Peter Greste after his release in 2015
Journalist Peter Greste has weighed in on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, saying the controversial provision should be “repealed or at the very least redrafted to make sure…cases are dealt with in the court of public opinion rather than the court of law”.
In an opinion piece in The Australian, Greste, a free speech advocate since being imprisoned in Egypt for his reporting, said “a free and untrammelled media — even one that at times gets pretty ugly" was "a vital part” of the system of society.
“And in the end, vigorous public debate held out in the open and in the mainstream press is far more effective at helping us all get along, than either driving racism into dark corners of the internet, or taking people who make racist remarks to court,” Greste wrote.
Read the opinion piece at The Australian (subscriber-only content)
Read the Guardian's report on Greste’s views