Joyce Fegan: Whose free speech are we paying attention to?

We know exactly what Fr Sheehy thinks about two people loving each other and we know what Elon dressed up for as Halloween, but have we paid these women and girls in Iran, who are risking it all to exercise their freedoms, as much attention or airtime?

Members of the Iranian community and their supporters in Ottawa, Ontario rally in solidarity with protesters in Iran, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab. Picture: Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP

On one side of the world women, and even children, are beaten and killed in the exercise of their “free speech”, and on the other men take to pulpits and take over platforms in the confident assertion of theirs.

For one group, girls and women in Iran, it’s deeply personal and pertains to their actual day-to-day freedom, and for the other, a priest and a billionaire, it’s ideological and abstract.