View allAll Photos Tagged FreedomOfExpression
The United States Mission and the Institute for Media and Global Governance (IMGG) nominated seven "Internet Freedom Fellows" writers, bloggers and journalists from around the world who are using social media, mobile communications and digital networks to promote human rights. The Fellows will spend two days in Geneva June 9-10, 2011 for discussions with diplomats, ngos and international organizations.
U.S. Mission Photo: Eric Bridiers
This caption should also be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation as I did not see the initial moments and context of this woman's arrest.
This black and white image portrays a moment when the police seem to pause and deliberate during one of many arrests made during the protest against the proscription of Palestine Action in London's Parliament Square on 6 September 2025. The deliberation was in itself presumably a routine part of the bureaucratic processing requirement that accompanies each and every arrest , a part of the pre-scripted political theatre that played out that day, where both protesters and police acted out their foreseen roles.
#HongKong #Protest #AnitELAB #HKPoliceBrutality #FreedomOfExpression #StandWithHongKong #PoliceState
Bell Chan | BGfotologue
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Committee to Protect Journalists and Index on Censorship join online platform
Chief Executive of Index on Censorship Jodie Ginsberg, and European Union correspondent of the Committee to Protect Journalists Jean-Paul Marthoz signed the agreement on behalf of their organisations during a meeting with Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland.
Photo : Sandro Weltin/©Council of Europe
Protestas estudiantiles debido al cierre de RCTV y la amenaza en contra de la libertad de expresión en Venezuela. Maracay , Venezuela .
Saturday March 16th 2019, there is something different about the Vortex, we are subjected to a security check. Gilad Atzmon is playing the second night of his residency, yesterday his gig was picketed by a combined group of misfits.
For many years Gilad has been the subject of an atrocious witch-hunt, the problem for the witch-hunters is that Gilad has opinions and is articulate verbally as well as musically. Gilad is a rational thinker and a free speaker, the witch-hunters are against rational thought and free speech.
I'll be exploring Gilad's music and his philosophy in this set of pictures or Album to use the flickr terminology (it's already open as 'A Set for Gilad', I now rename it 'Gilad Mon Amour'. I've been listening to jazz and going to the Vortex for a very long time, my first flickr posting of Gilad at the Vortex is dated February 2010,
Gilad's music speaks directly to those who can hear, so here is a link to 'Gaza mon Amour' on YouTube (11:10).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=esq1cxpGGYo&frags=pl%2Cwn
Listen to the music, let it speak to you directly.
Vigil for the victims of the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Brandenburger Gate, Berlin, January 7th, 2015.
This caption should be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation, as I did not see the initial moment of this woman's arrest. There is no definitive evidence of what exactly her suspected "crime" was and it would be even more erroneous to conclude the photograph is evidence that she had deliberately broken any laws.
I've blurred her face because, noticing her mask, I assumed that though the mask might well have been worn purely for medical reasons, she might equally have been nervous of her identity being revealed in any media imagery.
The image highlights the significant scale of the police operation deployed for the protest on September 6th. A single protester, one of hundreds detained that day, is surrounded by numerous officers.
The visual contrast underscores the systematic and resource-intensive nature of the state's response to the pre-announced silent vigil. Each arrest was a component of a vast, coordinated effort to enforce the new legislation against a crowd that had gathered for a peaceful demonstration against the proscription of Palestine Action.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience
Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.
They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.
On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.
As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.
This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?
The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.
Direct Action and the State’s Response
Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.
Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.
That clash escalated steadily. In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site.
Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers. These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.
The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza. For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”
Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder.
By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence.
Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offense is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offence for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.
Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.
But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.
The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime. The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.
Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial
It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.
The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.
At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.
The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign. By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law. It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history.
Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.
www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/
Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s
The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state.
The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation. Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.
The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All
To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.
By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.
It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion.
For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.
The Price of Dissent
The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.
The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.
The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.
The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.
In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.
De la Serie Voces Contra el Silencio /From the Voices Against Silence Serie
Protestas en contra de la polémica decisión del presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez de cerrar el canal de televisión privado más antiguo e importante del país...
Protests against venezuelan president Hugo Chavez polemical decision of closing the oldest and most important private TV channel of the country...
