I was meaning to write an article this week to join in the general condemnation of the calls for Katie Hopkins to be arrested over a tweet. For anyone who believes in free speech the idea that you should be arrested over being obnoxious is horrendous. There have been no threats of action being taken against the people that threatened or called for physical harm to be done to her, but the Scottish police assured us that they were monitoring twitter in case of anyone causing offence. Not in case of people threatening violence but in case of offence. Many of us have been saying for a long time that this is a very slippery slope and one that would should guard against. From the police investigating offensive tweets it’s sadly a fairly small step to the tragic events in Paris. Just under 5 years ago was the first Everyone draw Muhammad day, to protest against the response to a cartoon of Mohamed being published, then in 2011 the Charlie Hebdo offices were fire bombed for publishing more cartoons. Each time the defenders of free speech have been thin on the ground compared to those calling for more sensitivity, violence should never been a tolerated response to any speech no matter how much offence someone may take. Thankfully this time the demonstrations in support of the journalists at Charlie Hedbo are far more vocal, despite the like of Associated Press kowtowing to the violent thugs and quislings like Daniel Hodges saying we must surrender our freedoms to both the thugs and the state. Thankfully cartoonists are it seems made of Sterner stuff.
So today once more we have the choice of standing for free speech for everyone no matter how offensive or keeping quiet and surrendering one of our most precious freedoms that was hard won for us by earlier generations. My drawing skills haven’t improved in 5 years but…
