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A WELSH playwright fears he could be prosecuted under planned new laws banning the glorification of terrorism after he penned an opera about a Palestinian suicide bomber. Dic Edwards's opera Manifest Destiny has been cited as a possible breach of the proposed new laws which gained the support of MPs last week in their first reading before the House of Commons. Mr Edwards's opera tells the story of how Palestinian militant Leila is torn between a sense of duty, as she sees it, to her cause and her love for Jewish boyfriend Daniel. But the work is also critical of George Bush's American administration and draws comparisons between the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and how European settlers almost wiped out the North American Indians. Commentators including Channel 4 news and BBC Radio 4's Today programmed have alluded to a possible prosecution because of the opera's controversial content. Mr Edwards says the planned legislation is ill-conceived and a threat to the freedom of expression of any playwright who challenges the legitimacy of Tony Blair and George Bush's war on terror. He told the Western Mail yesterday, "The law doesn't define terrorism. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. "You could argue that George Washington's guerrilla army which resisted the legal government of the British in what would become the United States was a terrorist organisation and that Independence Day sees the whole of America glorifying terrorism. "Also support for the state of Israel, founded on terrorism led by the Stern Gang which included future Prime Minister Menachem Begin, could be seen as glorification of terrorism." In the opera, Leila eventually renounces violence, but a spokesman for the Home Office yesterday refused to be drawn on whether Mr Edwards's work was the kind of material the legislation is designed to suppress. FULL STORY ON THE WEB SITE LISTED BELOW.... |
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Thursday, February 23, 2006 |
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