YouSaid · the spoken record

Arif Ahmed

lines on the record: 52
first: 2025-10-10
most recent: 2025-10-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“US Constitution. No, she'd seen Hamilton. That's what I was delighted. It makes me want to see it as well. So I learn a lot from them.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The great thing, they're all so much smarter and quicker than me that actually they just we have lots of arguments, as you can imagine. They disagree with me about all kinds of things, which is great, which I really like. What's really important, of course, is that they think of themselves, reach their own views about things. I will say, so one of my favorite works of political philosophy is the Federalist Papers by James Madison and others. And I was delighted and surprised to hear one of my children talking about it, well, talking about Madison and Burr and Jefferson and Hamilton with great knowledge and excitement. You've got teenagers who read.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we will look carefully at any institution where we see evidence of this. We will think about what are the sensible proportionate steps to take.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Human rights abuses in foreign countries, expressing criticism of foreign governments or indeed of domestic governments, any government should absolutely have the freedom to do that. And universities are aware that should happen.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Correct. If your business model involves breaking the law, if your business model involves unlawfully suppressing academic freedom and freedom of speech at the behest of a foreign dictatorship, then you need another business model. It's not a balance between financial values and academic freedom. Academic freedom, freedom of speech are more important and you have to obey the law, you have to secure academic freedom and freedom of speech. In terms of our powers, we expect there to be a condition of registration in relation to freedom of speech and a complaint scheme in relation to freedom of speech as the body that registers universities, we have powers, for instance, to require universities to do things. We can remove their titles to universities. We can find them. We can ultimately cut off their access to public funding. So we do have powers and we think it's really important that, as I said, academics and students who are talking about”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the law requires them to secure freedom of speech, and we think securing freedom of speech means stopping those things from happening.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, we're deeply concerned about that. So we've seen evidence, and we have concerns that there's evidence, for instance, of English universities where students, for instance, who are dissidents or who have spoken out against governments of foreign countries, academics who maybe wanted to do research about the human rights records of foreign countries, we've seen concerns that they're being followed, they're being harassed. I've seen a report about an academic who is followed and harassed by a visiting scholar from another country who whispered in there, we're following you, we're watching you, whilst that person was doing research that could have been embarrassing for that country, when you universities have arrangements with foreign countries, particularly obviously foreign autocracy, foreign dictatorships, that have the effect of suppressing speech in England by English students or by English academics, that's something they need to address, and if necessary, they will need to terminate those arrangements.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I would reject that absolutely. And I'll go back to what I said was our fundamental approach, which was viewpoint neutrality. So what we're really concerned about is freedom of speech for all sides of all debates. So to take examples of the debate that you described, if you think about Professor Peterson.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm very proud of the English tradition. Both England and the United States have very strong traditions of freedom. And one of the things that came over on the Mayflower, I think, was a love of individual liberty. And in our own ways, our two countries have got very strong and proud proud proud proud praditions of that. Throughout it, what's preserved this, I think, is that ultimately there are people who are receptive to these ideas and there are institutions that are able to preserve them and that are focused and determined to preserve individual liberty, the rule of law, freedom of speech, which are ultimately the guarantees of any society.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think ultimately that would be a mistake because it goes back to the point about there are strong views on both sides of many issues and people have to have the chance to express those views. There are, of course, laws against direct incitement to violence. There are laws in this country and laws in the United States as well. And those laws will deal with speech that actually directly incites violence. But you must allow people to express their views on really controversial topics because alternatively there will be no alternative to violence. And that will be the abyss that we end up falling into. So I think it's a mistake to think in those terms and to think that it's some kind of tit-for-tat. It's not a kind of tit-for-tat. What we need is a word we need to, as we did, to live in a social arrangement where people feel free to express views, maybe not always comfortable. People might feel uncomfortable hearing them, and debates may not be ultimately resolved, but they can be continued.