Tl;dr This landmark judgement holds void Section 66A of India's Information Technology Act that made material on social networking sites that were "offensive, caused annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will" punishable by upto 3 years in jail and a fine. This provision was widely used by politicians in power to stifle dissent.
One positive step, but a long long way to go. Just yesterday a cop snatched my phone because I had recorded his colleagues driving without seatbelts on (which is a traffic offence in India). He told me (lied) what I was doing is illegal. This is just an example of how messed up the whole system here is. What can you expect from a country where one in three elected representatives have criminal cases pending against them. [0]
This ruling is a positive step, but India still has its notorious law criminalizing the offending of religious feelings[0], and, as far as I know, import of The Satanic Verses is still banned.
Police falsely claiming that photographing or recording them on the job is illegal is a recurring problem in the US, too.
Here is a popular Islamist criticism of the work: http://www.islamicentre.org/articles/rush.htm
It is rife with sloppy thinking, like “how can the book not be intended as an insult if the author knew people would be upset,” which is of course an insane argument. Hell, the both the Bible and the Qu'ran contain verses which upset me, but I don’t go around saying Mohommed or ancient Rabbis intended to insult me…
(By the way, I’m reading it now — 10% in and no depiction of the Prophet yet [edit: apparently there never will quite be, except in the way Brian in The Life of Brian is kind-of-but-not-really Jesus] — just Rushdie’s trademark highly enjoyable and witty writing)
I have often wondered if you can respond to a blasphemy charge, with a blasphemy charge, as long as the first charge is from a different group than your own, on the basis that a demand to abide by the principles of a different faith than your own is clearly a blasphemous request.
The law isn't against blasphemy, it's against offending religious sentiments and is deliberately vague. You'd have to prove that the group claiming to be offended is not offended.
Stupid, but India has a long history of religious violence, so perhaps its a case of pragmatism over principle as a justification.
There are efforts at an international level to stifle religious expression as well. This is championed by Islamic states to prevent any criticism of Islam. This is a growing global threat to freedom of expression and it often finds its way into online censorship.
Even better. I just need to be religiously offended by the very idea that mocking other people's gods could be religiously offensive, given they are obviously not gods and therefore incapable of inciting offense according to my faith (any suggestion otherwise being clearly very offensive), so then any charge of religious offense is then automatically religiously offensive to me.
On the way to the airport in Mumbai we were flagged over by a cop and he told us that having luggage on the roof of the car was "illegal" and he issued us a 200 rupee "fine" for it.
If we had been running late we might have missed our flight because that jackass wanted to shake us down for a couple of dollars. I love India but the amount of corruption is really depressing.
New Year's Even 2011, I was driving back home around 12:20 AM. Pulled over since I got a got a phone call from my parents. Was talking to them when a couple of cops on bikes stopped by and asked for my papers.
I gave them whatever they needed. Nothing was out of order.
Then one of the cops blatantly asked me for some cash. I said I had everything was in order. His reply? "Sir, thoda cash do na. Naya saal hai. Daru peeni hai" ("Sir, it's new year's eve. Give me some cash, we want to get drunk")
I would rather pay the honest guy who's just being a beggar than the douchebag fishing for borderline legitimate reasons to charge illegitimate fines from law-abiding citizens.
Is it surprising that these sorts of things occur frequently in societies where the incentives for low-level corruption are huge, and the practical consequences are low? I'm not sure how reforming the constitution can directly reduce the occurrence of police shakedowns, after all, it's already completely illegal, but nobody with the power cares to enforce that law.
It sounds like the chances of having a criminal case pending against you is pretty high given your description of how easy it is to be accused of doing something illegal.
Interesting comparison with US Constitution...
"In the U.S., if there is a compelling necessity to
achieve an important governmental or societal goal, a law
abridging freedom of speech may pass muster. But in India,
such law cannot pass muster if it is in the interest of the general public. Such law has to be covered by one of the eight subject matters set out under Article 19(2). If it does not, and is outside the pale of 19(2), Indian courts will strike down such law"
I was surprised at that. As far as I know, nothing has ever passed muster. The classic "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theatre" is probably (my opinion) only true if it actually causes harm to someone. Of course it may cause "harm" to the business, but that would be a civil matter. If someone was trampled to death it could be criminal. In other words, our first amendment rights stop where it directly (not theoretically) causes harm. Or something like that. IANAL of course.
Except any free speech aimed at any politician while not in a designated "Free Speech Zone."