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
The 10th Anniversary celebration of the Belarus Free Theatre.
Belarusian punk rock band Brutto play a selection of songs including 'Moscow's Calling', based on 'London's Calling' by 'The Clash'.
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v#p035nnxh
(Watch Brutto play Moscow's Calling on BBC iPlayer)
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035nqns (Watch Brutto with Reef guitarist Kenwyn House on BBC iPlayer)
Watch the full event below from a set point.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035xyzl
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Individual Identity, The Little Morellos, The Greater Poland Dance Team (city days). Dance is a living art form. The style of ballroom dancing is characterized by the type of music that accompanies. The music influences the dance style. Dancing has always been a popular recreational activity as sweaty as playing a lot of sports.
"Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Najib Razak, over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar misappropriation scandal.
Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders just hours before the rally, protesters marched from various spots towards the heart of Kuala Lumpur amid tight security."
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/thousands-call-for-...
www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-o...
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.
Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.
4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
"Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Najib Razak, over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar misappropriation scandal.
Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders just hours before the rally, protesters marched from various spots towards the heart of Kuala Lumpur amid tight security."
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/thousands-call-for-...
www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-o...
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.
Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.
4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
The 10th Anniversary celebration of the Belarus Free Theatre.
KOKO orignally opened as the Camden Theatre in 1900.
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.
Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.
4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
The 10th Anniversary celebration of the Belarus Free Theatre.
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus_Free_Theatre
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox, perform 'In Any Tongue' the sixth track from David Gilmour's new album 'Rattle That Lock'.
2. In Any Tongue (Gilmour, Samson)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock/
play.spotify.com/track/1gLIbISS3w1jjyRu1KuM76?play=true&a...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.
Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.
4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.
Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.
4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
that is sexy. Teacher will be teachers, even on the street.
This was taken last 2008 Higantes festival in Angono, Rizal.
The celebration started as a stirical expression by farm worker during the spanish colonialization in the Philippines. They were trying to make fun of the landlords by making giant replica of them.
It has evolved into a fun celebration during the angono fiesta.
Once we were told that we had freedom of expression in Spain.
Una vez se nos dijo que teníamos libertad de expresión en España.
Indígnate en www.elindignado.com
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
Charlie Gilmour, David Gilmour, Bryan Chambers and Boombox leave the stage.
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
by Falko. 4 parts
The concept of Splitpiece
It is to take one image. Divide it into sections. Each section is done in area `different’ to the other. Each section stands alone as an artwork, with its own meaning, in its respective location but once all sections are completed they are brought together to make ONE fully comprehensive image.
We took one residential road, created murals on selected areas on all the homes, inside and outside. Then using all the murals, we combined them to make Splitpieces in several ways.
Using the residential area of Darling East, South Africa was ideal for this project because of several factors.
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour, Jon Carin, Bryan Chambers and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox are joined a choir consisting of Polly Samson (who wrote the lyrics), friends and family. They perform the title track 'Rattle That Lock' from David Gilmour's new number one album of the same name.
Featuring the SNCF jingle by Michaël Boumendil.
4. Rattle That Lock (Gilmour, Samson, Boumendil)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock
www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1v7hXEQhsQ (Official Music Video)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Samson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micha%C3%ABl_Boumendil
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
This caption should be understood as an inevitably subjective interpretation, as I did not see the initial moment of this woman's arrest. There is no definitive evidence of what exactly her suspected "crime" was and it would be even more erroneous to conclude the photograph is evidence that she had deliberately broken any laws.
However, whatever the precise reason for this particular arrest, the photograph captures the logistics of the mass arrests that day, as protesters were systematically processed near police vehicles. The calm demeanour of the sitting woman reflects the quiet, almost solemn defiance that characterised the protest.
Rather than a scene of chaotic confrontation, the image depicts the methodical reality of the day's events. It shows an individual who, having been suspected of breaking a law presumably while protesting the proscription of Palestine Action, now awaits for the bureaucratic process to run its course. A process hundreds of protesters (and I don't know if this includes this particular protester) knowingly and courageously initiated in order to hold a mirror up to the state's repressive power.