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What happened to Charlie Coat was an appalling tragedy, and we haven't been immune from political violence in this country either. As you'll know, if you think about the dreadful things that happened with Joe Cox, with David Amos, for instance, so of course that's something that should worry all of us. And I will say that if we don't learn to settle differences, really important political differences through speech, which is an alternative to violence, then ultimately we will be staring into the abyss. And democracy is not going to survive, and our society is not going to survive unless we can learn to resolve, or if not to resolve our differences through conversation, to continue the conversation, and to learn to live with one another's differences in a tolerant way, even if you don't like them, because that's part of what a liberal modern society is. The alternative is either violence or censorship and suppression.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Academy goes back to ancient Greece, the idea of freedom of speech goes back as far, though it's been interrupted, these are ancient ideals.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it goes back to something that we were talking about earlier, Nick, which was that there need to be, and I think universities ultimately can play this role, there need to be institutions and roles that are consciously directed towards promoting and protecting basic liberal values, otherwise those values are not going to survive. How that's realized in different countries at different times will change depending on historical circumstances, but I think our university is a well-placed to seize the opportunity to play that fundamental social role as they have done in the past. For me, as a philosopher, as a philosophy teacher, and then working for a regulator, in fact, there's been a surprising continuity. So I was at a university which had lots of ancient traditions, though some of them actually were not as ancient as you might think. And I'm coming to a regulator, which is quite new. But in service of values that I think are very old. So freedom of speech, for instance, and higher education.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, so universities obviously do have a duty and their employers have to have duties under the Equality Act. They can't harass students, they have to treat students well and they have to treat students properly irrespective of their race, their sex, their gender reassignment status. Of course, that's right, and universities have to impose that. However, that's not the same thing as saying when you apply, you have to show commitment to this particular doctrine or commitment to that particular. So somebody might disagree with some of these elements, but as long as their conduct is fair towards their students, they don't discriminate against their students, then they can write and think freely and they shouldn't be tested on that. So that's where we think the line ought to be drawn. It's between conduct, which universities can rightly control insofar as it's relevant to education, and actually making windows into men's souls.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You put in some sort of test. So we had the test act in this country, for instance, for many years. So there was tests where you couldn't apply for a job, you couldn't take a job at a university if you didn't accept certain religious beliefs. Similarly, if we had university applications being rejected because the applicants didn't accept particular contested beliefs or contestable beliefs, even political ones around equality and diversity, then that would be an issue for academic freedom.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're absolutely clear that it's quite right for students, for universities to pursue equality goals. Of course they should be thinking about diversity and inclusion and they should be thinking about equality and there are all kinds of ways in which they can do that. So an example that we gave in our recently published guidance would be if a university properly looked at the applicant pool and tried to encourage applications from minorities who weren't applying or who weren't properly represented within that institution. That's something that no doubt if they did it sensibly they could properly do. However, we would have concerns if when you're advertising for an active”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think what I'd emphasize is that whilst that's kind of support for Palestine action wouldn't be lawful, that doesn't mean that students or others don't have the right to protest lawfully in favour of, for instance, Palestinian rights or to protest against the Israeli government, or indeed to protest on the other side, as with all of these issues, you have free speech on both of these sides, but it is, as always, within the law”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so that speech is when speech is unlawfully and supportable, a proscribed organization, then clearly that speech can be restricted and freedom of speech within the law doesn't protect that.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the definitions of what is lawful and not lawful speech will be a matter for Parliament and not for a regulator or for me. But I will say that, of course, as I've said before, we owe our freedoms and this country has long and proud tradition of religious dissent and religious disagreement and settling issues over religion, just like many others through words rather than through other means, is we have learned in this country as much as any country has learned. That's the only way in which you can survive as a society rather than resorting as we did in the 17th century to something much worse.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, I think what I would say is that whilst my focus is on universities, and I wouldn't want to say how a particular social media platform should or shouldn't work, what's really important is that freedom of speech is always within the law, so that, for instance, incitement to racial hatred is not protected under any circumstances.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But the thing I would say about some of these processes is that there are some that are content neutral. So, what that means is that they're processes by which you would limit what happens through algorithms, for instance, without actually directing yourself at the specific content. The question is then who gets to decide? And then the problem is that they will end up deciding for the views that they favor.