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Portal:Freedom of speech

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Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)—Article 19 states that, "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."

Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations. Many countries have constitutional law that protects free speech. Terms like free speech, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression are used interchangeably in political discourse. However, in a legal sense, the freedom of expression includes any activity of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used.

Article 19 of the UDHR states that "everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference" and "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice". The version of Article 19 in the ICCPR later amends this by stating that the exercise of these rights carries "special duties and responsibilities" and may "therefore be subject to certain restrictions" when necessary "[f]or respect of the rights or reputation of others" or "[f]or the protection of national security or public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals". (Full article...)

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The practice of land requisitions and forced evictions is widespread in China as local governments make way for private real estate developers.
The Weiquan movement is a non-centralized group of lawyers, legal experts, and intellectuals in China who seek to protect and defend the civil rights of the citizenry through litigation and legal activism. The movement, which began in the early 2000s, has organized demonstrations, sought reform via the legal system and media, defended victims of human rights abuses, and written appeal letters, despite opposition from Communist Party authorities. Among the issues adopted by Weiquan lawyers are property and housing rights, protection for AIDS victims, environmental damage, religious freedom, freedom of speech and the press, and defending the rights of other lawyers facing disbarment or imprisonment. Individuals involved in the Weiquan movement have met with occasionally harsh reprisals from Chinese officials, including disbarment, detention, harassment, and, in extreme instances, torture. Authorities have also responded to the movement with the launch of an education campaign on the "socialist concept of rule of law," which reasserts the role of the Communist Party and the primacy of political considerations in the legal profession, and with the Three Supremes, which entrenches the supremacy of the Communist Party in the judicial process.

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Bassem al-Tamimi worked as a schoolteacher in Nabi Salih
Bassem al-Tamimi (Arabic: باسم التميمي, born c. 1967) is a Palestinian activist and an organizer of protests against Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. He was convicted by an Israeli military court in 2011 for "sending people to throw stones, and holding a march without a permit". A schoolteacher in Nabi Salih in the West Bank, al-Tamimi organizes weekly demonstrations against Israeli settlement. He has been arrested by the Israeli authorities over a dozen times, at one point spending more than three years in administrative detention without trial. Al-Tamimi advocates grassroots, nonviolent resistance, but has stated his belief that stone-throwing is an important symbol of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. His 2011 arrest drew international attention, with the European Union describing him as a "human rights defender" and Amnesty International designating him a prisoner of conscience. He was arrested again in October 2012 for a demonstration in a supermarket, but released in early 2013.

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Norman Rockwell

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William J. Brennan, Jr., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States


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Justice Abe Fortas

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