress on freedom of
thought.
And, unfortunately, many of the dissidents and victims of
persecution we highlighted when this site was first launched
remain either imprisoned or in legal or even mortal danger.
But things have also changed, some for better, some for
worse. Alexander Aan of Indonesia, jailed for posting to
Facebook about his atheism, was released from prison after
19 months, and now pursues his love of science, and works
toward a degree in physics. Raif Badawi, jailed in 2012 for
“insulting Islam” in Saudi Arabia, was eventually sentenced
to 10 years and an unthinkable 1000 lashes. But his story
has elevated the cause of free expression, and the United
States’ problematic relationship with Saudi Arabia, to
international attention. The protest band Pussy Riot became
globally known symbols of free speech, particularly the
right to criticize one’s government, and now, out of prison,
continue to rally support to the cause. And at the
diplomatic level, the once-relentless efforts by certain
countries to codify a kind of global blasphemy law at the
United Nations have largely dissipated. For now.
Some things have gotten much worse. One need look no further
than the crisis in Bangladesh, where four secularist
bloggers have been murdered by Islamic radicals in 2015
alone, with many more on a “hit list” of names singled out
for death by extremist groups, some reportedly affiliated
with Al Qaeda. One of the victims, Avijit Roy, was a
naturalized U.S. citizen who assisted us with our worldwide
protests against the jailing of atheist bloggers in 2013.
Violence in response to perceived blasphemy reached Paris at
the end of 2014 with the massacre of journalists and
cartoonists at the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Sony
Pictures, for a time, capitulated to the demands of what may
or may not have been the North Korean government, when
violence was threatened over the screening of the film
“The Interview.” And right here in the United
States, the peaceful citizens of Ferguson, Missouri,
protesting the killing of Michael Brown, had their free
expression rights curbed by a militarized police force.
The silver lining to these ongoing concerns is that free
expression and the right to criticize and satirize religion,
cultural traditions, and governments is now a topic of
mainstream debate and discussion. Now, more than ever, the
world community is taking seriously the need to defend free
speech, and wrestling with how to navigate the fundamental
right to free religious belief (including the right not to
believe) and the equally fundamental right of individuals to
criticize religious beliefs.
We are proud to have led so much of this conversation, to
have been at the forefront of this great challenge, a
challenge that tests our notions of a global civilization,
and calls us to be our best, most humanistic selves.
With so much change, and with so much that still needs to
change, we thought it was also time to rethink our campaign
website, to refocus our online presence, and better respond
to the rapid developments on this broad and explosive topic.
So take a look around the new site. See the updated case
files of those persecuted for their dissent. Educate
yourself on the issue with our various materials and media,
including statements to the UN Human Rights Council. And
most importantly, check out the ways you can get involved.
The right to free expression is as big as the world, and as
we’ve seen so often, responses and suppressions of free
expression have reverberations far beyond any one country’s
borders. But you can help us get this important concept
across those borders, into the hearts and minds of
government officials, diplomats, and the general public:
Ideas don’t need rights. People do. Protect dissent.
