\n Speaking in Holyrood, he said: \u201cAn arts venue in Edinburgh was awarded \u00a3608,000 of taxpayers\u2019 money, and then it went on to ban, to censor and to cancel our very own Deputy First Minister, asserting that she was somehow a threat to the safety and wellbeing of their staff.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWill the Scottish Government unequivocally condemn this decision, but even more important, prevent it from ever happening again by making it clear that any grant of taxpayers\u2019 cash will be clawed back from offenders \u2013 otherwise the government is sending out a message that Scotland is where censorship rules.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Culture Secretary Angus Robertson said he was a \u201cstrong supporter\u201d of freedom of expression but stressed the \u201carm\u2019s-length relationship\u201d between Creative Scotland and ministers.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Read more:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n He noted that a review of the funding body was already under way, and suggested Mr Ewing submit his views to it.\n<\/p>\n \n The row erupted after Summerhall Arts, which took over programming at the former veterinary school site earlier this year, apologised to performers for an \u201coversight\u201d that allowed Ms Forbes to appear at Unspun Live, a Herald-run political interview series.\n<\/p>\n \n In an email to artists, the venue said it \u201cshould have considered the likelihood\u201d of Ms Forbes being booked and the \u201cunderstandable upset it would cause\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n Summerhall added that all proceeds from the event would be donated to an LGBTQ+ charity and pledged to develop new inclusion and wellbeing policies \u201cto prevent this from happening again\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n Read more:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Forbes, a devout Christian whose views on gay marriage, abortion and trans rights were heavily criticised during her SNP leadership campaign, said she \u201cfervently\u201d believed in free speech. \u201cAny effort to cancel people, especially politicians, undermines democracy,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \n Robert McDowell, founder of Summerhall but no longer involved in its running, told The Herald the apology was \u201cidiotic\u201d and \u201cnonsense\u201d. He said: \u201cOf course, these things are up for debate.\n<\/p>\n \n “What are the arts if they don\u2019t allow freedom of speech? Whoever compiled that statement was just addressing their friends. It\u2019s part of a cancel culture way of thinking.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Creative Scotland previously said they were in dialogue with the charity \u201cto understand recent events and the steps they are taking to address concerns\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking in Holyrood, he said: \u201cAn arts venue in Edinburgh was awarded \u00a3608,000 of taxpayers\u2019 money, and then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-397347","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\/115146283189542432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397347","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=397347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}