Freedom of speech

Thursday

Martin Bright

Progress On Our Pernicious Libel Laws

It was great to see the cover story in Progress about this country’s pernicious libel laws. The magazine did well to commission Jonathan Heawood, the rather brilliant director of English PEN, who really knows the subject. Central to his argument is the point that the government risks being outflanked by the Tories on this issue:  The Conservatives could well come down behind the reforms that were outlined recently in the Sunday Times, based on the recommendations published by Index on Censorship and English PEN in our report, Free Speech is Not for Sale (see www.libelreform.org). Unless Labour catches up with this growing momentum for reform, it risks finding itself on

Sunday

Daniel Korski

Freedom of expression is Rose’s war

Last week, Denmark discovered that two US-based men were plotting a terrorist attack against Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that outraged hard-line Muslims by publishing the infamous Muhammad cartoons in 2005. Allegedly, the two men planned to target cultural editor Flemming Rose and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.  The mild-mannered Flemming Rose is back in the spotlight. Asked if he regretted publishing the cartoons, Rose insisted that bowing to such pressure would not yield less extremism, but more. He went further – the cartoons have not been re-issued, which amounts to the sort of self-censorship that moved him to commission the cartoons originally. Rose’s target was neither Islam nor Muslims. He wanted to

Tuesday

Martin Bright

What Should We Do About Carter-Ruck?

I am delighted to add my voice to those congratulating The Guardian’s David Leigh and parliament’s Paul Farrelly MP for fighting off lawyers Carter-Ruck over their absurd but spine-chilling injunction over the reporting of the activities of Trafigura in Ivory Coast.  For once the over-used phrase “a great day for freedom of speech” actually means something. Perhaps now the British journalistic community will take heart and stand up to this firm of lawyers that specialises in closing down discussion of the ultra-rich and downright disreputable. It is difficult to imagine an episode more damaging for the reputation of this firm. Hurray.  However, let’s take a step back here. The journalistic

Friday

Martin Bright

A Bad Idea Meets Wikileaks

I’ve become something of a fan of Bad Idea magazine, which promotes the work of young journalists. It’s a sight more lively than most of the dreary material pumped out by the mainstream press as it stumbles lazily into oblivion. People younger than me will have to invent new ways of doing this thing if any of us are going to survive. One approach is the investigative site Wikileaks, which has been responsible for publishing a stream of documents no one else has dared touch. So a Bad Idea article about Wikileaks was something I has to read, especially with the headline: Wikileaks – Protector Of Civil Liberties, Or Utterly Misguided? The article