Respect for free expression is the greatest of human virtues. Without it we cannot survive on this planet speaking hundreds of tongues, holding a wide range of political opinions and displaying a bewildering array of social attitudes and cultural attributes.

Our creative diversity-if it is to survive the growing interaction between peoples-requires that tolerance become inbred, and further that it must be nurtured to go beyond acceptance of the principle of freedom of expression to the commitment to defend that right for all those with whom we disagree.

Indeed, to defend that right even for those whose views we find offensive. For it is precisely offensive speech and obnoxious views that require protection in the name of freedom of expression. Surely conventional thoughts and mainstream speech does not require protection, precisely because they are so acceptable to the majority.

The idea of free expression has benefited from several centuries of debate with generations of free spirits willing to put their well-being and even their very lives on the line to defend the crucial rights that we now have learned to take for granted. Today, it is expression in any medium, including and especially the Internet, and using any form of expression, be it language, music or the arts. Yet such rights need to be defended again and again.

The natural response of society every time it feels threatened is to stifle dissent and restrict the hard-won freedoms of its citizens in the name of national security and the public good.

In these perilous times of international terrorism, permeable borders, global markets, and the all-encompassing Internet, there is enormous attraction in the argument that to protect against the horrific misdeeds of extremists, each of us has to give up a little bit of our comfort, a little bit of our privacy, a little bit of our rights. We willingly accept. Who denies the need for searches at the airports, or the screening of luggage before we get on board the airplane?

In these perilous times of international terrorism, where information is so freely available, where the availability of weapons is so pervasive, where payment for the arms can be cleverly hidden by dummy accounts in the most god-forsaken places, does it not make sense to ask citizens to subject their financial transactions to additional scrutiny? To catch the terrorists as they are getting prepared to finance their deadly operations, we willingly submit to a little more exposure of our affairs, a little more reduction in our privacy.

Let a more knowledgeable government protect us by limiting the action of those madmen. Who would deny that good intelligence to prevent criminal acts of mass murder is indeed preferable to waiting for the horrible unfolding of heinous crimes and then trying to track down the perpetrators and punishing them. Prevention is always better than cure. Or is it?

Regretfully, in our concern to curb terrorism, we sometimes are willing to give up too easily the hard-won freedoms that we have come to take for granted in the democratic societies of today.

Protections against unreasonable search and seizure, guarantees of due process, even Habeas Corpus, are all subject to being temporarily suspended. The emergency demands it. National security requires it. From there it is but a small step to acquiesce in questioning the talk of people and even their private reading material and their thoughts as being dangerous, for if they think it, they are likely to do it.

But who is to judge which thoughts are acceptable and which are not? Can we possibly forget that our hard-won freedoms, our rights of citizenship, are all based on freedom of speech and freedom of thought?

Consider questioning the divine right of kings, ending colonialism, ending slavery, the right to vote, the rights of women, religious freedom were all considered dangerous, unacceptable thoughts when they were first advocated by visionary thinkers.

So let us today celebrate these hard-won freedoms and rededicate ourselves to the defence of the most important, the first freedom, the freedom of speech in its broadest sense, whether it is expressed in terms of the spoken or written word, or the through the language of music and art, whether the medium is the printed page or the electronic web.

But freedom is not licence. It involves responsibility on the part of those who exercise these rights of free speech. So where do the boundaries of free speech lie? Obviously, there must be protection of the rights of others. Not just by protection from slander and libel, but from the incitement to hatred and violence.

We must remember that the promoters of hate use speech to create the climate where large scale persecution can take place. We need more free speech, not less. We need to be able to speak truth to power, to ensure that alternative voices are not silenced, that judicial restraint be arbitrated in independent courts. We need the information that would unmask such Orwellian doublespeak to be available to all.

Society will thrive with more freedom of access to information. There is nothing that can destroy the rot of corruption, whether financial or moral, as much as the light of open scrutiny.

Today as we enter the information society, it behooves us to remember freedom of access as well as freedom of expression as we discuss the technological marvels of informatics and communications technology. The power of public opinion is not to be underestimated. It needs to be given the facts, including the facts about censorship.

Let us try to ensure that equity and fairness are not forgotten and that large segments of the human family are not by-passed by the information revolution simply because they are too poor and live in the developing countries.

I say: let freedom reign, let information flow, let all views be heard. Persons should be held responsible for what they say. Responsibility and accountability go hand in hand, they are two sides of the same coin. For freedom without boundaries is license. Let hate-mongers beware for society will not let them use the cover of freedom of expression to do your dastardly work.

Let the oppressors beware for we will not let you use the cover of national security to muzzle dissent and the contrarian view. Let us reason together. Let us, together, design the wise constraints that make people free.

Dr Serageldin is director of the Library of Alexandria and member of the Senate of Egypt.