Is it? Publishing an anti-government article in a newspaper, something we think as the core of free speech, is actually speech (the writing) + action (publishing). So is putting anything up on facebook or sending it over the intertubes. You can apply a binary protection to speech, but that just moves the battleground to defining "speech" versus "not speech."
The U.S. approach is a pretty good one. It defines "speech" as almost anything expressive, and focuses the analysis instead on whether any restraints on speech involve the content of the speech. Protesting is protected in the U.S., which it would not be under a "speech" versus "speech plus other action" dichotomy. The attended activity may be limited, but not based on the content of the speech. Hate speech laws have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional, because they ban particular types of expression based on content.
The U.S. approach is a pretty good one. It defines "speech" as almost anything expressive, and focuses the analysis instead on whether any restraints on speech involve the content of the speech. Protesting is protected in the U.S., which it would not be under a "speech" versus "speech plus other action" dichotomy. The attended activity may be limited, but not based on the content of the speech. Hate speech laws have been repeatedly ruled unconstitutional, because they ban particular types of expression based on content.