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 speech, 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)

    In the life of the human spirit, words are action, much more so than many of us may realize who live in countries where freedom of expression is taken for granted. The leaders of totalitarian nations understand this very well. The proof is that words are precisely the action for which dissidents in those countries are being persecuted.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.
    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)

    Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily candid—necessarily goes to the roots of action! Private prayer is inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections?
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    I can love both fair and brown;
    Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;
    Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays;
    Her whom the country formed, and whom the town;
    Her who believes, and her who tries;
    Her who still weeps with spongy eyes;
    And her who is dry cork, and never cries.
    I can love her, and her, and you and you,
    I can love any, so she be not true.
    John Donne (1572–1631)