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Protest and the Price of Dissent: Palestine Action and the Criminalisation of Conscience
Parliament Square on Saturday, 6 September 2025 was a scene of quiet, almost solemn defiance. The air, usually thick with the noise of London traffic and crowds of tourists, was instead filled with a palpable tension, a shared gravity that emanated from the quiet determination of hundreds of protesters, many of them over 60 years old, some sitting on steps or stools and others lying on the grass.
They held not professionally printed banners, but handwritten cardboard signs, their messages stark against the historic grandeur of their surroundings. This was not a march of chants and slogans, but a silent vigil of civil disobedience, a deliberate and calculated act of defiance against the state.
On that day, my task was to photograph the protest against the proscription of the direct-action group Palestine Action. While not always agreeing entirely with the group’s methods, I could not help but be struck by the profound dedication etched on the faces of the individual protesters.
As they sat in silence, contemplating both the horrific gravity of the situation in Gaza and the enormity of the personal risk they were taking — courting arrest under terror laws for holding a simple placard — their expressions took on a quality not dissimilar to what war photographers once called the “thousand-yard stare.” It was a look of weary but deep and determined resolve, a silent testament to their readiness to face life-changing prosecution in the name of a principle.
This scene poses a profound and unsettling question for modern Britain. How did the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its democratic traditions and the right to protest, arrive at a point where hundreds of its citizens — clergy, doctors, veterans, and the elderly — could be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for an act of silent, peaceful protest?
The events of that September afternoon were the culmination of a complex and contentious series of developments, but their significance extends far beyond a single organisation or demonstration. The proscription of Palestine Action has become a critical juncture in the nation’s relationship with dissent, a test of the elasticity of free expression, and a stark examination of its obligations under international law in the face of Israel deliberately engineering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
To understand what is at stake, one must unravel the threads that led to that moment: the identity of the movement, the state’s legal machinery of proscription, the confrontation in Parliament Square, and the political context that compelled so many to risk their liberty.
Direct Action and the State’s Response
Palestine Action, established in 2020, has never hidden its approach. Unlike traditional lobbying groups, it rejected appeals to political elites in favour of disrupting the physical infrastructure of complicity: factories producing parts for Israeli weapons systems, offices of arms manufacturers, and — eventually — military installations themselves.
Its tactics, while non-violent, were disruptive and confrontational. Red paint sprayed across buildings to symbolise blood, occupations that halted production, chains and locks on factory gates. For supporters, these were acts of conscience against a system enabling atrocities in Gaza. For the state, they were criminal disruptions of commerce.
That clash escalated steadily. In Oldham, a persistent campaign against Elbit Systems, a key manufacturer in the Israeli arms supply chain, culminated in the company abandoning its Ferranti site. Later actions targeted suppliers for F-35 fighter jets and other arms manufacturers. These were no random acts of mindless vandalism but part of a deliberate strategy: to impose costs high enough that complicity in Israel’s war effort would become unsustainable.
The decisive rupture came in June 2025, when activists infiltrated RAF Brize Norton, Britain’s largest airbase, and sprayed red paint into the engines of refuelling aircraft linked to operations over Gaza. For the activists, it was a desperate attempt to interrupt a supply chain of surveillance and logistical support to a state commiting genocide. For the government, it crossed a line: military assets had been attacked. Within days, the Home Secretary announced Palestine Action would be proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Proscription and the Expansion of “Terrorism”
Here lies the heart of the controversy. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism with unusual breadth, encompassing not only threats to life but also “serious damage to property” carried out for political or ideological aims. In this capacious definition, breaking a factory window or disabling a machine can be legally assimilated to mass murder.
By invoking this law, the government placed Palestine Action on the same legal footing as al-Qaeda or ISIS. Supporting it — even symbolically — became a serious offence. Since July 2025, merely expressing support for the organization can carry a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
This is based on Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The specific offense is "recklessly expressing support for a proscribed organisation". However, according to Section 13 of the Act, a lower-level offence for actions like displaying hand held placards in support of a proscribed group carries a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment or a fine of five thousand pounds or both.
Civil liberties groups and human rights bodies have denounced the proscription move as disproportionate. Their concern was not primarily whether Palestine Action’s tactics might violate existing criminal law. One might reasonably argue that they did unless they might sometimes be justified in the name of preventing a greater crime.
