Other

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

The Compass v2 Podcast

The Compass

Documentaries

Factual: Life Stories

With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about society

Surprising stories from unusual places. With ideas too big for a single episode, The Compass presents mini-series about the environment and politics, culture and society.

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Online

The Compass: The Future of Free Speech: Blasphemy or free speech?

Factual

Blasphemy or free speech?

01/04/2020 GMT

The Future of Free Speech

BBC World Service - The Compass, The Future of Free Speech, Blasphemy or free speech?

Robin Lustig explores the challenge of blasphemy over the right to free speech

Robin Lustig explores the challenge of blasphemy over the right to free speech.

Robin goes back to his own days as a young reporter when he covered the last blasphemy trial ever held in the UK. At the time it appeared archaic and the end of an era, but blasphemy still exists in many countries across the world. In many ways it is the oldest of all challenges to free speech, so can religions ever truly countenance a world in which free speech is held to be sacred?

(Photo: Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy in 2010 and acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2018. Credit: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images)

The Compass: The Future of Free Speech

Robin Lustig maps the shifting frontlines in the global battle over free speech.

Is the right to speak freely protected in the world today? And is it right that it should be protected? Those were questions raised when the United States of America’s Constitution received its famous first amendment in 1789. The Amendment stated that Congress should make no law that controlled freedom of speech or of the press. Robin Lustig travels the globe today to explore those same questions.  In each episode he considers one of the gatekeepers of Free speech - The Courts, Journalism, Religion, Universities and the Tech companies.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Compass

The Future of Free Speech

Blasphemy or free speech?

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

About BBC World Service