30 August 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Publicly-funded Hamilton Multicultural Services Trust backs down to wanna-be-censors

By choosing to exclude art by Jewish/Israeli and Arab/Palestinian migrants from the revamped multicultural facility, the Hamilton Multicultural Services Trust has failed to live up to the values they exist to defend: celebrating diversity, says Jonathan Ayling, Chief Executive of the Free Speech Union. 

“Despite initially accepting the artwork, following complaints, the Trust claims they removed the artwork because it breached the rules of the competition by including religious symbols and a national flag. This is a thinly-veiled excuse for censorship. It’s grasping at straws to claim that abstract references to doves outlined in the colour blue are religious symbols or represent a national flag.

“Further, there are a range of other artwork to be displayed on the new building that has symbols that are more clearly identifiable with religion than doves.

“It appears to be more likely the case that one community is intolerant of the participation of the other community and the Trustees have been bullied into discrimination. That is the essence of bigotry, and the Trust should have rejected calls to exclude participants on these grounds. 

“The Palestinian artwork from the installation will also be removed by the Trust, yet they have been given no reason for this and there have been no clear objections to the tile. The Palestinian community deserves a clear explanation for the exclusion of their work.

“Celebrating diversity means celebrating difference - and difference can be hard at times. But if we can only walk together because we agree on everything, we won’t manage to go a step further. Tolerance and diversity assumes major disagreements exist, yet free speech enables us to progress together, nonetheless. 

“Selective censorship is discriminatory. By giving in to calls for censorship, the Trust has created a rod for its own back. We urge them to return to their stated aims, reinstate all the artwork, and run the Trust in accordance with its values of tolerance.”