But reframing those actions as “terrorism” represented a dangerous category error. As many pointed out, terrorism has historically referred to violence against civilians. Expanding it to cover property damage risks draining the term of meaning. Worse, it arms the state with a stigma so powerful that it can delegitimise entire political positions without debate.
The implications go further. Proscription does not simply criminalise acts. It criminalises expressions of allegiance, conscience and even speech. To say “I support Palestine Action” is no longer an opinion but technically a serious crime.
The state has moved from punishing deeds to punishing expressions of solidarity — a move with chilling consequences for democratic life.
Parliament Square: Civil Disobedience on Trial
It was this transformation that brought nearly 1,500 people into Parliament Square on 6 September. They knew what awaited them. Organisers announced in advance that protesters would hold signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” In doing so, they openly declared their intent to break the law.
The crowd was strikingly diverse. Retired doctors, clergy, war veterans, even an 83-year-old Anglican priest. Disabled activists came in wheelchairs; descendants of Holocaust survivors stood beside young students. This was not a hardened cadre of militants but a cross-section of society, many of whom had never before faced arrest.
At precisely 1 pm, the protesters all sat or lay down silently, cardboard signs raised. There was no chanting, no aggression — only a quiet insistence that they would not accept the criminalisation of conscience.The police response was equally predictable. Hundreds of officers moved systematically through the crowd, arresting anyone displaying a sign.
By the end of the day, nearly 900 people were detained under counter-terrorism law. It was one of the largest mass arrests in modern British history.Official statements later alleged police were met with violence — officers punched, spat on, objects thrown. Yet independent observers, including Amnesty International, contradicted this. They reported a peaceful assembly disrupted by aggressive policing: batons drawn, protesters shoved, some bloodied.
www.amnesty.org/zh-hans/documents/eur45/0273/2025/en/
Video footage supported at least some of Amnesty's report.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQGFrqCf5U&t=1283s
The two narratives were irreconcilable, but only one carried the weight and authority of the state.The entire event unfolded as political theatre. The government proscribed a group, thereby creating a new crime. Protesters, convinced the law was unjust, announced their intent to commit that crime peacefully. The police, forewarned, staged a vast operation.
Each side acted out its script. The spectacle allowed the state to present itself as defending order against extremism — while in reality silencing dissent.
The Humanitarian Context: Why Protesters Risked All
To see the Parliament Square protest as a parochial dispute over free speech is to miss its driving force. The demonstrators were not there merely to defend abstract principles. They were responding to what they, and a growing body of international experts, describe as a genocide in Gaza.
By September 2025, Gaza had descended into almost total collapse. Over 63,000 Palestinians had been killed, the majority of them women and children. More than 150,000 had been injured, many maimed for life. Entire neighbourhoods had been flattened. Famine was confirmed in August, with Israel continuing to impose and even tighten deliberate restrictions on food, water, and fuel, a strategy condemned by human rights groups as a major war crime. Hospitals lay in ruins. Ninety percent of the population had been displaced.
It is in this context that the term genocide has been applied. Legal scholars point not only to mass killings but also to the deliberate infliction of life-destroying conditions, accompanied by rhetoric from Israeli officials dehumanising Palestinians as “human animals.” In September 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that Israel’s actions met the legal definition of genocide.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
Major NGOs, UN experts, and even Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem echoed that conclusion. For the protesters, then, the question was not abstract but immediate: faced with what they saw as a genocide, could they in good conscience remain silent while their own government criminalised resistance to it? Their answer was to risk arrest, their placards making the moral connection explicit: opposing genocide meant supporting those who sought to stop it.
The Price of Dissent
The mass arrests in Parliament Square were not an isolated incident of law enforcement. They were the product of a broader trajectory: escalating tactics by a direct-action movement, a humanitarian catastrophe abroad, and a government determined to suppress dissent at home through the bluntest of instruments.
The official line insists that Palestine Action’s campaign constituted terrorism and thus warranted proscription. On this view, the arrests were simple enforcement of the law. Yet this account obscures the deeper reality: a precedent in which the state redefined non-lethal protest as terrorism, shifting from punishing actions to criminalising expressions of solidarity.
