Huddersfield Salon: The Right to Offend June 15, 2010

Our next debate will be focused around the tension between our right to offend and our right to be offended in an atmosphere where respect for religious beliefs as sacred identifiers is not only increasingly transmuting into a claim for freedom from challenge of any kind but invoking our libel laws and invoking ancient blasphemy laws as well.

In a democracy, where freedom of speech is equally venerated, where do we draw the line, if indeed a line needs to be drawn?

Tim Black from Spiked Online visits from London to passionately defend freedom of speech. He argues that, for a democracy to thrive, for ideas to be thoroughly and rigorously debated, there can be no right to freedom from offence. He believes that no value or idea, if it is to be worth anything, should be beyond questioning, no matter how offended some might be. To claim offence, as it stands right now, simply closes down debate.

He is challenged by local lass, Fakhara Rehman who is coordinator for The Kirklees Faith Forum. Fakhara urges caution and says that with the right to freedom of speech comes responsibility. She suggests that the media shapes our view of the world - what we 'know' about current affairs and what's going on in the world is through the news. But is the news really a source of information? Or is it a manipulation tool and we're not really as free in our minds as we think we are?

Doors open at 6pm, debate starts at 6.30pm.

£2.50 on the door.