Town square test

Town square test is a threshold test for a free society proposed by a former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, now a notable politician in Israel.

The test is found in Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy, and it reads:

• If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a "fear society" has finally won their freedom.

The test became famous after George Bush endorsed the book ^[1] and Condoleezza Rice quoted the test in her remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ^[2]

References

1. "My Sharansky" by Chris Suellentrop
2. Condoleezza Rice testimony

• Natan Sharansky, Ron Dermer, The Case for Democracy. The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, (2004, ISBN 1586482610, hardcover) (2006, ISBN 0892216441 paperback).

External links

• Town Square Test in Oxford, Britian198.23.5.11 21:47, 24 August 2006 (UTC)