9 Jan 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost, News and features
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been acquitted of charges of sodomy after a two-year court battle. A judge ruled today that DNA evidence used by prosecution was unreliable. Anwar was first prosecuted after a former male aide accused the politician of sodomising him in 2008. Anwar has long denied the charges, calling them “a vile and desperate attempt at character assassination” in a statement to the High Court in August of last year.
9 Jan 2012 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
The Sun’s royal editor has revealed that over half of the paparazzi photos of royals that the paper receives are not published because of ethical considerations.
Duncan Larcombe told the Leveson Inquiry that this was due to concerns over breaches of privacy and the Press Complains Commission code, he rejected any suggestion that Clarence House put the newspaper under pressure not to run certain photographs.
He told the Inquiry that the Sun turned down photos of the royals stolen from Pippa Middleton’s car in 2009, the tipsters asked for £25,000 for the images.
Distancing himself from former editor Kelvin Mackenzie’s “lob it in” approach, Larcombe said that “it doesn’t work like that on royal stories” or on Fleet Street. He said it was particularly important to “get it 100 per cent right” with such stories.
However he admitted that the internet was “the elephant in the room”, many photos rejected by mainstream outlets finding their way online.
Larcombe added that every member of the public was a “potential paparazzo” in the age of camera phones, claiming that Prince Harry had little privacy unless he was “hiding in one of his castles”.
The Sun’s picture editor John Edwards told the Inquiry that more photos were now coming in from members of the public, though the majority of the 15-20,000 images the paper is offered per week still come from agencies.
Discussing pictures of a heavily pregnant Lily Allen shopping in London, Edwards said they were not published after a request from the singer’s agent’s request, despite Allen appearing happy to be shot in the photos. He added that there were celebrities that the paper would be reluctant to use photos of, such as Sienna Miller, due to their past experiences with the paparazzi.
When asked about the intense press coverage of the McCanns, whose daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal in May 2007, Edwards said he had “tremendous sympathy” for the couple, who returned to a media scrum outside their home in Leicestershire after Madeleine’s disappearance.
“We got it spot on in Portugal, but may not have been so good when it came back to Leicestershire,” Edwards said.
9 Jan 2012 | Leveson Inquiry, Uncategorized
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie told the Leveson Inquiry that the paper would have come “very, very very close to being shut down” had it “got the Milly Dowler story wrong”.
MacKenzie, who edited the UK’s most popular daily paper from 1981-1994, was referring to reports in the Guardian that the News of the World had deleted voicemails on the abducted teenager’s phone, giving her family false hope that she was alive.
The Guardian reported last month that, while the News of the World had hacked into Dowler’s phone, it was unlikely that it was responsible for the deletion of messages that led to a false hope moment.
Leveson LJ said MacKenzie’s view that the broadsheet got the story “completely wrong” was “interesting”.
MacKenzie accused the newspaper world of “snobbery” and claimed ethics depended on the paper in which an offending story was published. “If you publish in the Sun you get six months’ jail, if you publish in the Guardian you get a Pulitzer.”
MacKenzie added that the culture of the Sun had changed after his departure, noting that subsequent editors Rebekah Brooks and Dominic Mohan were more “cautious”.
He admitted to adopting a “bullish” approach to journalism during his editorship particularly in the 1980s, adding later that the paper’s editor’s office was a “massive hour-by-hour sprawl of phone calls and general rioting”.
Pressed on fact checking by Leveson LJ, MacKenzie said there was “no absolute truth in any newspaper”, adding that journalists attempting to get to the truth while being told lies was a “massively difficult problem”.
He also spoke in favour of newspapers being subject to heavy fines for lying to the Press Complaints Commission.
Mackenzie admitted he did “not really” have much regard for privacy while editor.
Meanwhile, current editor of the paper’s Bizarre showbiz column, Gordon Smart, said ethics were a balancing act between public interest and individual’s right to privacy. “There is a grey area there and we walk that line every day,” Smart said, adding that he believed he and his team “get it right more than we get it wrong”.
He said that the onset of Twitter meant showbiz reporters were more accountable than ever before, adding that social media added to the pressure to meet deadlines.
Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson
9 Jan 2012 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was severely beaten by security services in Bahrain during a demonstration on Friday. Rajab was beaten on the back, head and neck and was taken by ambulance to Salmaniya hospital after participating in a peaceful protest in Manama. The activist, who is President of The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) told his lawyer that policemen gathered around him and began to beat him. Rajab has been released from hospital following treatment for concussion, back pain and bruises to his back and face.
