By Jill Fraser
MELBOURNE
The question of whether Charlie Hebdo cartoons would be censored in Australia has reignited a debate festering since the Federal Government reversed its decision to repeal a key section of the Racial Discrimination Act.
The said section is 18C, which makes it illegal to offend, insult or humiliate based on racial grounds. The proposal to remove 18C was highly criticized by ethnic community groups and supported by free speech absolutists.
On Tuesday, Australian Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson maintained that restrictive racial discrimination laws in Australia would prevent cartoons in Charlie Hebdo from being published.
"What we have at Charlie Hebdo is hundreds if not thousands, if not millions of cartoons designed to mock and to ridicule people," he told Australian public broadcaster ABC.
"Some of them would have come in violation [of the racial discrimination act], which makes it unlawful to offend and insult people," he added.
Not so, argued Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, maintaining it wrong to imply that the terms of the Act extend to debates about religion, religious identity and religious belief.
Last August, citing objections from the Muslim community, the Federal Government abandoned plans to remove section 18C from the Racial Discrimination Act.
The government’s back down was applauded by Soutphommasane and condemned by Wilson.
Wilson’s statements today follows a call by Federal Government backbencher Senator Cory Bernardi two days ago for Section 18C to be revised.
Bernardi said Australia must reconsider the issue of changing the Racial Discrimination Act in order to protect freedom of speech in the wake of the terrorist attacks in France.
He told radio station 3AW: “I find it extraordinary that people will support Charlie Hebdo in France being able to publish what they wanted to lampoon and to mock and satirize whom they want and yet many of the same people are happy for us to restrict what we can publish ... because we might cause offence in this country.”
On Monday, Soutphommasane dismissed Bernardi's call referring to it as “ill-founded and ill-informed,” saying Charlie Hebdo cartoons could run in Australian publications without breaching federal laws.
Wilson backed Bernardi’s call saying the current Racial Discrimination Act - which includes 18C - amounts to censorship.
Talking to the ABC, Wilson said: "Around the world, if you're going to say you believe in free speech and that people should have the freedom to offend or insult somebody, then the solution cannot be censorship.
"That is what we have in Australia today. We have a law that makes it unlawful to offend or insult somebody.
"So people are either being hypocrites when they say 'Je Suis Charlie' and saying they defend these people's right to free speech, or they actually believe in free speech and recognize that laws that make it unlawful to insult or offend people are censorious and would see that Charlie Hebdo would be censored in Australia."
Soutphommasane told the ABC that people could be supporters of Charlie Hebdo and Section 18C as it currently stands.
“In any case section 18D protects artistic work and fair comment on matters of public importance,” he said. “Such speech, even if racially offensive, is exempt from section 18C, provided it is done reasonably and in good faith.”
In a press conference today Greens senator Richard Di Natale said: “There are no national laws that would prevent people from publishing cartoons that may cause others offence on the basis of religion.
“It’s a red herring. I think we’re seeing crass opportunism from those people who support changes to the law.”
Furthermore, Di Natale added, “we have exemptions within our own laws that protect people from racial abuse that are exemptions based on artistic expression, provided that’s done in good faith.”
“This is an example of people exploiting a human tragedy for their own political purposes. It is crass opportunism,” he said.