The cost is profound. Once speech and conscience themselves become suspect, dissent is no longer tolerated but pathologised. The chilling effect is already evident: individuals weigh not just whether to join a protest, but whether uttering support might expose them to years in prison. Terror laws, originally justified as a shield against mass violence, are recast as tools of political management.
The protesters understood this. That “thousand-yard stare” captured in their faces was not only the weight of potential arrest, but the knowledge of Gaza’s devastation, the famine and rubble, the deaths mounting daily. It was also the recognition that their own government had chosen to silence them rather than address its complicity.
In a functioning democracy, the question is not why citizens risk arrest for holding a handwritten cardboard sign. It is why a state finds it necessary to treat that act as a terror offence. The answer reveals a narrowing of democratic space, where conscience itself is deemed subversive. And that narrowing, history teaches, carries consequences not just for those arrested, but for the society that allows it.
In a year when two out of three Latin Americans will elect new leaders, freedom of expression remains a crucial but fragile pillar of the region’s democratic systems. In 2017, 22 media workers were killed in the Americas, and other practices—from threats of violence to criminal prosecutions—were employed against individuals exercising their freedom of expression to better inform society. In addition, new challenges to democratic debate have emerged, including the deliberate, malevolent spread of disinformation—or “fake news”—and the corresponding danger of regulatory overreach by governments in response.
The Inter-American Dialogue, Reporters Without Borders, and the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) are pleased to host a public forum to analyze persistent threats, emerging challenges, and potential solutions for protecting freedom of expression in the Americas.
"Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Najib Razak, over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar misappropriation scandal.
Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders just hours before the rally, protesters marched from various spots towards the heart of Kuala Lumpur amid tight security."
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/thousands-call-for-...
www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-o...
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour (formerly of Pink Floyd), Jon Carin and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox, perform the Pink Floyd classic 'Wish You Were Here' from the 1975 album of the same name.
3. Wish You Were Here (Waters, Gilmour)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035l86p (Watch this song on BBC iPlayer)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Pink_Floyd_song)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wish_You_Were_Here_(Pink_Floyd_album)
www.pinkfloyd.com/music/albums.php
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoomBox_(Ukrainian_band)
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
This is a demonstration for Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage, Papuans who were given long prison terms for raising the Papuan flag in a peaceful demonstration. Indonesia occupied western New Guinea in the 1960s, and has faced sporadic resistance since. While much of Indonesia is in Southeast Asia, Papuans are a Pacific people.
Indonesian and other countries struggle with issues of self-determination.
Usable with attribution and link to FutureAtlas.com
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox, perform 'In Any Tongue' the sixth track from David Gilmour's new album 'Rattle That Lock'.
2. In Any Tongue (Gilmour, Samson)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock/
play.spotify.com/track/1gLIbISS3w1jjyRu1KuM76?play=true&a...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
The United States delegation engaged in a dialogue with over 80 representatives of civil society March 12 one day before presentation to the U.N. Human Rights Committee of the Fourth Periodic Report on implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in the United States.
U.S. Mission Geneva/ Eric Bridiers
I posted the following text on Flickr under my photograph of my "I Am Salman Rushdie" button. I post the text again because I just purchased and read the text about the attack.
In the spring semester of 1989, I brought a distinguished poet to the campus where I was then teaching to give a reading to the community. She noticed the photocopies I had taped to my office door concerning the outrage of the fatwa placed on Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and a couple of weeks after the reading, I received, in the mail, the button you see above. The button contains only this text: I AM SALMAN RUSHDIE. The poet explained to me in her accompanying letter that she had, since her visit to our campus, attended a large literary festival of writers where everyone received a button like this one.
We who write in the West (you might as well add “we who teach critical thinking in the West” or “we who can think for ourselves”) are the person under the same fatwa as Rushdie, or we might as well be; Khomeini, and every other ignorant, violent bully of a theocratic bent cannot ever come to an understanding about this. We, collectively and individually, are a threat because we deal in ideas and do so freely. We find words and ideas sacred; we find thought and free expression sacred. (I feel a similar contempt for Putin, a mass murderer.)
