8 Feb 2012 | Uncategorized
The “twitter joke trial” reached the appeal court today, with the lawyer for accountant Paul Chambers arguing that his conviction for sending a “menacing” tweet was “a steamroller to crack a very small nut”.
Chambers, 28, is appealing his conviction for sending a joke tweet in early 2010 claiming that he would blow Robin Hood airport “sky high” if his planned trip to Northern Ireland to visit his now-fiancee was affected by weather conditions.
Ben Emmerson QC, acting for Chambers, said that Chambers’s conviction did not make sense either as punishment or deterrent.
Emmerson told the court “A message intended as a joke, in a context where there is no public order threat where those who read it did not see it as a credible threat should not be an offence.”
Robert Smith QC, acting for the Crown Prosecution Service, said that the tweet had not been seen as a joke by airport staff.
He added that the message contained no clue of the circumstances leading to the “menacing” tweet, and that the airport and police could not have known it was a joke until Chambers had been arrested and questioned.
The CPS argued that despite the fact that Chambers was being punished for being foolish, it was nonetheless important that there should be a deterrent to the sending of potentially threatening messages.
The appeal was heard before a capacity audience at the Royal Courts of Justice, including Father Ted and Ladykillers writer Graham Linehan (who has written about the case for Index) and “Pub Landlord” comic Al Murray.
A judgment is expected before Easter.
8 Feb 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
The fall of the regime of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali has allowed internet users in Tunisia to enjoy a period of unfettered web access after the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) turned off its censorship machines. Now the internet censorship debate has surfaced again.
In May last year a Tunisian court ordered the ATI to block X-rated websites following a complaint lodged by a group of lawyers who argue that pornography violates Islamic values and presents a threat to children surfing the web. This case initiated a debate about “red lines” and internet freedom.
After losing an appeal on 15 August 2011, the ATI took the case higher to the Court of Cassation, claiming that “the filtering of pornographic websites listed by Smart Filter could not be carried out for the five internet service providers.” A verdict is due in the next few days. If the court orders the agency to reinstate filtering, the agency will find itself forced to perform a censorship role it no longer wants to play.
Over the past year, the ATI has attempted to redefine its function. Moez Chakchou, the ATI’s CEO, describes its role post revolution as “guaranteeing net neutrality, and when we say net neutrality we should not care about the content”.
The ATI chief told Index: “From a judicial point of view, I am obliged to filter, and I do respect these verdicts even though they contradict my personal beliefs.”
Earlier this year, Tunisia’s Interim President Moncef Marzouki, raised the issue of “red lines” in an interview. ‘’There should be red lines limiting freedom of speech…these red lines should not be used as pretexts for censorship…the lines should be debated and accepted by all’’ he said.
Free speech activists believe that filtering pornography or creating “red lines” could pave the way for a comeback of censorship.
“We are fighting against a ghost of the past… It would be regrettable to resort to operations of anonymous (OpTunisia) or to use proxies again just like under the Ben Ali regime”, said Dhouha Ben Youssef, a blogger.
“I believe that the first important step to take in order to prevent the comeback of censorship is adding the word “internet” in the new constitution…because I don’t consider internet as means of communication only, but as means of expression”, she added.
Tunisia does not currently have legislation covering internet censorship, the ATi Chief warns that:
“If the state wants to draw red lines for net freedom, it should first establish an independent authority to regulate the internet. Internet legislation should not be drafted without a regulation authority that creates balance, between public and individual interests”
7 Feb 2012 | Leveson Inquiry
The editor of the Times has admitted to the Leveson Inquiry that a reporter at his paper used email hacking to reveal the identity of anonymous police blogger, NightJack, in a 2009 story.
James Harding was discussing an incident which former Times reporter Patrick Foster had identified the blogger as Richard Horton by gaining access to anonymous email account run by Horton.
Harding, recalled to give further evidence, said he had “learnt a great deal more” about the circumstances surrounding the event since his last appearance at the Inquiry a month ago.
