The UK-IMC started out to cover the mayday protests in London and only came in to closer contact with the indymedia network after the M1 protests. It is worth looking at the Seattle Mission Statement to understand where indymedia is coming from. The Independent Media Center is a grassroots organization committed to using media production and distribution as a tool for promoting social and economic justice. We seek to generate alternatives to the biases inherent in the corporate media controlled by profit, and to identify and create positive models for a sustainable and equitable society. I wasn't involved in the discussions where the Seattle IMC came up with that mission statement but this is my speculation as to why they do not use free speech in describing their mission.
Free speech is a concept that is rooted in liberal romanism.
The idea is wrapped up in the ideologies of Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. What they are telling us, beyond fuck off, is that you have every right to speak, but no right to distribution or to have people listen to you. The earlier liberal conceptions of free speech were developed in a period where we had very limited communications technologies. You could talk to people directly, and you could run a printing press. Either way you got the freedom to speak your mind.