Last week Globo television (of Brazil) showed scenes of some guy who runs a private television station grabbing a Brazilian flag and urinating on it and name-calling the Brazilian community in his town. The man is someone by the name of Christopher 'The Skunk' Antal, in Malboro (found various spellings, believe this one is right)
A number of people in official positions were asked about the incident and responded that there was nothing that could be done, as the incident was a form of freedom of expression. This is the first time that I see freedom of expression being proffered as supreme - surely it does not merit the same treatment when the issues are Guantanamo, journalists getting hold of sensitive information etc. Now, I thought that there are other national, regional and international documents that override the principle of freedom of expression. Offhand, I can think of the UN Convention on Racial Discrimination. Or for that matter, in terms of freedom of expression, there are the obscenity rules that say you cannot flash a boob at the Superbowl or ogle your favourite porn magazine on a plane. Then I did some very superficial googling and came across this page http://www.faem.com/adlib/2001/b0520.htm from http://www.faem.com/. Like this, there must be many more. Aren't there any mechanisms to stop these site, to report them to their website registrar and to some or other official body handling racial offences? To conclude, apparently The Skunk has apologised and decided to can his stinky show - Globo reported on this last night. Rui
