Freedom of speech by country

In adopting the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Australia and the Netherlands insisted on reservations to Article 19 insofar as it might be held to affect their systems of regulating and licensing broadcasting.

imposed by law in the interests of the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence– speech and expression; and According to Article 35 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China: English:- Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

For example, according to the Article 5 of the "Computer Information Network and Internet Security, Protection and Management Regulations," issued by the Ministry of Public Safety in 1997, it states:[16] No unit or individual may use the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following kinds of information: In January 2013, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the headquarters of Southern Weekly after Guangdong's Propaganda Department chief, Tuo Zhen, allegedly rewrote the newspaper's New Year's editorial entitled "China's Dream/ The Dream of Constitution (中国梦，宪政梦)," which called for constitutional reform to better guarantee individual citizens' rights.

[21][22][23] In 2021, pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily had $18 million (HKD) of its assets frozen and its editor-in-chief and four other executives arrested for publishing more than 30 articles calling on countries to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and mainland China.

The lese-majeste law makes it a crime, punishable by up to 15 years' imprisonment for each offense, to criticize, insult, or threaten the king, queen, royal heir apparent, or regent.

Journalists are generally free to comment on government activities and institutions without fear of official reprisal, but they occasionally practice self-censorship, particularly with regard to the monarchy and national security.

[86] On 25 March 2020, Human Rights Watch demanded that Thai authorities end its use of laws against fake news against people criticizing the government's handling of COVID-19 outbreak in the country.

The rights groups wrote in their letter that the award represented UAE's PR strategy of investing in cultural events while hiding the oppression of peaceful dissident voices.

[148] A Finnish member of EU parliament Jussi Halla-aho was sentenced for both blasphemy and hate speech in 2012 by the Supreme Court after saying that "Islam is a paedophilia religion" and "it's a national and possibly even genetic special characteristic of the Somali people to rob passers-by and to be parasites living on the tax-payers' money".

President Emmanuel Macron strenuously defended the re-publishing of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, considering this a pure act of freedom of expression that is in line with the state principle of laicity.

Citing a number of measures taken after the incident that they likened to prior security changes, the organization reported arrests for "apology of terrorism", which they considered an arbitrary charge to curb opposition to the publication of the cartoons.

[161] The organization also criticized the country for its prosecutive record of "contempt for public officials" in France, including the BDS case and another in 2019 where two defendants were convicted for burning an effigy of Macron.

[164] The most important and sometimes controversial regulations limiting speech and the press can be found in the Criminal code: The prohibition of insult, which has been widely criticized, led to 26,757 court cases, 21,454 convictions and 20,390 fines in 2013 alone.

[166] Laws which have led to censorship or chilling effects online include NetzDG and a type of ancillary copyright for press publishers which is a model for a pan-EU taxation proposal as of 2018.

[citation needed] It is also illegal under Section 269/C of the penal code and punishable with three years of imprisonment, to publicly "deny, question, mark as insignificant, attempt to justify the genocides carried out by the National Socialist and Communist regimes, as well as the facts of other crimes against humanity.

Indeed, until an authoritative pronouncement on the issue by the Supreme Court, many believed that the protection was restricted to "convictions and opinions" and, as a result, a separate right to communicate was, by necessity, implied into Article 40.3.2.

In Italy the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, as stated in Article 21, Paragraph 1:[174] The Article also gives restrictions against those acts considered offensive by public morality, as stated in Paragraph 6: Such restrictions are enforced through the Italian Penal Code which, for example, includes articles that prohibit: The Supreme Court has long since ruled that the legitimate exercise of the rights of news reporting and journalistic criticism is conditioned by the limit, in addition to truth and public interest, of continence, understood as the formal correctness of the exposition and not exceeding what is strictly necessary for the public interest, so as to ensure news and criticism do not appear through instruments and methods that are detrimental to the fundamental rights to honor and reputation.

[175] Commercial advertising of artwork owned by the government, such as Michelangelo's David (created in the 16th century), require an assessment of the adequacy of the image, which must respect cultural dignity.

[178] Article 7 of the Dutch Constitution (Grondwet) in its first paragraph grants everybody the right to make public ideas and feelings by printing them without prior censorship, but not exonerating the author from their liabilities under the law.

[199] In the weeks preceding the election of 2010, the privately owned TV channel TV4 refused to show an advertisement of the Sweden Democrats party, fearing that it could be prosecuted for publishing hate speech.

Other laws or exceptions related to freedom of expression in Sweden concern high treason, war mongering, espionage, unauthorized handling of classified information, recklessness with classified information, Insurgency, treason, recklessness that damages the nation, rumour mongering that hurts national security, inciting crime, crimes that obstruct civil liberties, illegal depictions of violence, libel, insults, illegal threats, threats towards police officers or security guards and abuse during legal proceedings.

However, there is a broad sweep of exceptions including threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals),[236][237][238] sending any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety (which has been used to prohibit speech of a racist or anti-religious nature),[239][240][241] incitement,[242] incitement to racial hatred,[243] incitement to religious hatred, incitement to terrorism including encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications,[242][244][245] glorifying terrorism,[246][247][248] collection or possession of a document or record containing information likely to be of use to a terrorist,[249][250] treason including advocating for the abolition of the monarchy or compassing or imagining the death of the monarch,[251][252][253][254][255] sedition (no longer illegal, sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)),[252] obscenity,[256] indecency including corruption of public morals and outraging public decency,[257] defamation,[258] prior restraint, restrictions on court reporting including names of victims and evidence and prejudicing or interfering with court proceedings,[259][260] prohibition of post-trial interviews with jurors,[260] scandalising the court by criticising or murmuring judges,[260][261] time, manner, and place restrictions,[262] harassment, privileged communications, trade secrets, classified material, copyright, patents, military conduct, and limitations on commercial speech such as advertising.

[269][270][271] In February 2019, former London mayor and former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, wrote an article in The Telegraph titled: "Why are the police wasting time arresting Twitter transphobes when they could be tackling knife crime?

In February 2020 a previous visit by British police to a man who was told to ''check your thinking''[273] and accused of posting transphobic tweets was found to be unlawful by the High Court.

[274] In February 2021 a Scottish man from Lanark was arrested for an ''offensive tweet'' about a deceased World War II veteran that included the message ''The only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella,[275][276] buuuuurn.

[280] In Keegstra, the Supreme Court by a 4-3 decision upheld the offence of publicly inciting hatred, finding that while it infringes the guarantee of freedom of expression, it is a reasonable limit and justifiable under s. 1 of the Charter.

There are federal criminal law statutory prohibitions covering all the common-law exceptions other than defamation, of which there is civil law liability, as well as terrorist threats,[310][311] making false statements in "matters within the jurisdiction" of the federal government,[312] speech related to information decreed to be related to national security such as military and classified information,[313] false advertising,[309] perjury,[309] privileged communications, trade secrets,[314][315] copyright, and patents.

[331] In response on 27 September 2012, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved new guidelines for subway advertisements, as prohibiting those that it "reasonably foresees would imminently incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace".

In 2012 the Supreme Court of Ecuador upheld a three-year prison sentence and a $42 million fine for criminal libel against an editor and the directors of the newspaper El Universo for "aggravated defamation of a public official".

However, there were reports that some private groups such as the coca growers (cocaleros), as well as some provincial and local authorities, have been harassing journalists by threatening judicial actions against them, illegally arresting them or attacking them.