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:

    We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want ... everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear ... anywhere in the world.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

    Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
    Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)

    The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible.
    Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)

    Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    I do love this people [the French] with all my heart, and think that with a better religion and a better form of government and their present governors their condition and country would be most enviable.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)