That, apparently, the Free Speech "Union"'s definition of "freedom of speech":
The Free Speech Union ‒ which exists to defend free speech ‒ has attacked a journalist for asking Health Minister Simeon Brown questions over email, after it obtained questions sent by a Post reporter about one of his appointments.The context here is that Kalupahana is an unprofessional racist weirdo, and that seems to have been treated as a qualification for public office by Simeon Brown. Meanwhile, from their past record, the FSU seems to exist primarily to protect such repulsive people from the natural consequences of their actions (which include people naming and shaming them for being exactly what they are). And that now extends to attacking the media for trying to get a public explanation for why such weird appointments have been made (the answer to which is probably "the FSU talked to ACT, who talked to Brown, and suddenly someone gets a fat board salary and a platform to sabotage a public institution").On Monday, The Post’s national affairs editor Andrea Vance emailed a series of questions to Health Minister Simeon Brown about his appointment of Dr Manoja Kalupahana to the Medical Council.
The appointment was gazetted on Friday and put on the Beehive website on Monday morning.
Before an answer was received and within three hours of the query going to the minister, the Free Speech Union issued a press release attacking Vance for even asking the questions.
But whatever influence peddling is going on behind the scenes, its a pretty weird definition of "freedom of speech" which says that the media can't question those in power. Some might take it as suggesting the FSU wasn't interested in freedom of speech at all, but merely using it in bad faith as a weapon to wage their weirdo far-right foreign-funded culture war on the rest of us.
