THE RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH Alfred de Tavares, Sweden; Anand Virgincar, UK; Anil Desai, UK; Augusto Pinto, India; Blasio Fernandes, UAE; Cajetan Alvares, UK; Cecil Pinto, India; Cornel Da Costa, UK; Diana Pinto, India; Eddie Fernandes, UK; Gabe Menezes, UK; Gabriel de Figueiredo, Australia; George Pinto, USA; Ignatius Fernandes, UK; Jose Colaco, Bahamas; Kevin Fernandes, UAE; Louise Fernandes, UAE; Marlon Menezes, USA; Marshall Mendonza, India; Mervyn Lobo, Canada; Roland Francis, Canada; Sandeep Heble, India; Santosh Helekar, USA; Selma Carvalho, UK; Shrikant Barve, India; Uday Barad, India; Venantius Pinto, USA; Vinay Natekar, Kuwait; Wendell Rodricks, India
I agree with Samir Kelekar that the Goa Vidhan Sabha has become a comedy show. The conditional threat of imprisonment issued from its chair against him and Peter Fernandes, two private citizens, for speaking their mind in public, just proved this fact. If the conditional threat is carried out, it would be an unwarranted assault on Samir and Peter, and an egregious infringement on their fundamental right to peaceful free speech in their homeland. In my opinion, Samir and Peter have calmly expressed their views on the distressing state of affairs in their beloved Goa. They neither threatened violence nor called upon anyone else to commit any violence or disruption of civic life. Accordingly, any violence on their persons would constitute a gross abuse of power, which would have to be tested at the polls, and in the courts of law. I am willing to spend time in prison with Samir and Peter to defend my right to freely express my opinion in this free democratic country. I ask all Goans to sign on with us in this symbolic stand to affirm the principle that in a free democracy ordinary citizens, individually and collectively, are no less powerful than any branch of their government or any elected representative that serves at their pleasure. http://www.oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=26275&cid=13 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