He revealed that he and senior management figures at the Times only became aware of the email hacking after Mr Justice Eady had begun hearing the case at the High Court — to overturn the injunction Mr Horton took to protect his identity — but before a judgment was made.
The inquiry heard that the paper’s lawyer, Alastair Brett, “tore a strip off Foster” when he learned of the email hacking, telling him that “if he wants to pursue this story he has to do it by proper journalistic endeavour”.
Emails shown to the Inquiry today reveal that Foster asked his then news editor, Martin Barrow, to “leave a little space between the dirty deed and publishing”.
In another email from Foster to the Brett, the reporter said he could build his story with publicly-available information. This, Brett replied, may be the “golden bullet”.
Harding said he took the view that the story was in the public interest, though stressed it did not warrant Foster’s unauthorised access to the email account.
“I squarely do not approve of what has happened”, he said.
“If Mr Foster had come to me and said he had done this,” Harding said, “I would have taken the disciplinary action and I would have told him to abandon the story.”
“I sorely regret the intrusion into Richard Horton’s email account by a journalist in our newsroom. On behalf of the newspaper, I apologise”, he told the Inquiry. Harding also said he has written to Mr Justice Eady to apologise that the full details surrounding the story were not disclosed to the court in 2009.
Horton, who won the Orwell prize for his blog describing a PC’s life, closed down his site and removed its content.
Email hacking constitutes a breach of the Computer Misuse Act, for which there is no public interest defence. Foster was given a written warning for professional misconduct over the incident.
Also recalled today was Sun editor Dominic Mohan, who was quizzed about his paper’s page 3 feature, which since late 1970 has printed photos of topless women.
Mohan called the feature an “innocuous British institution” that celebrates natural beauty and represents youth and freshness. He said the feature does not contain models who had had plastic surgery, and that the women photographed were healthy and “good role models”.
Last month the Inquiry heard from a selection of women’s groups who discussed the sexualisation of women in media. Anna Van Heeswijk, of pressure group Object, said page 3 existed “for the sole purpose” of women being sex objects. She also pushed for “consistent” regulation of print media, arguing that the press should abide by the taste and decency watershed that determines what can be broadcast on television before 9pm.
Mohan also refuted claims the paper was sexist, arguing that it had campaigned for a range of women’s issues, such as speaking out against domestic violence in 2003 and raising awareness of cervical cancer screening following the death of reality TV star Jade Goody in 2009.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow and will include evidence from Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer; Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust and political blogger Guido Fawkes.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
7 Feb 2012 | Uncategorized
While the Leveson Inquiry rumbled on today, rulings with huge consequences for the British press were handed down by the European Court of Human Rights.
Axel Springer v Germany and Hannover v Germany were both cases which tested the tension between the right to free speech and the right to privacy.
Von Hannover (in fact, this was Von Hannover v Germany no 2) was very important. The judgment concerned the definitions of public sphere, private life and public figure.
Since the 1990s, Caroline Von Hannover (daughter of the late King Ranier of Monaco and Grace Kelly) had sought to control publication of photographs of her in the German celebrity press.
To cut a long story very short, a 2004 judgment in Caroline Von Hannover v Germany 1 by the European Court found that photographs of the princess had indeed breached her article 8 right to privacy.
The judgment today concerned photographs of Caroline and her husband on a skiing holiday in Moritz, accompanied by an article on Prince Rainier’s health. Importantly, the court ruled that both that the prince’s health was an “event of contemporary society” and that Caroline and her husband were beyond doubt public figures.
The importance of the earlier Von Hannover rulings cannot be understated. In an interview with Index on Censorship last year, Mr Justice Eady, who deals with a large amount of privacy cases in the High Court, explained:
“As a rule courts must apply the test in the Princess Caroline case, von Hannover v Germany, decided by the human rights court in 2004: the decisive factor is whether the publication contributes to ‘a debate of general interest to society’.”
Mr Justice Eady and his colleagues will now have a different ruling to look to; one which places free expression ahead of privacy.
