Advancing
FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Freedom of speech is an essential element of a democratic society and includes the right to protest peacefully but vocally against both governmental and non-governmental policies.

Freedom of speech is arguably the best known and most debated human right. It is protected by every major international human rights instrument and articulated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. An essential element of a democratic society, it includes the right to protest peacefully but vocally against both governmental and non-governmental policies and practices, especially those that are oppressive and violate the spirit of democracy and freedom.

With this purpose in mind, in 1968, the Church of Scientology founded Freedom magazine to conduct investigative reporting in the public interest and to preserve and advance human rights and civic freedoms. Freedom provides a voice for those who have been oppressed. Originally a broadsheet distributed on the streets of London, Freedom is now published in 11 languages in more than 20 countries. Issues are also available on the Internet (www.freedommag.org).

Freedom has garnered a unique reputation for tackling head-on the most difficult stories that the establishment media is often loath to investigate. This temerity, and the thoroughness and accuracy of Freedom’s research and reporting, have resulted in acclaim for Freedom’s investigative journalism. It is recognised the world over as an uncompromising voice for human rights that probes abuses, injustices, misuse of government power, the causes of violent crime, intolerance towards minorities — indeed, any injustice that strips away individuals’ fundamental rights, with the names of the perpetrators unflinchingly included.

A grim symbol of repression: A Beijing citizen stands in front of tanks during the crushing of the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989.

Freedom recognises, however, that it is woefully inadequate merely to point out what is wrong; thus, it always offers solutions and works to improve the conditions it discovers in our world.

Through Freedom, the Church has published many of the human rights investigations discussed on this web site, such as the government-sponsored mind control experiments in the United Kingdom and the United States during the Cold War. Because Freedom is vocal and fearless in its exposure of such abuses, its pioneering work has had to withstand some of the most concerted efforts to silence its voice. In 1976, when the South African edition exposed the use of black psychiatric patients for slave labour in mining camps, the apartheid government raided and banned the magazine. The Church continued its campaign to expose the atrocities and Freedom’s expose found its way into the international press, culminating in a United Nations investigation into the camps. After all was said and done, the patients were liberated, the practice banned and Freedom was back in circulation. And what happened to the apartheid regime is history.

Freedom has been instrumental in bringing to light other pressing issues:

In 1996, Freedom broke through a wall of secrecy and documented the validity of Gulf War Illness. The disease, which affected tens of thousands of veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War in the United States and Europe with a variety of long-lasting ailments, had been falsely explained to the public as “psychological.” Freedom’s investigation included more than 100 interviews with veterans and family members, doctors treating them, and officials from the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. This resulted in greater awareness of the issues and in many cases the onset of proper care for many of the veterans.

Freedom returned to the issue in early 2003, covering more than a decade of research into the health effects on troops and civilians in the Middle East exposed to chemical and biological weapons during the Gulf War.

Joyce Riley, an Air Force captain and flight medical technician during the first Gulf War who has tracked veterans and their health problems ever since, has commented that, "Freedom magazine has shown more truth about the Gulf War Illness than the American Legion, VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars], DoD [Department of Defense] and VA [Department of Veterans’ Affairs] combined.”

In 2000, Freedom published a major investigative article that highlighted the plight of the Navajo and Hopi, two Native American tribes that had been forced out of their homelands by commercial interests coveting the area’s coal reserves, aided and abetted by the federal government. The displacement, the largest relocation of Native Americans since 1860, began in 1974 and represents a tragedy of injustice. One of the primary relocation sites for the Navajo was contaminated with uranium. It has been estimated that one quarter of the 12,000 Navajo uprooted and displaced in the late 1970s died within six months. Tribe representatives featured in the report commended Freedom for its thorough investigation and have since used the article in their efforts to receive just treatment.

Today, leaders in government, business and news turn to Freedom for coverage of significant issues, often contributing articles on important social concerns.