Some members of the UCL Atheist Society took the decision to host derogatory and insulting cartoons of the Prophet Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon them) on their website. They have been asked to remove these, but have chosen to maintain them, in the interests of freedom of expression. However, the irony is their limited understanding of the philosophical foundations of rights theory that indeed is the very foundation of the University of which they are students. It is both relevant and necessary to outline the key principles that underpin Western political theory and philosophy in this area. Through this, it is hoped that a reminder of such principles inspire a far more prudent approach to this issue.

The founding fathers of the movement that gave birth to University College London in the mid 18th century were the major proponents of freedom in the English tradition; J S Mill in particular, who is seen as the main advocate of freedom of expression in the West. Indeed, the establishment of UCL was on the principle of freedom to receive higher education, something that was not available to those who did not accord to the mainstream religious beliefs of the time. So whilst rights were the very foundation on which UCL was built, some of the students there today seem to have neglected or overlooked aspects of the great intellectual tradition of rights based theory.

Perhaps let us start at the beginning. Rights are those things that everyone must be allowed to exercise free from any interference from the State, and from others. This is subject to the condition that the exercise of those freedoms should not harm anyone else. This has been manifested in modern law to mean that there is a presumption that people can express themselves as they wish, with restrictions only allowed where this expression violates the rights of others, or extremely important public interests. This aspect of rights theory seems to be pretty well known by all.

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