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think in principle there can be all kinds of reasons why there should be, for instance, various kinds of moderation and whether that moderation is content based or whether it's manner-based is an interesting question. So for instance, there might be, you know, you can think of all kinds of ways of how algorithms might work, for instance, that might address some of the issues that people see on Twitter or on other social media to limit the problem.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The problem with that is that really is who gets to decide and how do they decide? And once that becomes your principle, who do you think is going to exploit it for their own ends to suppress speech that does defend minorities?”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hate speech is a form of aggravation of speech that's already against the law. So you can have speech that's a public order offence, for instance, or a communications offence, which also is aggravated because of the element of hatred within it. But the line is the line between content that's lawful and the content that's unlawful. So it's not that speech is unlimited, but it's that the line is drawn ultimately by parliament.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I will say, as a general point, that, of course, freedom of speech, most of all, in the long run, protects minorities. So if you think about there is a line between whether or not you can restrict speech, and once that line is crossed, who do you think are the people who are going to use it in the most dangerous way? It may be right now that you find that people on one side find that they can use it to protect themselves against speech that they don't like and consider oppressive. But when things move, when power changes over, you'll find, for instance, just to take the example of race, you might find, for instance, that critical race theory gets banned, for instance, or that other work, you know, Black Lives Matter. So there are ways in which, be suppressed and restricted, that eventually will turn against you. And I think that's a really important principle.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think after the last election, what the government said was that it would review the implementation of the Act and come to a decision after a certain amount of reviewing. And then it was thinking obviously about a range of things to do with the impacts of it, how it would be implemented and all of those things. And it came to the view in January that some elements of this legislation would be going forward, though not all of them”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is one of the things, of course, in the history of religion that actually religion and Copernicus and Galileo are obvious examples, but you can look at examples in Islam and other religions as well of suppression of thought and suppression of speech. But going back to England, the other thing I would say is that I have always associated this country, I think, perhaps more than any other with individual liberty and human rights and the rule of law. And in some ways, that was something that made me feel very at home in this country, though those values weren't always exhibited uniformly.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think so there are various things. So there's a point about religion, then there's a point about my conception, our conception of England. So my parents were brilliant, brought me up brilliantly, I owe them everything. But there was an element of religion that I soon came to reject. So, for instance, I came to reject Islamic religion. When I was a teenager, I went to a school which actually was Christian, and I also rejected that, not for reasons that are very exciting. I mean, much of it is to do the sorts of reasons that many teenagers have when they reject religion, so there's partly just an act of rebellion, but partly also just certain kinds of scientific education. For instance, you come to reject it, partly also perhaps for social reasons that I found elements of certain religions to be socially oppressive. There's a mixture of various things that I found, I would say objectionable about religion.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that was interesting. And I think it goes to the point, actually, which shows another one of the mechanisms that's really important, I think, for preserving individual freedom, actually, is having secret voting, because it means you are not subject to the sort of coercion and intimidation that can happen in all kinds of ways in these contexts.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because the support had to be public, and so there was a difficulty, it took me months to get 25 signatures to get my petition, even to go to vote.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was interesting. So at the time, the way the rules worked for voting there, in order to get a change to the policies of the sort that I wanted, I had to get, I think, 25 signatures for a petition. So there had to be public signatures. So I went around and you had to ask fellow employees, the university, fellow academics. So I went around asking people quite a lot of people said to me at the time that actually they do support, they share my broader concerns. They also share my view that this is one of the ways in which those concerns could be crystallized, so a vote on this issue, for instance, but they weren't willing to support me publicly. So they were afraid. So some of them said, for instance, well, I'm thinking about being promoted or I'm on a temporary contract or I'm just worried about how things go in my department or I'm just worried about my job more generally or I'm worried about what my profession will think. So there were all kinds of concerns which in itself I found deeply concerning.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Distinction between tolerance and respect was really that to tolerate something doesn't mean you have to like it but the essence of freedom of speech is that you protect views even that you can't stand.