17 Aug 2010 | Uncategorized
Justice Minister Lord McNally seems to have suggested that the government will introduce new legislation on privacy.
In a report in the Daily Telegraph, McNally is quoted as saying:
[Super-injunctions are] “something that has grown up by stealth, rather than by considered desire of Parliament and therefore they will be in the sights when they look at the reform of the law”.
The report continues:
The new legislation would be a “consolidation” and “clarification” of the case law that will “hopefully remove some of the more onerous aspects of the way that case law has grown up”.
It’s always a concern when governments suggest laws that could restrict free expression. However, it is a fact that through the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, the right to privacy does exist in English law, and judges must bear this in mind.
Index has always argued that if laws are to be made concerning free expression, it is better they emerge from proper democratic debate, rather than complex and sometimes contradictory court rulings that leave both the press and the public unsure of their rights and responsibilities.
Hence, we should not entirely shun the idea of privacy legislation, so long as that legislation is based on the presumption of free expression as a principle right.
16 Aug 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Carlos Flores Borja, winner of the Guardian Journalism award at this year’s Index on Censorship Free Expression Awards Ceremony, has been told that he will not be allowed relaunch of Amazonian community radio station Radio La Voz de Bagua, in spite of promises from President Alan García.
Carlos Flores Borja, the manager of Amazonian radio station travelled to Lima last week because he had been given an appointment with transport and communications minister Enrique Cornejo on 11 August to discuss the reopening of the station, which the government closed 14 months ago.
But in the end, Flores was received by deputy minister Jorge Cuba Hidalgo, who told him that the station will remain closed.
16 Aug 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Rapper Noize MC, who was jailed for 10 days in Volgograd after mocking local police in a song and an improvised rap at a festival, has released a new song criticising the police. Launched soon after the artist left jail last week, and entitled “10 Days in Paradise” or “10 Days (Stalingrad)”, the song sarcastically thanks police for the inspiration provided by his time in prison. The accompanying video shows footage of Russian police brutality, including violence at a demonstration in St. Petersburg on 31 July. Noize MC, whose real name is Ivan Alexeyev, has included in the song an apology he read out while in prison, which was distributed by the Volgograd police’s press service. Alexeyev told Gazeta.ru that the apology was only written and performed because he was threatened with having his charges changed from “disorderly conduct” to “insulting a police officer” — an offence punishable by up to one year of “correctional labour”.
16 Aug 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
The deputy director of a radio station in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland in north east Somalia has been sentenced to six years in prison following a court case from which the media were banned. Abdifatah Jama Mire was given the sentence after the radio station Horseed Media FM broadcast an interview in which he interviewed Mohamed Said Attom, an Islamist rebel chief who has been linked to Al-Qaeda. Seven journalists from the station were initially arrested but so far only Mire has been charged. All media reporters were banned from the trial, which ended in minutes.
