Another victim of an archaic law

Darryn Walker has suffered unemployment and vilification for writing a pornographic story. The censorious obscenity law that allows this to happen must be scrapped, say John Ozimek and Julian Petley

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Girls Aloud obscenity case dropped

The Crown Prosecution Service has dropped its case against Darryn Walker, the civil servant who was facing trial under the Obscene Publications Act for writing a violent pornographic fantasy story about pop group Girls Aloud.

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Expenses scandal is a watershed for freedom of information

Transparency is no longer just an obsession for journalists and campaigners, writes Chris Ames

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Tyranny’s shield

The ruling against blogger NightJack suggests that anonymous speech is bad for society, says David Banisar

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Iran: “I will continue to report, but I fear that I may be arrested”

Reporter Saeed Kamali Dehghan describes the struggle to get information in and out of Tehran

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Iraq: “A secret inquiry is storing up trouble”

A private investigation into the Iraq war will only backfire on Gordon Brown, writes Chris Ames

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Through the looking glass

English libel law turns US protection for free speech on its head. Floyd Abrams considers how the UK became an international libel tribunal

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Keeping it secret

Tamsin Allen asks why a former intelligence agent is being denied the right to a fair hearing

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Weighing up the evidence

The House of Lords ruling on secret evidence raises the need for the admission of intercept intelligence in terror trials, says Roger Smith

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Secrecy of jury system can hinder justice

We need more transparency on jury trial deliberations, says Frances Gibb

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Censorship is the wrong way to combat BNP

The illiberal obsession with silencing Nick Griffin and the British National Party in the run up to elections has won the party undeserved publicity, says Claire Fox

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Police shelve review on Kingsnorth protest

The failure to publish the long awaited report on policing tactics last summer is leading to accusations of a cover-up. Chris Ames reports

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“You’re an idiot and I am a coward”

Comedy is too often constrained by preconceptions of audience reaction and the comic’s own self-censoring streak, says Robin Ince

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The right to protest: Technology turns the camera on surveillance state

In the first of a series of articles on protest and free speech, Guardian reporter Paul Lewis assesses the fallout from the death of Ian Tomlinson

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Peter Hitchens: bring back arguments

As the divide narrows between left and right in Britain, so too does the space for adversarial dialogue and free expression

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UK: climbdown on secret inquests

Justice secretary Jack Straw has announced the government will not go ahead with plans for non-jury private inquests to cover cases involving “sensitive information”. Read more here

Dimbleby: fearful BBC risks losing its way

The BBC Trust’s condemnation of Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen has the potential to cause serious damage to the corporation’s international standing, says Jonathan Dimbleby

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Eady rules against Singh in chiropractic defamation case

The English High Court has ruled that science writer Simon Singh, must show that the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) was deliberately dishonest in promoting chiropractic as a treatment for various children’s ailments.

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This ‘banned list’ has no place in UK law

To stop people entering Britain because of what they may say while here is based on the concept of pre-emptive sanction says Padraig Reidy

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UK ‘least wanted’ list published

The Home Office has released a list of sixteen people banned from entering the UK for their extremist views. The list includies Islamists, white supremacists and a right-wing US talk show host. Read more here

Binyam Mohamed: Foreign Office attempts to file ‘secret evidence’

Index on Censorship has learned that government lawyers are attempting to submit secret evidence on the treatment of former Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed, as the Foreign Office continues to attempt to prevent the release of potentially damning information about his detention.

In a letter to the judges presiding over the case, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones, the Treasury Solicitor has claimed that a Public Interest Immunity certificate could be necessary for any further evidence submitted by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. This would allow the Foreign Office to supply evidence to the court in secret, on a basis not open to challenge or scrutiny.

The government is fighting an application by international media organisations, including Index on Censorship, to obtain the release of seven paragraphs that were redacted from an earlier judgment concerning Mohamed’s treatment at the hands of US officials. The Foreign Office had claimed that any release would endanger future intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US, a claim Mohamed’s lawyer, Dinah Rose QC, has described as ‘seriously misleading’.

