If we take our commitment towards free speech and democracy seriously, then Dr Mahathir Mohamad should be entitled to speak freely at the Suhakam conference. To paraphrase the president of the Israeli Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, it is sometimes necessary in a democracy to fight with one's hands tied behind one's back.

Even if Mahathir may have been a human rights violator, one should not silence him. To do so undermines the idea that we wish to be a community of principle where the application of important principles of political morality like free speech are not denied simply because we disapprove of the speaker or the message the speaker might convey. This is precisely the error that Mahathir is thought to have committed.

To resuscitate our democracy, we should let the man speak freely so that we might also censure him freely.