Freedom of Speech By Country

Freedom Of Speech By Country

Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment. "Speech" is not limited to public speaking and is generally taken to include other forms of expression. The right is preserved in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations. Nonetheless the degree to which the right is upheld in practice varies greatly from one nation to another. In many nations, particularly those with relatively authoritarian forms of government, overt government censorship is enforced. Censorship has also been claimed to occur in other forms (see propaganda model) and there are different approaches to issues such as hate speech, obscenity, and defamation laws even in countries seen as liberal democracies.

Read more about Freedom Of Speech By Country:  International Law, African Continent, Australia, Asia

Famous quotes containing the words freedom of, freedom, speech and/or country:

    “The freedom to make a fortune on the Stock Exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech.”
    —John Mortimer (b. 1923)

    “Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
    In prison pine with bondage and restraint;
    And with remembrance of the greater grief
    To banish the less, I find my chief relief.”
    —Henry Howard, Earl Of Surrey (1517?–1547)

    “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”
    —Bible: New Testament St. Paul, in Colossians, 4:6.

    “And this mighty master of the organ of language, who knew its every stop and pipe, who could awaken at will the thin silver tones of its slenderest reeds or the solemn cadence of its deepest thunder, who could make it sing like a flute or roar like a cataract, he was born into a country without literature.”
    —Willa Cather (1873–1947)