The Alliance Defense Fund is organizing Pulpit Freedom Sunday, urging Pastors to explicitly endorse Presidential candidates in violation of IRS rules governing the non-profit status of religious organizations.
posted by god hates math on Sep 9, 2008 - 37 comments

A 15-year-old in London is being prosecuted for holding a sign calling Scientology a "cult", during a peaceful demonstration (0:55-1:40). The teenager refused to back down, quoting a 1984 high court ruling from Mr Justice Latey, in which he described the Church of Scientology as a "cult" ... The City of London police came under fire two years ago when it emerged that more than 20 officers, ranging from constable to chief superintendent, had accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology. The City of London Chief Superintendent, Kevin Hurley, praised Scientology for "raising the spiritual wealth of society" during the opening of its headquarters in 2006. Last year a video praising Scientology emerged featuring Ken Stewart, another of the City of London's chief superintendents via
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on May 21, 2008 - 128 comments

As we saw last spring, Toronto's York University has limited the student's right to protest, here noted by Excalibur, York's largest student newspaper. The Toronto Star's article on last Thursday's peaceful anti-Bush protest complete with police intervention (video here, try this if that doesn't work) sparked a reaction by the York University Faculty Association. YUFA also remarked on the restriction of freedom of expression by York's administration. The administration has released two press releases so far, the first on the day of the protest, and the second to emphasize the students' responsibilities and limits. The protest has sparked plans of further protests and reports that the protest was misrepresented in the press. CUPE 3903 wrote an open letter to the administration criticizing their actions (PDF, p.11), and compared the situation to Berkeley's Free Speech Movement in the 60s.
posted by heatherann on Jan 25, 2005 - 22 comments

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe. From guns that shoot streams of conductive fibers to plasma that will stop a truck, the military and the police are getting whole new ways to deal with protestors.
posted by dejah420 on Jun 17, 2004 - 30 comments

Free-Speech Zones come to Boston this July.
Protesters at this summer's Democratic National Convention in Boston may be confined to a cozy triangle of land off Haymarket Square, blocked off from the FleetCenter and convention delegates by a maze of Central Artery service roads, MBTA train tracks, and a temporary parking lot holding scores of buses and media trucks.

Under a preliminary plan floated by convention organizers, the "free-speech zone" would be a small plot bounded by Green Line tracks and North Washington Street, in an area that until recently was given over to the elevated artery. The zone would hold as few as 400 of the several thousand protesters who are expected in Boston in late July.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Feb 20, 2004 - 54 comments

Free speech zones Appearing everywhere from Florida to Oregon. In California the concept has been fought and defeated, but in Kansas there seems to be little resistance. It's not just the usual suspects, either. Watch where you are standing no matter who you are protesting, even if it's just governors.
posted by betaray on Sep 21, 2003 - 31 comments

Jeff Webster threw water on women who were silently and legally protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq in my hometown of Soldotna, Alaska. He has been charged with harassment, a misdemeanor. The Anchorage Daily news reports with photos of both parties involved. Video of the incident here (window media format). Aside from the support for and against Webster's actions, does throwing water on people constitute a right of free speech?
posted by ericrolph on Apr 25, 2003 - 50 comments