How to forbid evil when it is done openly
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If the evil is done openly, should it be forbidden openly? And if a person openly commits open sinfulness and calls people to sinfulness and disobedience, should people be warned against him so that they guard themselves from his evil?
If the evil is made public, it is obligatory to forbid it publicly. But is it obligatory to identify the person committing it? This depends on what is in the public interest. If the public interest requires identifying the person so that he may be deterred from the evil he is committing, then he should be named. And if the public interest requires generalizing the statement and saying: “There are people who do such and such,” or “What is wrong with a group of people that they do such and such,” or something similar, then that is better. The important point is that if the evil is made public, it is obligatory to forbid it publicly, but identifying the doer depends on what is in the public interest. As for warning people secretly against this doer, out of fear that people may be led astray by him, that is obligatory.
If the evil is done openly, should it be forbidden openly? And if a person openly commits open sinfulness and calls people to sinfulness and disobedience, should people be warned against him so that they guard themselves from his evil?
If the evil is made public, it is obligatory to forbid it publicly. But is it obligatory to identify the person committing it? This depends on what is in the public interest. If the public interest requires identifying the person so that he may be deterred from the evil he is committing, then he should be named. And if the public interest requires generalizing the statement and saying: “There are people who do such and such,” or “What is wrong with a group of people that they do such and such,” or something similar, then that is better. The important point is that if the evil is made public, it is obligatory to forbid it publicly, but identifying the doer depends on what is in the public interest. As for warning people secretly against this doer, out of fear that people may be led astray by him, that is obligatory.