Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Treaties, Conventions, Declarations and Statutes
- Reports and other documentary sources
- Introduction: aim, scope and method
- Part I The theoretical foundations of media freedom
- Part II General rules on media freedom
- Part III Specific limitations to media freedom
- 7 Personality rights and intellectual property as ‘rights of others’
- 8 Threats to public order interests: national security, territorial integrity, public safety and prevention of disorder and crime
- 9 The protection of health and morals
- 10 Maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary
- 11 Incitement to hatred
- 12 Religiously offensive publications
- 13 Restrictions on commercial publications
- 14 Media pluralism
- Conclusion: tenets of a Media Freedom Principle
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law
11 - Incitement to hatred
from Part III - Specific limitations to media freedom
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Treaties, Conventions, Declarations and Statutes
- Reports and other documentary sources
- Introduction: aim, scope and method
- Part I The theoretical foundations of media freedom
- Part II General rules on media freedom
- Part III Specific limitations to media freedom
- 7 Personality rights and intellectual property as ‘rights of others’
- 8 Threats to public order interests: national security, territorial integrity, public safety and prevention of disorder and crime
- 9 The protection of health and morals
- 10 Maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary
- 11 Incitement to hatred
- 12 Religiously offensive publications
- 13 Restrictions on commercial publications
- 14 Media pluralism
- Conclusion: tenets of a Media Freedom Principle
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law
Summary
Media freedom finds its rationale in the concept of public discourse for the general benefit of a democratic society rather than the individual autonomy of the speaker. Public discourse is based on the idea of a non-coercive debate aimed at reaching understanding, in which the authority of the better argument is the only authority. As a consequence, publications that do not aim at reaching understanding, but incite hatred, and are thus directed against fundamental values of a democratic society, such as human dignity, tolerance and peacefulness, enjoy very little protection under international human rights law.
Academic literature has coined the term ‘hate speech’ for such speech acts. However, a clear and generally accepted definition of what ‘hate speech’ actually is has not yet been found. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe defined ‘hate speech’ as ‘covering all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin.'similarly, the ECtHR referred to ‘all forms of expressions which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance (including religious intolerance)’. According to Anne Weber's ‘Manual on Hate Speech’, the concept of ‘hate speech’ encompasses a multiplicity of situations:
– firstly, incitement of racial hatred or in other words, hatred directed against persons or groups of persons on the grounds of belonging to a race;
– secondly, incitement to hatred on religious grounds, to which may be equated incitement to hatred on the basis of a distinction between believers and non-believers;
– and lastly, to use the wording of the Recommendation on ‘hate speech’ of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, incitement to other forms of hatred based on intolerance ‘expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism’.
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- Media Freedom as a Fundamental Right , pp. 223 - 240Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015
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