Peter Greste at PEN Perth Annual Lecture

Join us for the PEN Perth Annual Lecture by Peter Greste - Grey Zone: The Debate Democracies Cannot Afford to Lose.

Across the globe, the room for free thought and open debate is shrinking. Journalists are jailed in record numbers. Writers are muted by accusation of antisemitism and de-platformed. In the name of security and social cohesion governments extend their powers to restrict dissent.

It was an extremist group who first gave the fragile arena of debate and disagreement a name: 'the grey zone'. They feared it as the true enemy of their ideology. Yet today, in trying to contain extremism, democratic governments themselves are eroding that very space—unwittingly serving the extremists’ agenda.

Peter Greste, iconic Australian journalist, university professor and the real-life hero of the film The Correspondent​, explores this unsettling paradox. What if the greatest threat to democracy is not extremism itself, but the way democracies choose to fight it? What if, by silencing rather than debating, even the most pernicious ideas, we are already doing the extremists’ work for them?

Tickets here.