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the dangers when you have rules about speech that are phrased vaguely, for instance, is that they leave discretion. They leave too much discretion to individual officials who will then perhaps apply them selectively and who will end up using them, for instance, to restrict views that they don't like. In the case of respect for one of the things on my mind was religion. So of course, we're familiar with the idea that you can say things that you can disagree with religion, but the West has a long tradition, and in fact we owe many of our freedoms to the fact that we are free to be quite rude about religion, actually. And in fact, not only religion, but all received views, but certainly that as well. And I feared that a demand to be respectful, for instance, religion, could be weaponized in a way that it ended up with students who expressed certain views which may not have been welcome to everybody, may have been shocking or disturbing or offending, offensive to many, but were nevertheless an exercise of freedom of speech on a really important matter, would find themselves punished. And so I preferred the expression tolerance, which goes back to sort of”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cancellations, things that we'll probably go on to talk about, informed my experience of the atmosphere in Cambridge at the time.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think in some ways it was an event that was the combination of a sequence of events of the sort that I've been describing to you. So there were occasions where people were reluctant to talk about subjects. I'll tell you one other story. So for instance, I have known of students at universities. I won't give you too many details for reasons that will become obvious, but I've known of students at universities, for instance, who come up to university. The first term, someone finds out that they've got the wrong sort of book that they've been reading and talking about to their friends. Or they wrote a blog before they came up when they were sixth form, for instance, defending certain particular views, whether it's on the trans issue, on the race issue, on religion, range of issues that it could be, and then suddenly nobody talks to them. They're isolated. They're excluded. And then I've spoken to such students, and I know what life can be like for that. So I had that sort of experience of what things were like even for students running up to 2020 alongside things like”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That may be part of it, but certainly if we did think that in a way, there was a mistake there. Because actually the natural instinct is often censorship. And unless there are some institutions, and this is one of the places I think universities can play a crucial role, where there are institutions that actively seek to protect and promote it, that's our ultimate safeguard against this”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so I think perhaps the right question to ask is not what changed then, when do things go wrong, but how did things ever go right? Because if you look at the history of the history of Europe or the history of this country or the history of the world, censorship is probably the rule rather than the exception. And actually the periods where people were genuinely free to discuss all kinds of issues in controversial ways were rare. So if you think about in this country, for instance, even going back as recently as the time of section 28 and spycatcher, so that's not going back, well, that's what, 40 years, isn't it? So we're not going back very far. There's a long history of censorship of a range of subjects, even in this country. So I think actually the right way to approach this is to understand that freedom of speech itself, like many really important liberal values, freedom of speech itself is not a natural thing. It's not something that human beings naturally do. There have to be institutions.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We, the Office of Students, have got polling that came out this summer, which shows that indeed one in five academics are afraid to discuss controversial topics in their teaching, about one in three in terms of their research, the effect is more pronounced for women than for men and it's more pronounced for non-white academics than for white ones. But it seems to be in some subjects consistent across the left and the right, and that's something I'd want to emphasize.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, just in terms of bione experience, there's a very wide range of issues, not just that one, but a wide range of issues on which I noticed increasing reluctance of people to express controversial views. Religion would be one example. This issue about gender and sex would be another example. There were meetings that I recall, for instance, where, to my surprise, when certain issues came up, there was just silence. People were simply afraid to express their views, even meetings including quite senior people, meetings where the seminars where there were students, and you knew that there were students who had certain views who just felt afraid to express them either because of other students' responses or because of even what the staff would say, I'm afraid. So that was...”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Debate if you had, for instance, an academic who wanted to criticise this recent Supreme Court ruling, for instance, they absolutely have that right. That's their academic freedom. And again, we were protected. And that illustrates, I think, something really important which I do want to emphasize, which is that our whole approach to this and to everything in freedom of speech is based on viewpoint neutrality. And what does that mean? That means that we will protect speech regardless of the view that's been expressed as long as it's within the law.