Mr Justice Eady today put a permanent stay on a libel case brought by an Indian holy man against British journalist Hardeep Singh.
Mr Eady ruled that a 2007 article in the UK-based Sikh Times, in which Singh implied Sikh holy man Sant Baba Jeet Singh Ji Maharaj was a “cultist”, could not be judged in a libel court, as it was an argument of religious doctrine rather than establishment of fact.
Egyptian author Youssef Ziedan faces a five-year jail term after being accused of insulting Christianity in his prize-winning novel Azazeel (Beelzebub). Set in 5th-century Egypt, Alexandria and northern Syria, Ziedan’s novel tells the story of an Egyptian monk who witnesses debates over doctrine between early Christians. The book was an Egyptian bestseller and last year won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction but the Coptic church had denounced it as offensive for its violent portrait of Coptic church father St Cyril. Now, a group of Egyptian and foreign Copts are using an Egyptian law — which prohibits insults against Islam, Christianity and Judaism — to prosecute Ziedan. In the past, the author has described his novel as “not against Christianity but against violence, especially violence in the name of the sacred”.
Index on Censorship hosts a discussion on artistic ownership at the UK’s biggest literary festival
Copyright, Copyleft and Artistic Freedom in the Information Age: Who Owns the Words?
[391] 1PM ELMLEY FOUNDATION
DREAM STAGE £5
David Shields, John Sutherland, Feargal Sharkey, Sarah Hunter, and Claire Armitstead
The author of the seminal manifesto Reality Hunger joins critics and Google’s policy chief to debate who owns the music, the images, the stories and touchstones of our culture? The individual artists, the distributing corporations, or the consumers who purchase it?
In association Penguin Books
More details at www.hayfestival.com
Hosted by Index on Censorship, Saturday 12th June, at the Institute of Education.
In an age of economic uncertainty, rapid immigration, terrorism and increased individualism, has the mainstream Left abandoned its commitment to civil liberties and to liberalism more generally? Can the authoritarian tendencies that characterised much of the 1997-2010 Labour government be reversed? Can the broader Left rebuild a strong narrative around individual freedoms again, or is it too late?
Speakers include:
This is part of the 2010 Compass Robin Cook Memorial Conference, the biggest independent annual gathering of progressive activists – held just weeks after an historic general election. In association with New Statesman, The Guardian and FES.
For full details and to buy your ticket now go to: http://www.compassonline.org.uk/conference/
Institute of Education
20 Bedford Way
London
WC1H 0AL