The right to freedom of expression is a fundamental human right recognized in important human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This right allows individuals to express their opinions and information without interference or censorship and to seek information freely.
The right to freedom of expression, which can be said to be the basis for other human rights, is reflected in the earliest domestic and international human rights instruments.However, the definition of this right and the importance of its components and elements have changed over time. However, it can be argued that most global and regional human rights instruments have provided very similar definitions of the right to freedom of expression.According to these definitions, the right to freedom of expression is the right of “every human being” to express her “information” and “opinions” by “any means” and even “beyond national borders.”Of course, some documents, such as the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, do not specify all the components of the right to freedom of expression and do not provide a clear definition of it. However, these documents cannot violate the above-mentioned comprehensive definition, because these documents are not binding and the countries that sign them have also joined international documents that guarantee the right to freedom of expression, especially the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In today’s modern world, the word freedom, while simple, is highly controversial, so much so that it is impossible to provide a single definition of it. It has been interpreted in various Islamic and non-Islamic schools, and each school places restrictions on it according to its own perspective. Some schools of thought consider freedom to be absolute in their theoretical foundations, while others consider it to be subject to certain conditions.
