\n Asked by Forde whether free speech is under threat in Scotland, Ms Cherry said: \u201cI think there are\u2026threats to freedom of speech in Scotland and, regrettably, they have come not wholly from my political party. The Greens are certainly enthusiastically on board, the Lib Dems as well, and some people in the Labour party.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n She placed part of the blame on former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon<\/a>, adding that the current First Minister \u201cdoes not have the courage to speak against it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n READ MORE:\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n WATCH: The Herald’s Unspun Live takes over the Fringe<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \n How Kate Forbes managed to avoid ‘good riddance’ comments<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \n Kate Forbes: I am not a quitter – this is why I’m leaving Holyrood<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cherry criticised Scottish Labour<\/a> leader Anas Sarwar<\/a> as \u201cmissing in action\u201d on issues of free speech, while praising Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay<\/a> as \u201cpretty good\u201d on the topic. She described Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton as \u201cabsolutely appalling\u201d and said the Greens were \u201cunspeakable.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cThere is a real problem in our politics in Scotland that has seeped into our public life,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cherry condemned the National Library of Scotland for censoring a book written by feminists, lesbians, and sex abuse survivors who opposed what she called Sturgeon\u2019s \u201cidentity politics.\u201d She accused the librarian and board chairman of bowing to pressure from a small staff group representing an LGBT network, saying: \u201cI think that\u2019s shocking.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n She also criticised Summerhall, the venue that hosted The Herald<\/a>\u2019s Unspun Live Fringe show featuring Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n \u00a0Last week, the venue apologised for \u201cthe understandable upset\u201d caused by Forbes\u2019 appearance and offered a \u201cdesignated relaxed space\u201d for artists, promising to implement new inclusion and wellbeing policies.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cherry, who attended the event, described the situation as \u201cshocking\u201d and said it was symptomatic of a wider problem at the festival: \u201cIt is also shocking that a venue in this city has effectively said that the deputy first minister of the country is not welcome there\u2026and that staff are so coddled that they need to have a safe room provided for them when Kate did come to speak.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Discussing the broader threat to free speech, Ms Cherry concluded: \u201cThere is a real problem here that we are seeing at the festival.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asked by Forde whether free speech is under threat in Scotland, Ms Cherry said: \u201cI think there are\u2026threats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-341812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115022860343594277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}