20 January 2007
Question: "Where Does Artistic Freedom End…?"
Answer: In a democracy like ours, basically, it doesn’t.
According to Canada’s Human Rights Program…
“The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms… is founded on the rule of law and entrenches in the Constitution of Canada the rights and freedoms Canadians believe are necessary in a free and democratic society. It recognizes primary fundamental freedoms (e.g. freedom of expression and of association), democratic rights (e.g. the right to vote), mobility rights (e.g. the right to live anywhere in Canada), legal rights (e.g. the right to life, liberty and security of the person) and equality rights, and recognizes the multicultural heritage of Canadians. It also protects official language and minority language education rights. In addition, the provisions of section 25 guarantee the rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada.“
U.S. readers will see an analogue to these “Charter Rights” in their own U.S. Constitution, specifically the First Amendment. In both countries, a “Bill of Rights” protects artistic expression, just as it protects one’s right to protest someone else’s expression, just as it protects the “Freedom of the Press”. It is always ironic when citizens (sometimes even newspaper writers) seek to limit the freedom of expression of others, without realizing that they are attacking the very freedom that they themselves enjoy (luckily, I quite enjoy irony).
For all humanity, in fact, these rights are enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN’s General Assembly back in 1948. As the Wikipedia article notes, “When the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany became apparent after the Second World War, there was a general consensus within the world community that the United Nations Charter did not sufficiently clarify rights it protected. Rather, a universal declaration that articulated and codified the rights of individuals was necessary.” The Article itself is very straightforward, simply stating
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.“
Ain’t freedom grand…





[...] government censorship should rile those who cherish the freedoms set out in the UN’s own Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes the right to free expression, which is something you would think the UN’s own [...]
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:42 am