The Freedom of Speech: The Freedom of Speech

2010-12-08T12:41:00.000+06:00

The Freedom of Speech: The Freedom of Speech: "Living in the height of 21st centure engulfed with the sea of information, I would like to introduce myself to be the strong proponent of F..."

The Freedom of Speech

2010-12-08T12:39:00.000+06:00

Living in the height of 21^st centure engulfed with the sea of information, I would like to introduce myself to be the strong proponent of Free Speech, which I am afraid to say, has been spoiled by many of it’s promoters ironically. Being a simple citizen of a third world country, Bangladesh, I used to think that democracy of dispersing information would have to be compromised to some extents, as being an embryonic democracy compared to the most developed ones in the world. However, I regret things are quite the adverse in reality. The characteristics of vibrant democracy are to be the free speech, free thinking and a free choice to know the truth are absent across the world including in USA. One can now hardly be convinced, while rallying the whole world to the path of democracy and freedom of expression how can you gag the person who holds the gut to unveil the truth. Is the definition of press freedom varies countries to countries? Or, is it applied to those only who are not in concert with the USA?

Undoubtedly I was a strong supporter of America when thinking of establishing and promoting democracy around the world through different media such as NDI(National Democratic Institute) and IRI(International Republican Institute) that work in favor of free and fair election all around the world and for which I worked for two terms during last parliamentary elections in Bangladesh. I appreciated the efforts and resources they made available to the people of Bangladesh in choosing and setting the right people in power through incredibly a fair election in history. I also appreciated the fact when the Western governments led by US to dismiss the unjustified election result in Ukraine which later triggered the Orange Revolution in late November 2004 and reestablished democracy in the country as such. Nonetheless, I do not understand the fact why now US wants to stop “Julian Assange”the Wikileaks founder from disclosing the bitter truth people want to know.

It was none but Secretary of State’s Hillary Clinton who advocated press freedom and lobbied free access of Google in China to show the whole world that US stands for press freedom and thus she wanted to put pressure on Chinese government to not to withhold the rights of people. The same story went to Russian case. The US previous, Bush administration used to blame the Russian democratically elected government for not practicing democracy by blocking press to write anything against the ruling government especially in regards to Chechen war & alleged human rights abuse by Russian soldiers. We also saw the same thing during Iranian presidential election in 2009. In all the events, US set an extraordinary example of leadership in pursuing universal democracy and freedom of speech.

On the other hand, the thousands of classified information leaked by Wikileaks shook the whole world to standstill. The long hatched dirty US diplomacy is open secret to all-not to mention to me as well. I wonder how a responsible government like US could spy on UN officials and other foreign delegates. Is the individual privacy questioned? Are we still living in the authoritarian world where one country dominates others? The authenticity of the publication is verified all around the world including USA. Therefore, we know it is neither just smearing campaign nor a war against an individual sate but rather a campaign for Knowing the Truth. Meanwhile, the recent surge of international pressure on Julian is understandable as everybody in the party is busy to hide their weakness. I do not have any interest in whether the rape allegation in Sweden against him is justified or not and whether personally he is a good man or not. However, I do have strong interest in preserving people’s rights to know the truth. The truth is out there and one day will prevail. I hope the legal procedure of Julian will find the right path and will not be influenced by any international power.