'Human beings cannot flourish unless they are free.
'We protect, expand, and fight for New Zealanders’ rights to freedom of speech, conscience, and intellectual inquiry. We envision a flourishing New Zealand civil society that values and protects vigorous debate, dissenting ideas, and freedom of speech as cultural cornerstones.'
But Israel's brutal military campaign in Gaza has revealed that the FSU is not quite the staunch defender of free speech it likes to claim it is. Not only has it remained silent as Israel has waged war against the Palestinian people, but it has also remained silent even as the Israel military have deliberately targeted journalists in Gaza. Despite wearing 'PRESS' flak jackets, the kind worn by journalists covering active war zones and respected under the laws of war, they still have been targeted by the IDF.
Although the figures are always being updated, according to a recent preliminary investigation of the Committee to Protect Journalists, 83 journalists and media workers have now been confirmed dead. A further 16 journalists have been injured and three journalists remain missing. A further 23 journalists have been arrested by the Israeli military and their present whereabouts remains uncertain.
CPJ says it is also investigating other unconfirmed reports of journalists having been killed or detained.
The death toll of journalists from Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip has surpassed the number of reporters killed around the world in 2021 and 2022.
It has also gone generally unreported in western media outlets that the majority of journalists killed by Israeli forces have been reporters for non-Western news outlets, including several Palestinian news organizations. The lack of any real response from the western media to this blatant attack on press freedom has only highlighted that western media, in its coverage of Gaza, has not been kind to the Palestinian people.
Despite the ongoing silencing of journalists by the Israeli military, the Free Speech Union has said nothing. Nor has it had anything to say about how the attack on press freedom has had serious implications for how journalism is conducted in Gaza and whose stories aren’t being told.
The FSU's failure to speak out is easily explainable; it is a supporter of both Israel and its actions in Gaza.
The eight-person board of the FSU is dominated by supporters of the far-right regime in Tel Aviv.
A founding member is Zionist David Cumin. He runs the so-called 'independent' think tank, the Israel Insitute of New Zealand, which continues to defend Israel's actions in Gaza. In 2023 Cumin attempted to intimidate several New Zealand academics into not criticising Israel. Yet, despite a claiming to be a champion of free speech, the FSU has took no action against him. Interestingly, despite his authoritarian attacks on New Zealand critics of Israel, media outlets like Newstalk ZB and The Platform continue to interview him for his 'perspectives' on Gaza.
Other pro-Zionist board members include media commentators Chris Trotter and Ani O'Brien. Both write for ZB Plus, a subscription-based spin off from Newstalk ZB. Not coincidentally it is edited by Philip Crump, another supporter of Israel. Trotter is also a regular on The Platform where he and the heavily pro-Zionist Sean Plunket engage in conversations that amount to little more than mutual appreciation sessions.
Other FSU board members who support Israel are lawyer and former ACT MP Stephen Franks, Jordan Carter of the Taxpayer Union, and lawyer Roderick Mulgan.
On January 31 the FSU posted to X that 'it was thrilled the FSU will be in our first High School this week, speaking with students about the importance of free speech for a peaceful, prosperous, open-minded future!'
It is only fair that students should be made aware - but probably won't be - that the FSU is a Zionist controlled group and that it has not condemned the murder of over 80 journalists in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military. The young people concerned, some who have probably participated in some of the many pro-Palestine demonstrations throughout the country, may not want to be associated with a group that condones genocide.
McGimpsey is an advocate of 'Great Replacement Theory', the same ideology subscribed to by the Christchurch terrorist, and which resulted in 51 people being murdered at two Christchurch mosques in 2019. His 'manifesto' was titled 'The Great Replacement'. It largely consisted of racist, white nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiments.
The same sentiments have been expressed by McGimpsey. He has posted to X: 'The idea that you can just mix peoples from all over the world together in a single nation and everything will carry on as normal is a radical, utopian experiment being forced on the people of the world against their will - it's also the primary cause of most of the division, conflict, and decline within Western nations.'
McGimpsey has also tried to argue that the battle for free speech is also a battle against mass immigration. In fact, McGimpsey's neo-fascist views represent an attack on free speech because he opposes the political and cultural diversity that constitutes a modern day liberal democracy.
His attempt to popularise such extreme right-wing views using the FSU as a vehicle, raises further questions about the FSU and its political agenda. It's an organisation that claims to be mainstream but harbours Zionist and far right views that allow white supremacists like McGimpsey to operate within it and with impunity.
McGimpsey shares with board members of the FSU a callous disregard for the people of Gaza. They are, after all, not only non-white and of a different culture, but they have also dared to struggle for over 75 years against their oppressors - Western imperialism and its Zionist ally in the Middle East. They must, then, be annihilated.
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