Obama: a fresh start
Barack Obama has promised to run the most transparent administration in history. He could make a good start by opening the government’s files on torture, says Jameel Jaffer
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Novaya Gazeta reporter shot
Anastasiya Baburova, a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper funded by Alexander Lebedev, was seriously wounded in a shooting incident in Moscow earlier today.
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Writer sentenced for lèse majesté
Australian writer Harry Nicolaides has been sentenced to three years in prison in Thailand for insulting the king in his book Verisimilitude.
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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.