FromĀ The Province: In April 2015, a man was detained and held involuntarily at a psychiatric hospital after posting a series of angry tweets about a police shooting. The Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal has recently issued a defense of this man’s right to free speech and political dissent.
ā’If anger about political events and words of defiance to authorities are dealt with as signs of mental illness ā¦. warranting involuntary committal, then our society is in a dangerous place,’ [the appeal court]Ā said.
‘Such anger and defiance are characteristic of political dissent. As the history of authoritarian societies has taught us, confinement in a mental institution is a particularly insidious way of stifling dissent, directly and through intimidation.'”
