Freedom no joke

I received a leaflet from Amnesty International yesterday. It told me: “You have the right to remain silent” in the face of human rights abuses around the world. It continued that one also has the right (in this country at least) to speak out.

What, in my view, one does not have the right to do, is to make public jokes about people’s suffering. Your report concerning a Saudi Arabian court imposing a flogging sentence on a woman who had the temerity to drive a car should have elicited disgust. Instead, your correspondent, John Eoin Douglas (Letters, 29 September), saw fit to light-heartedly support the prohibition, a theme continued by later contributors.

Perhaps people joked about the struggle of suffragettes in Britain. No doubt also the powerful in Saudi Arabia will note with satisfaction the lack of outrage at their actions from this representation of the Scottish people, while the downtrodden and repressed will wonder just what it would take for their struggles to be recognised.

Roy Turnbull

Nethy Bridge

Inverness-shire