"It took endless humiliation before parliament got the message and decided to reform the law of libel: the UN Human Rights Council said our libel law chilled free speech across the entire globe, American academics faced our courts for writing about the funding of Al Qaeda, Barack Obama signed into law an act to protect Americans from our libel law and decent scientists such as Simon Singh Ben Goldacre and NHS cardiologist Pete Wilsmhurst faced ruin thanks to the law.
"If Prince Charles is not neutral then the public have a right to know."
Refusal to release Charles' black spiders is not about privacy - it's about secrecy. Which is outrageous. Wrote this: http://t.co/D03lIA5JwU
— Archie Bland (@archiebland) March 17, 2014
"We are very disappointed by the decision of the court. We will be pursuing an appeal to the Supreme Court in order to protect the important principles which are at stake in this case."
DUP oppose attempt to make the new councils record their meetings. But this morning the Assembly has voted it through
http://t.co/3hWfBhf3CU
— Sam McBride (@SJAMcBride) March 19, 2014
“Rocking the boat”, I suspect, was never that big on the journalist’s agenda, particularly if not exactly to the proprietor’s taste. In any case, rocking it has more often been a case of cumulative work rather than going for it in one steady hit.
"Too many journalists still hunt in packs and so end up producing what Hugo Dixon calls ‘Me Too’ journalism. In the close confines of Northern Ireland this can lead to political pressures to conform (by not asking stupid questions) for the sake of our increasingly geriatric Peace Process™."Mick Fealty had previously looked at the concentrated pressure for journalists to conform. He quoted an Irish Times report:
"In [Northern Ireland] journalists were sometimes told to hold back on a story in case they might do damage to the delicate administration. While this was not a point to ignore, you couldn’t make exceptions."But Mick Fealty has said how Northern Ireland journalists should operate:
"I’ve no doubt of the contribution, but the “well-behaved witness” now needs to start asking “stupid” questions. Otherwise false, or partial, narratives will go unchallenged as those witnesses continue to ignore “the bits that do not suit particular prejudices”. And when “agreed truth becomes accepted, the real truth becomes a lie”."
"Our rights are being infringed more and more on every side, and the danger is that we get used to it. So I want to use the 25th anniversary for us all to do that, to take the web back into our own hands and define the web we want for the next 25 years."This call comes as part of the initiative 'the web we want.' This initiative calls on people to create a digital bill of rights in each country which should be supported by public institutions, government officials and corporations. Berners-Lee said:
"Unless we have an open, neutral internet we can rely on without worrying about what's happening at the back door, we can't have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture. It's not naive to think we can have that, but it is naive to think we can just sit back and get it."Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat presiden, has called for a digital bill of rights in response to 'overreach by the state' after its imposition of 'blanket surveillance' of citizens. It would be a move for the people against the work of GCHQ by blocking the "bulk collection of data". A digital bill of rights would protect the public by guarding basic online freedoms from the "untrammelled power of the state". He said:
"The 1689 bill of rights codified the basic freedoms which we still enjoy today. As we live more of our lives online, we deserve to know that we also enjoy a similar level of freedom in what we do in cyberspace."The site for 'the web we want' can be accessed here.
Online reader comments are "a vital form of accountability," says @ggreenwald, describing how @the_intercept works: http://t.co/mr5uMWbBSd
— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) March 3, 2014
"The refusal of the Northern Ireland executive to extend to Northern Ireland the remit of the Defamation Act and the legal clarity and free speech protection it brings, is quite simply unjustifiable. Why should the citizens and journalists of Northern Ireland not be afforded the same protection of those in the rest of the United Kingdom, whether they are expressing opinions online or holding government to account. Why as the rest of the United Kingdom embraces the digital revolution, should Northern Ireland be confined by our archaic and unfocused freedom of expression laws?
"The “profile” was, in other words, a gold mine. I had hit the libel jackpot. The Sunday Times couldn’t possibly go into court to defend an article that was so sloppily written and badly researched. Even the most aggressive lawyer would tell them to stuff my mouth with gold and make the whole thing go away fast."
"In the real world, that was the end of the "debate". Those who took offence at being called homophobic were able to continue to express their opinions – Breda O'Brien of the Irish Times and David Quinn of the Iona Institute were able to talk or write about it without fear of legal sanction. But otherwise there was nothing. This is because our libel laws are very conducive to closing down any debate that might tend towards the contentious.
