Secular Café: Should Assange be allowed to speak at the Oxford Union?

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Should Assange be allowed to speak at the Oxford Union? Jan 10th 2013, 16:41 I do doubt that anyone nowadays cares that much about the Oxford Union. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...t-assange-talk Quote: Outraged Oxford students are planning demonstrations following news that Julian Assange, the controversial Wikileaks founder, has been invited to speak at the 189-year-old Oxford Union debating society. The union plans to include Assange in an event celebrating prominent whistleblowers on 23 January. He is scheduled to speak via video link from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he sought sanctuary last June from a European arrest warrant for extradition to Sweden over rape allegations... ...Opposition to the invitation is focused primarily upon Assange's status as an alleged sex offender resisting arrest. Simone Webb, who has instigated a Facebook campaign to protest outside the union on the night itself, says: "The protest is objecting primarily to Julian Assange's continued unwillingess to face the Swedish justice system over rape allegations. It is particularly ironic that he's been asked to speak at an awards event which supposedly celebrates integrity and the search for truth, when he is himself blocking the search for truth."... ..."The central principle is that a debate must not merely provide a platform for the guest speaker. There must be the opportunity for the speaker's views to be tested through questioning and debate," says a former president of the union, Izzy Westbury. "Inviting someone controversial – be it in a political sense, a religious one or, in the case of Assange, a legal one – is the best way of showing them for what they really are. When Assange is video-linked to the union, I would expect and encourage questions that challenge both his views and his actions. We should put him in an uncomfortable position – that is the condition of the invite."

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