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November 29, 2021
Northern Ireland Alliance Party councillor called for censorship of anti-vaccine passport ads
Big Brother Watch is part of the campaign against a checkpoint society.
By Didi Rankovic

A campaign against mandatory vaccine passes launched in Northern Ireland by UK civil liberties and privacy group Big Brother Watch and a number of other organizations has come under criticism from politicians from the Alliance party.

The ad part of the campaign, which appeared on billboards and advertising screens in Northern Ireland over a period of four days, ended on Sunday, ahead of Monday’s introduction of vaccine passports in some hospitality venues. ...

Meanwhile, the messages displayed in several shopping malls in Belfast had some Alliance politicians, like Councilor Danny Donnelly and MLA Stewart Dickson, up in arms. Local press said that they accused those behind the campaign of undermining public health, “putting lives at risk,” and calling for the displays to be turned off “ASAP.”

A court has dismissed a lawsuit against a Colombian YouTuber who shared heterosexual marriage views on the video sharing platform. The plaintiff accused her of hate speech.

The Colombian Constitutional Court ruled that Colombian YouTuber Kika Nieto should not have been censored for a video she posted in 2018 where she expressed her views against same-sex marriages.

In the video, in Spanish, she said: "I really hope that everyone who is watching this video knows that not all people have the same opinion and that's okay.

"I think that God made us all and created man and created woman for man to be with woman and woman to be with man and that's it.

"Whatever we have done after that as man with man and woman with woman, I think it's not right. However, I do have friends who are gay, I have friends who are lesbian, I love them with all my heart.

"And if I know one thing and I am completely sure of it, it is that God is love. And he calls me to love people. Without judging them."

An activist sued her accusing her of being discriminatory and offensive, and a lower court agreed. The court also ordered the removal of the video from YouTube.

However, the Colombian Constitutional Court has overturned the decision.
While defending the video on a previous occasion, Nieto said, “By speaking out I hope to inspire more tolerance of different opinions.”

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International supported her defense. Santiago Guevara, a counsel at ADF, applauded the court’s decision but said it should have gone further to affirm Colombian free speech.

"No one should be censored or fear criminal sanctions for expressing their beliefs. Together with Kika, we are overjoyed that the Court has overturned this censorship ruling. Kika stood strong throughout this ordeal to make the case for everyone's freedom to share their beliefs," he said.

"Although Kika is again free to share her convictions, it's disappointing that the Court decided this case on procedural grounds and failed to address the key issue and affirm freedom of speech for every Colombian.

"Everyone should be free to share their beliefs in public, and the courts should protect this fundamental freedom."

November 29, 2021
Northern Ireland Alliance Party councillor called for censorship of anti-vaccine passport ads
Big Brother Watch is part of the campaign against a checkpoint society.
By Didi Rankovic

Covid passports have proven a gateway to ever more draconian policies.

Today, the EU Commission President said that mandatory vaccines must be considered across the EU.

Yesterday, Greece announced a monthly fine for over-60s of EU100, in perpetuity, if they are not vaccinated against Covid.

Austria has already used Covid passports to enforce a lockdown for unvaccinated people - and is making vaccinations mandatory from February.

As I told the BBC, this is a stain on the human rights record of Europe - and yet many rights institutions appear to have been scared into silence (you can read more about this in my op-ed for the Telegraph - un-paywalled copy here).

But not us.

Incredibly, we have fought off mandatory Covid passports not once but twice in England!

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It is purely thanks to the support of the 6,726 of you who are backing this campaign - thank you.

We have much more work to do...

Covid passes across the four nations

Last week, Scotland dropped plans to expand their vaccine passport scheme and in fact added testing as an option. We've reviewed their new 70 page Covid passport report, and it's damning - it found no evidence at all, in two months of their vaccine passport scheme, that it had any benefit to public health. We're telling them to scrap the entire scheme.

In Wales, government lawyers are scrambling to respond to our legal challenge against Covid passports. More on that soon...

And, critically, Northern Ireland is set to hold a vote on Covid passports within days... so we're on the front line!

We put digital billboards all over Northern Ireland over the weekend, rallying against Covid passports and a checkpoint society. Check them out!