This causes me such angst even discussing it. It has to be the most egregious affront to free speech in my lifetime - and the Supreme Court not only upheld the right to enforce them, but to only enforce them on people with ideas unfriendly to the politician in question.
It's not quite the easy political speech suppression case some newspapers made it out to be.
There were a series of factors that complicated the decision--including questions of deference to officers making snap judgments, whether or not there is any right to bring a case in this instance, and the level of threat posed by the protestors. Any of the individual factors are arguable, but note that there are so many complications that it led to a unanimous decision. That's an unlikely occurrence without some strong reasoning driving the disparate members of the court. If you disagree with a unanimous court, then its worth closely reading and trying to understand how they all came to that conclusion.
The foundation of the decision leans heavily upon a long history of fourth amendment findings and a preference for objective standards in law enforcement decisions, but that's incredibly difficult to summarize. My best recommendation for the curious is to read through the leading cases on fourth amendment law over the last century to build an appreciation for this style of jurisprudence over officers of the law. (I know that's an obnoxiously inefficient recommendation, I'm not smart enough / haven't thought hard enough to come up with a more efficient way to get a curious reader up to speed, and apologize for that...)
If you want a "gotcha" moment that makes the case (probably too) simple, note that Wilker, arguing for the petitioner, at one point replies to Justice Breyer that his case is about agents that have 100% viewpoint motivations and 0% security motivations. Later, in response to a question from Justice Kagan, he admits that a reasonable security officer could have made these decisions motivated purely by security considerations alone. (Compare 33:30 with 37:30 in the oral arguments.)
There are a dozen factors that led to the decision, but if you want to reduce to one moment where the petitioner most likely lost the case, that might be it.
In US, other non-protected speech includes threats and obscenity. If you're calling out bureaucrats in public be careful not to use any obscenity or you might find yourself charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor criminal charge. No harm is required.
You're right, I looked up obscenity and it applies to screen/print media rather than directly spoken language and is based on local interpretations of what is offensive to average people and not considered artistic. I wonder how this can possibly work on mediums as diverse as the internet.
The reason the US doesn't have hate speech laws are pretty much the same as the reasoning given in this ruling. It's just a matter of how far a culture is willing to push these ideas.
The reason I brought it up is because the quoted text seemed to boast that Indian courts protect freedom of speech more strongly than U.S. courts. On a second reading, however, I have no idea what that text is actually trying to say.
In a landmark judgment upholding freedom of expression, the Supreme Court today struck down a provision in the law which provides power to arrest a person for posting allegedly “offensive” content on websites.
- There are no juries in India. A "bench" of judges usually decides cases related to Constitutional Law. This was a bench of 2 judges
- "court order or a government order for getting content taken down" -> I might be wrong, but before, an order from the Police was usually sufficient to block a website
- Standard 11 student = A High School Junior student
This is very good step by Indian supreme court. Largest democracy of billion plus people should have all the rights to speak whatever they want online.
India actually has one of the most protectionist labor laws.
I remember when Nokia wanted to shut down a factory, workers staged demonstrations. Why? Because Nokia had offered them 18 months severance pay. They wanted 72 months of severance.
And you don't find this horrifying? Making it more costly to replace underperforming employees causes stagnation, apathy, and a level of job security not tied to how well you do your job. I think that seems less than optimal.
Subjecting employees who cannot sign their own name to the whims of their employer is not the solution either. Without unions, working conditions would be disastrous. Look up the shipbreaking yards of Pakistan or unlicensed coal mines in India as an example. Most white collar jobs are not unionized, many blue collar ones are. I think that's ok.
But asking for 6 years pay (and getting 3? seriously, 3 years of pay, imagine that) is not the same thing as unionizing. Receiving insane severance has way more negative externalities than positive benefits. This is the type of system that makes people expect that they should work for a single employer for their entire life, which hasn't worked so well for a number of countries in the past few decades -- just look at NiNi's.
Many people here on HN are stringently anti-freedom-of-association when it comes to labor laws. Many people like to imagine that making it impossible/expensive to fire someone is somehow sticking it to the man.
Of course, in reality, the likely outcome is economic stagnation and/or Japan's soul-crushing Sararīman system.
I do. But I also understand that it's not very black and white.
India is going through a very weird phase in its labor markets. I can hire someone to draft architectural drawings for me in AutoCAD for under $150/month, while a driver in Delhi costs nearly $250/month. An Uber driver, meanwhile, can make upwards of $1200/month.
And mass redundancy situations are very different than firing some one for poor performance and where there are poor employment laws you get more instances of wildcat strikes or violence used.