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so as you say, I can't talk about a case with his live litigation, but I can say something more broadly about these issues, and then perhaps we can talk about the background to it. So just in terms of these issues, I think the first thing to emphasize is, of course, that freedom of speech is not the same thing as unlawful harassment and freedom of speech doesn't protect people from harassing and abusing people where that's against the law. But it does protect people who want to express a very wide range of ideas, including ideas that many people find shocking or offensive. In this particular case, this particular type of case, I guess I'd say a couple of things. So the first thing is that this right goes both ways. So people absolutely do have the right to state the gender-critical view on this debate, so to state their view, for instance, that trans women are not women, they do have that right. That's protected. They also have the right to say that that's wrong. And we will protect academics and students on both sides of that.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Students or academics, for instance, who go on protests and who are investigated even though their speeches and activity is lawful. All of that is freedom of speech, and it is, I think, something that all students will recognize.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the first thing I'd say is free speech really matters because free speech protects most of all those who have the least power. And that's what history teaches us if it teaches us anything. If you think about minorities and the protection of minorities, perhaps the best example is the civil rights movement in the United States could not have existed without freedom of speech. The greatest weapon of its enemies was the suppression of their speech. If you think the ways that Dr. King was prevented from demonstrating, for instance, it goes back further back to Frederick Douglass. The ways that they organized and protested depended crucially on freedom of speech, and that ultimately was why they achieved success. More generally, I would say that freedom of speech means what does it mean in this context? It means the student who feels unable to talk about problems with their accommodation because the university puts pressure on them not to write about it. It's the lecturer or the academic who's researching into human rights abuses in another country, who's pressured by the university not to do that or has their funding, Paul.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let me start by telling you a story in response to that. I do remember a student that I had when I was a university teacher from some years back who's now very successful. She's a partner in a big advertising firm. And I remember speaking to her some years after she left university and she said the one thing that she got out of studying at university was that she would never feel intellectually intimidated again.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's really important for university education. And in fact, if you go through your three years of university without being exposed to something that you don't find shocking, you don't find offensive. That's a serious missed opportunity because that's how we learn, particularly in a world where there are all kinds of different views and very, very strongly held views about the most important topics in the world if we think about international politics, if we think about morality and sexual morality, if we think about religion or race. deeply important issues, issues in which there are so many divisions. people have to learn to talk about them rather than to settle their disputes in any other way.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the first thing is, as you said, there are now new duties on universities. They have to secure, take steps to secure, freedom of speech for students, and for academics, and for visiting speakers. You can't stop people talking because you don't like what they say. Second thing is that they also have to take steps to promote freedom of speech. So they will have to think about ensuring that students have the right to talk about controversial topics and to engage them in a tolerant and thoughtful way and indeed promoting discussion of difficult issues. And the third thing is that the body that I work for, the Office for Students, will have powers around enforcing some of these duties, and we have issued guidance to universities saying how we expect them to carry out those duties.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have concerns just as many people do about the welfare of Jewish students at the moment, then that is something that certainly would not be protected.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think one of the things that it illustrates is the distinction which is between the importance of freedom of speech as being about the content of the speech and the ideas being expressed and freedom of speech does protect awful ideas including political ideas. So for instance criticism of the government of Israel just as much as support for it if lawfully done are protected but there's a difference between that and how and where and when you express those things. So expressing those ideas in a way that's intimidating outside a synagogue for instance wouldn't be protected, expressing them in a peaceful, lawful way in a classroom or as part of an academic debate is much more likely to be protected so the line really depends on the one hand speech and ideas and information particularly perhaps political ideas are protected if expressed lawfully and peacefully but if they're done so in a way that intimidates and harasses people and of course”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I would say that unlawful support for terrorism clearly is an offence, criminal offence, and we would expect universities to take steps to address that. But we also place responsibilities on universities to take steps to address harassment, and that would include, for instance, harassment of Jewish students, which this may be an example.”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so I agree that part of freedom of speech and freedom of expression means, for instance, the freedom of Jewish students to express their religion. Universities and colleges also have a duty to take steps to protect students from harassment, and that includes anti-Semitic harassment. And we in the OFS will be prepared to act if we think universities are not meeting those duties”
2025-10-10 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · Free Speech Tsar: Arif Ahmed on how to avoid the 'abyss' of political violence · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source