And some, like me, find turning over one’s responsibility for selfhood to any religion—all created by other people, dead and living—laughably and dangerously childish. How easily their need to escape thinking and complexity flashes forth into, one, a violent desire to force others to their own evasions and restrictions or, two, a violent desire to kill others for being adults in the face of the challenge of existence.
We can write about our respect for Rushdie; we can praise him for his life’s work; but “heaven” forbid that we turn the finger of blame, or shame, toward would-be murderers. Rushdie didn’t threaten anyone’s life. He didn’t kill anyone. He wrote a work of fiction the world did not have to read. And for that act of intelligence and imagination, for that art, (and I use the following words with nothing but contempt) a "supreme leader" called for the murder of a man who didn’t live in his country and, by choice, didn’t belong to his religion.
Do not expect to hear enough support for Rushdie from the universities. Too many cowards and whores. With two additional words, Rushdie has addressed, that is, corrected, the wimps (my word, not his) whining about being offended at every turn on college campuses: “The university should be a safe place for thought.”
Perhaps you've been thinking the I.Q. of the average American has dropped to a new low, and perhaps the stupid, violent responses of those around you in the USA have made you feel lonely? I certainly feel that. But it’s worse. The world is full of dumb and angry and violent. It’s lonely everywhere tonight…and tomorrow morning. The only good news for me tomorrow morning will be that Rushdie is still alive and that he is strong enough to raise his middle finger.
www.flickr.com/photos/doylewesleywalls/52281295637/in/pho...
I recommend the 60 MINUTES interview Anderson Cooper conducted with Rushdie on April 14, 2024.
#HongKong #Protest #AnitELAB #HKPoliceBrutality #FreedomOfExpression #StandWithHongKong #PoliceState
Bell Chan | BGfotologue
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The United States Mission and the Institute for Media and Global Governance (IMGG) nominated seven "Internet Freedom Fellows" writers, bloggers and journalists from around the world who are using social media, mobile communications and digital networks to promote human rights. The Fellows will spend two days in Geneva June 9-10, 2011 for discussions with diplomats, ngos and international organizations.
U.S. Mission Photo: Eric Bridiers
Vigil for the victims of the attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Brandenburger Gate, Berlin, January 7th, 2015.
Hi! I wanted to depict my disagreement of the death threats that have been going on just for drawing Muhammad. The people who drew them are not Muslim, so naturally they would not think it is a sin to draw Muhammad. using force to make someone not draw Muhammad is forcing your belief on others, that should be pretty obvious what is wrong with that. Freedom of religion means freedom of religion for all. If you want the freedom to express your religion you should be for it, not against it. People need the freedom to think, the freedom to explore the truth about the universe for themselves. Real truth doesn't hide from investigation, the people who want to force religion on others do not show that behaviour. Freedom of religion also sustains peace in a world of people who have, or are very capable of having, all sorts of different beliefs. Religions mostly are based on faith, believing in things without evidence. Its believing in something, supposedly, only non-believers can't see. If the non-believers can't see it than that is nothing to force on them. Imagine if one day someone someone told you that it is now a law that you can only wear things that are purple, because their invisible magical monkey god who created the universe told them so in their mind. This opens the door for all sorts of irrational laws to take place. So laws need to be based on something people, including non-believers, can observe and verify.
People need freedom of speech no matter what their religion is. There is nothing someone can say that wouldn't be offensive to someone else out there in the world. New ideas to a mind that is not used to them will sound silly to that mind if that mind is not open minded to new things. New ideas that directly disagree with someone elses worldview will sound both silly and they can be easily interpreted as insulting, when the person with the new ideas are just speaking what they honestly think. To some people this drawing might be seen as insulting their religion, but it is what I honestly think. I'm not trying to insult anyone. I only want to show what I see as the truth. I feel bad for the extremists trying to take away free speech. Real truth doesn't hide from free speech and expression, because it's reason shines through any mockery or illogical arguments.
This drawing also portrays my disagreement of telling people "You have to believe in us or suffer eternally in some bad place, or we will send some goons to kill you (They murder people for apostasy in many Muslim theocratic countries)" I don't think that is moral at all and it is like a Mafia Boss threat. I know many other religions do it too, many Christian denominations use fear to bring in the converts by saying if they don't believe in them, they will be burning for eternity.
