Flag Burning Is Not Speech

Friday 21 May 2004

Stephen Franks Press Releases - Crime & Justice

If the courts find that the Bill of Rights obliges them to support Paul Barry Hopkinson's defence to charges of dishonouring the New Zealand flag, Parliament should immediately change the law, ACT New Zealand Justice Spokesman Stephen Franks said today.

"The effect of flag-burning derives solely from its power to shock and offend. It is not speech; it is not expression. It is the suppression and destruction of others' expression," Mr Franks said.

"Our forebears fought to protect freedom to debate, to reason. They had in mind freedom to persuade by evidence of commitment and passion.

"Flag-burning derives its impact only from its offensiveness. The burner is saying they feel so strongly that they are willing to risk punishment, and willing to trample people's emotions to be heard.

"Even flag-burners should want the law upheld. To remove the legal penalties - or not to enforce them - deprives the burning of significance.

"The best thing that could come out of this case would be a non-political public debate about the New Zealand flag, about what it should mean, and what it should be," Mr Franks said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>