Taken from Index for Free Expression 19 November 2004

On November 3, the Index on Censorship website posted an article by Rohan Jayasekera on the death of the Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh. The debate stirred by this piece suggests it would be worthwhile for the Editors and Board of Index to set out a few key points.

First, no publication in the world can be more distressed by the murder of an artist for his opinions than one which works as tirelessly for free expression as Index. We at Index on Censorship condemn unreservedly the murder of Van Gogh and believe culpability for that crime lies entirely with his killers. No writer, artist or citizen deserves to die for his views – no matter how ugly, bigoted or offensive those views might be. If the above article gave any other impression, then that was a mistake and it is one we regret.

What this article represented was one, individual view in a debate that has raged among advocates of free expression for centuries. Should the right to free speech be absolute and total, in all situations, or are there some circumstances when respect for the freedoms of others places limits on that right? Famously, does the right to free speech include the right to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre? To defame whole classes of people: blacks, homosexuals, Muslims? To deny historical events, like the Holocaust?

Rohan Jayasekera’s piece considered the second position - that sometimes free speech has to be limited by our responsibilities – and it castigated Van Gogh for his failure to recognise that. He did so robustly and in a style that was, inevitably, not to everyone’s taste.

Some readers have called for the piece to be pulled or even for Rohan to lose his job. Neither of these things will happen. Surely, the one place where you can express your views robustly, even offensively, without fear of the censor’s blue pencil, should be in Index on Censorship — even if the view in question is a call for some limits on free expression.

Such are the paradoxes of this complex debate — one which Index exists to explore. Index on Censorship is not a political party: it does not have a single ‘line’. Instead it hosts a range of views, however inconvenient that fact, or those views, might be.