"A difficult problem has arisen since the enactment of the Defamation Act. Under our system of devolved government, the Westminster Parliament may legislate in this area for England and Wales, but not for Scotland and Northern Ireland to whose governments and legislatures public powers has been devolved. Defamation law is a devolved subject. Historically, the law of defamation has been the same in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland’s government has adopted some very limited aspects of the legislation. Northern Ireland’s coalition government of opposing parties indicated initially that it had no plans to review the law of defamation. It was ironical that the DUP, committed to keeping Northern Ireland within the UK should decide to sever Northern Ireland from England and Wales in this area of law. During a debate in the House of Lords in June, reference was made to the view of a senior Belfast lawyerwho wrote this:
"Reading about the massive public support for reforming Northern Ireland’s libel laws, many will wonder why an issue over which there is near-unanimous agreement was blocked from even entering the Assembly. Some fear that by referring the issue to the Law Commission, Mr Hamilton is attempting to block Mr Nesbitt’s bill. Given the results of Mr Nesbitt’s consultation, such a course of action would be difficult to explain. As a new minister, Mr Hamilton has a chance here to nail his colours to the mast.
Free speech is too important to be mired in party politicking."Read The Libel Reform Campaign's response to Nesbitt here. Earlier post on the public consultation here (Belfast Telegraph here, News Letter here, BBC here).
"There is something truly bizarre (and yet in keeping with the zeitgeist of our age) that someone should become the focus of death threats and an international campaign of vilification for suggesting that an inoffensive cartoon was, well, inoffensive.
From the Rushdie affair to the controversy over the Danish cartoons, from the forcing offstage of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play Behzti to the attempt this week by members of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party to shut down the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s production of The Bible: The Complete Word Of God (a decision thankfully later reversed), reactionaries have often used campaigns against ‘offence’ as a political weapon with which to harass opponents and as a means of bolstering their community support. The anti-Nawaz campaign is no different. Muhammad Shafiq and Muhammad Ansar both have had public spats with Nawaz, and both are cynically exploiting the claim of ‘offensiveness’ to reclaim political kudos."
"This is about protecting freedom of speech in Northern Ireland. This is particularly important to us, because our current system of government means we do not have a second chamber, like the Lords in London, who scrutinise and revise legislation coming out of the Commons. Nor do we have an official opposition, a role performed to a large extent by the media.
"Of particular urgency is the situation in Northern Ireland where libel sceptics have won the day with the Northern Ireland Executive blocking the application of the new Defamation Act to the province. The Department for Finance and Personnel refuses to comment on the basis of “confidentiality” as to why it had not been able to secure the “necessary consents” for the Defamation Bill within the required timescale. The Libel Reform Campaign hopes to help the Northern Ireland Law Commission with their forthcoming consultation on the libel law and will be campaigning to ensure the Executive revisits this issue to create a law that can be a progressive blueprint for other common law jurisdictions."
"The Defamation Act 2013 came into force on the 1st January 2014. The Act aims to reduce the ‘chilling effect’ that previous libel laws had on freedom of expression and legitimate debate. It is also hoped that it will prevent journalists, scientists and academics from being subjected to unfair legal threats. It is now the case that claimants, before suing, will have to demonstrate that they have suffered ‘serious harm’. Mike Harris of The Libel Reform Campaign stated that:
The government's press release on the coming into force of the new law here. Original UKHRB in full here. Olivia O'Kane outlines the 9 keys changes enacted under the new law here. Introductory blog post here. The blog post which announced the enaction of the new speech law here.‘we hope the judiciary will take note, and that in the future open debate on matters in the public interest will not be chilled by litigious oligarchs or corporations’."
"Our initial advice to the finance minister is that there ought to be a full public consultation on the issues here so that the people of Northern Ireland have a good opportunity to contribute to that discussion... Once formal approval is forthcoming we will expect to have a full public consultation on the issues here so that the people of Northern Ireland will have a good opportunity to contribute to that discussion and we can have a proper public debate on the issues."Ms Goldring stressed that the commission wanted to see a balanced debate, not a “skewed” one. “We will do the research and arguments on all sides and put that, in an unbiased way, into the public domain in the form of a consultation paper.”
"In all my years in broadcast journalism, I was involved in very few cases of defamation, but, of those that did emerge, all involved the political classes. Indeed, they all involved the DUP: two were brought by elected representatives; the third by those offended by comments made by one of their senior members.So, should politicians declare an interest when commentating on the laws of defamation? They should certainly bear it in mind."