ABSTRACT
When people in the world are hungry or acts of genocide are being perpetrated, the right to express oneself may not seem to rate very highly on the scale of rights for the citizen. But freedom of expression, the right to express an opinion or a view without fear of harassment or punishment, is often a gauge to other threats to liberty and democracy. A government that stops journalists from reporting, writers from telling stories or readers from buying books which contain challenging ideas will often indicate a regime or an ideology, or even a religion, that is less than tolerant of other rights of the citizen. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie prefaced more deadly threats a decade later. Box 7.5 provides a range of points for question and discussion.