I also find it convenient for many ideas of Heaven or Paradise that they offer a reward to people that they can never receive, unless they are at a place that we have no evidence of, and so no way of verifying if what they say is accurate. It is a good way to manipulate people to get them to do what you want, without ever having to give them something back in return.
I know not everyone uses these Heaven/Paradise and Hell concepts in these ways. The point is though that they can be and are used in that way by many people. Even if someone doesn't intend to use them in that way they are obvious players of people's emotions. It is saying, if you believe in us you can go to a land of eternal happiness, and if you don't you go to a land of eternal torture. Its the best thing that can imaginably happen to someone, opposed to the worst thing that could imaginably happen to someone. That is all something that really plays with peoples emotions. Christians will say those concepts don't effect them because the only thing that makes them believe is how much they worship God, but there is the point that admitting the latter would make them appear as not true Christians. Which would be people who are believing just to get out of hell. I've been there, I used to be a Christian for 20 years and I used that excuse. I even tried to hide it out of my mind and think that was really the case but those two concepts are obvious players of peoples emotions in matters of persuasion.
I know I missed Draw Muhammad Day *lol* That's okay. This only took me 2 days to draw and I can't believe that, it usually takes me around a week to draw something like this.
(Please do share this drawing and spread it around as much as you like)
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
Feel free to use this image under the creative commons license with linked attribution to Live Wild Photos
Note: Every image posted in the Live Once Live Wild Flickr Photostream is available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
"Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in Malaysia’s capital on Saturday demanding the resignation of the prime minister, Najib Razak, over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar misappropriation scandal.
Clad in yellow shirts and unfazed by arrests of activists and opposition leaders just hours before the rally, protesters marched from various spots towards the heart of Kuala Lumpur amid tight security."
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/19/thousands-call-for-...
www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/asia/tens-of-thousands-o...
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
Nadya Tolokonnikova from Pussy Riot performs a reading.
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v#p035nvcr (Watch on BBC iPlayer)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadezhda_Tolokonnikova
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
The United States Mission and the Institute for Media and Global Governance (IMGG) nominated seven "Internet Freedom Fellows" writers, bloggers and journalists from around the world who are using social media, mobile communications and digital networks to promote human rights. The Fellows will spend two days in Geneva June 9-10, 2011 for discussions with diplomats, ngos and international organizations.
U.S. Mission Photo: Eric Bridiers
Staging a Revolution: I'm with the Banned. belarus FREE THEATRE
KOKO Camden: Sunday 18th October 2015, London NW1
David Gilmour (formerly of Pink Floyd) and the Ukrainian rock band Boombox, perform the Syd Barrett penned song Astronomy Domine as they begin this 4 song set.
1. Astronomy Domine (Barrett) (from Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd, 1967)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035mnhs (Watch this song on BBC iPlayer)
www.bbc.co.uk/events/ew3j5v/acts/axhqwh#p035nlz3 (Watch the full set on BBC iPlayer)
www.pinkfloyd.com/music/albums.php
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy_Domine
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour
#StagingaRevolution
@bfreetheatre
belarusfreetheatre.com
www.koko.uk.com/listings/staging-revolution-im-banned-18-...
The Space and BBC Arts present Staging a Revolution: I’m with the Banned
Line Up (in order of appearance)
Stephanie Pan
Miles Jupp
Juliet Stevenson and Jeremy Irons
Natalia Kaliada
Sir Mick Jagger
Brutto
Neil Tennant and Nicolai Khalezin
Viktoria Modesta
Sam West
Pussy Riot (Nadya Tolokonnikova)
Kim Cattrall with Belarus is not Sexy
David Gilmour with Boombox
Barrister Sara Hossain speaking at a discussion on academic freedom at Bishsho Shahitto Kendra. She is a leading human rights lawyer in Bangladesh. She is a barrister practising in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh on constitutional, public interest, and family matters.
She also serves pro bono as executive director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and has been actively involved with Ain o Salish Kendra, a leading human rights organisation in Bangladesh, and is a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists.