ABSTRACT
The legal delineation for the freedom of expression includes two kinds of utterances: utterances that are likely to lead to violent and chaotic situations and utterances that to a great extent violate the right to privacy. When a person is seriously offended by a specific utterance, the freedom of expression may be restricted. But in modern liberal democracies, this only applies to living people, not to the dead, not to theories, not to traditions or cultures, not to confessions nor religions. In cases of offence, it is not merely a matter of what is stated, but of the way in which it is uttered. This chapter addresses two concepts: Offence through utterances that are experienced as provoking and that provoke bad feelings: anger, rage, discouragement, and a feeling of being hurt, and Offence through utterances that break down and destroy another individual’s personal autonomy, through brainwashing, indoctrination, manipulation, harassment.