Read the government letter here (pdf)

‘Banned’ poet becomes first female laureate

Carol Ann Duffy, whose poem ‘Education for Leisure’ was withdrawn from schoolbooks over fears it encouraged violence, has been appointed the UK’s first female poet laureate. Read more here

Cuts demanded for Knightley domestic violence advert

Clearcast, the company that regulates television advertising on behalf of Ofcom, has requested that violent scenes be removed from an anti-domestic violence advert featuring actress Keira Knightley. Read more here

UK government rules out central database

The British government has said it will not now go ahead with plans to create a cenrtal communications database. Read more here

Pakistan: reporting the student ‘terror trail’

Zubeida Mustafa examines the Pakistani media’s response to the arrests of eleven Pakistani students now facing deportation from the UK

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Information Commissioner: Google Street View should not be stopped

The UK’s Information Commissioner has said there will be no move to censor Google Street View, despite admitting it carries a small risk of privacy invasion. Read more here

‘We expect a bias for freedom’

In a stirring and provocative speech at the Freedom of Expression awards, Sir David Hare presented a challenge for Index on Censorship, and all free speech advocates

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‘A government more concerned with silencing critics than addressing its own failures’

News that anti-terror officers trawled Damian Green MP’s personal emails for information, including details of Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti, has further highlighted the government’s worrying attitude to civil liberties, says
Chris Huhne MP

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Green will not face charges

Conservative MP Damian Green and civil servant Christopher Galley will not face charges relating to leaks of government documents after Director of Public Prosecutions Kier Starmer QC found that the leaks did not endanger security. Read more here

Freedom of information when it suits

Why is British government trying to censor documents relating to the Iraq war it has already published, asks Chris Ames

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BBC fined £150,000 for ‘Sachsgate’

Ofcom has fined the BBC £150,000 for breaches of the broadcasting code on Russell Brand’s Radio 2 show in October.

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Seditious libel law is a travesty of justice

The UK government’s retention of this archaic legislation only serves to justify oppression in other countries, writes
Evan Harris

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Lebedev to sue Forbes

Evening Standard and Novaya Gazeta owner Alexander Lebedev is to sue Forbes magazine for libel after it claimed he had lost $2.5 billlion in the financial crisis. Read more here

Media alerts in lead up to G20 demonstrations

As UK citizens prepare to exercise their freedom of expression at demonstrations during the upcoming week of the G20 summit, the media continues to warn of imminent riots, while most protest groups assert that violence will not be used.

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This is legal blackmail

Britain’s libel laws are a malign force far beyond just celebrity journalism. Radical reform is overdue, writes
Jo Glanville

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UK plans to monitor Facebook

The UK government has said that communications over social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace could be monitored in an effort to tackle crime and terrorism. Read more here

Event: Twenty years of free speech wars

In February 1989, five months after the publication of The Satanic Verses, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against its author Salman Rushdie. It is often seen as a pivotal moment in shaping the landscape of contemporary Western society. So, 20 years on, what is the legacy of the most famous free speech controversy of modern times?

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Review: The Assault on Liberty

A new book attempts to cast the crisis in civil liberties as a left/right issue. But ultimately it is the timid, compliant climate of UK politics that is to blame, says John Kampfner

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Sky joins BBC in refusing Gaza appeal

Sky News has informed the Disasters Emergency Committee that it will not be broadcasting an appeal for humanitarian aid for Gaza.

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Sir John Mortimer, 1923 - 2009

Author and barrister Sir John Mortimer died this morning at the age of 85. Sir John was a great champion of free expression, defending many writers and publishers against obscenity charges in the 1970s.

In one of his last interviews, he talked to Index on Censorship about the notorious Oz trial of 1971, as well as Gay News and Inside Linda Lovelace, two other publications he defended. Here we reproduce that interview.

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Watching Me, Watching You

Government data retention plans will make life difficult for Britain’s investigative journalists, says Bill Thompson

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MPs to call for an end to libel tourism

Senior MPs from all the major parties will tomorrow ask the government to end the practice of wealthy foreign people using British libel law and British courts to silence investigative journalists.

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The politics of intimidation

The Damian Green arrest confirms fears about a vengeful government and a supine media, says John Kampfner

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Parliamentary lobby

Civil disobedience is sometimes the only way of making a democratic point, says Leo Murray of
Plane Stupid

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Detained Sri Lankan journalist moved to army prison

On 18 November, journalist JS Tissainayagam, currently on trial before the High Court under the country’s Terrorism Act, was moved to the notorious Magazine prison in Colombo after more than 150 days in detention.

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Unnecessary secrets

Further restrictions on reporting of security issues would be disastrous and misguided, writes David Davis

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Extradition will make Dr Toben a martyr

The European Arrest Warrant is a valuable tool, writes Chris Huhne, but it should not be used to restrict freedom of expression

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Ministers shelve secret inquest plans

UK ministers have dropped plans that would allow ministers to remove juries and the public from hearings on national security grounds. Read more here

Gibson Square confirms suspension of Jewel of Medina publication

Publisher Gibson Square have confirmed that it has indefinitely suspended publication of The Jewel of Medina.

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Toben bail hearing delayed

Submissions for bail for Holocaust revisionist Frederick Toben will now not be heard until next week.

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