15 Apr 2013 | United Kingdom
Are you passionate about freedom of expression? Do you want to write for an award-winning, internationally renowned magazine and website, which has published the works of Aung San Suu Kyi, Salman Rushdie and Arthur Miller? Then enter Index on Censorship’s student blogging competition!
The winning entry will be published in Index on Censorship magazine, a celebrated, agenda-setting international affairs publication. It will be posted on our popular and influential website, which attracts contributors and readers from around the world. Index is one of the leading international go-to sources for hard-hitting coverage of the biggest threats and challenges to freedom of expression today. This competition is a fantastic opportunity for any aspiring writer to reach a global, diverse and informed audience.
The winner will also be awarded £100, be invited to attend the launch party of our latest magazine in London, get to network with leading figures from international media and human rights organisations, and will receive a one-year subscription to Index on Censorship magazine.
To be in with a chance of winning, send your thoughts on the vital human right that guides our work across the world, from the UK to Brazil to Azerbaijan. Write a 500-word blog post on the following topic:
“What is the biggest challenge facing freedom of expression in the world today?
This can cover old-fashioned repression, threats to digital freedom, religious clampdown or barriers to access to freedom of expression, focusing on any region or country around the world.”
The competition is open to all first year undergraduate students in the UK, and the winning entry will be determined by a panel of distinguished judges including Index Chair Jonathan Dimbleby. To enter, submit your blog post to [email protected] by 31 May 2013.
12 Apr 2013 | Newswire
This is a statement from The Libel Reform Campaign
Four days before the Defamation Bill has its final and decisive debate in the House of Commons we find ourselves writing to you about disgraceful behaviour from politicians that will put everything we’ve worked for at risk.
Conservative MP and libel barrister Sir Edward Garnier is trying to remove the part of the Bill that would limit companies’ ability to use libel threats to intimidate critics into silence. His attempt to remove this will be voted on during debate on the Bill on Tuesday 14thApril. Please write to your MP and tell them not to support Garnier’s amendment.
We’ve heard that the Conservatives might back Garnier on this, and that the Lib Dems will join their Conservative colleagues even though restricting corporations from suing individuals unless they can prove harm is Lib Dem party policy! It was voted for overwhelmingly in the House of Lords. Please write to Nick Clegg and David Cameron and urge them to tell their parties not to support Garnier and to make sure the clause on companies becomes part of the Defamation Bill.
Read our briefing for MPs on why this along with a clear strong public interest defence would do the most to lessen the damage the laws are doing to free and open debate. A Bill without either reform would be a wasted opportunity. Please point your MP towards our briefing when you write to them.
We’ve seen the best of democracy in action – we have forced libel reform onto the political agenda and when politicians have listened to us all we’ve seen the best improvements to the Defamation Bill. But behind closed door dealing and cowardly behaviour threatens everything we’ve worked for. Please tell your MP not to support Garnier amendment and tell David Cameron and Nick Clegg that the Government shouldn’t either.
12 Apr 2013 | News and features, Uncategorized
This is a statement from The Libel Reform Campaign
Four days before the Defamation Bill has its final and decisive debate in the House of Commons we find ourselves writing to you about disgraceful behaviour from politicians that will put everything we’ve worked for at risk.
Conservative MP and libel barrister Sir Edward Garnier is trying to remove the part of the Bill that would limit companies’ ability to use libel threats to intimidate critics into silence. His attempt to remove this will be voted on during debate on the Bill on Tuesday 14thApril. Please write to your MP and tell them not to support Garnier’s amendment.
We’ve heard that the Conservatives might back Garnier on this, and that the Lib Dems will join their Conservative colleagues even though restricting corporations from suing individuals unless they can prove harm is Lib Dem party policy! It was voted for overwhelmingly in the House of Lords. Please write to Nick Clegg and David Cameron and urge them to tell their parties not to support Garnier and to make sure the clause on companies becomes part of the Defamation Bill.
Read our briefing for MPs on why this along with a clear strong public interest defence would do the most to lessen the damage the laws are doing to free and open debate. A Bill without either reform would be a wasted opportunity. Please point your MP towards our briefing when you write to them.
We’ve seen the best of democracy in action – we have forced libel reform onto the political agenda and when politicians have listened to us all we’ve seen the best improvements to the Defamation Bill. But behind closed door dealing and cowardly behaviour threatens everything we’ve worked for. Please tell your MP not to support Garnier amendment and tell David Cameron and Nick Clegg that the Government shouldn’t either.
12 Apr 2013 | Leveson Inquiry, Newswire
The Department of Culture Media and Sport this week held a “mini-consultation” with the aim of soothing fears that bloggers may find themselves caught in the net of the proposed post-Leveson press regulator.
The fears stem from the initial drafting of the scope of the new regulator, which suggested that any “relevant publisher” of “news-related” material would be expected to join the regulator, and could face the “stick” of exemplary damages if they did not have a “reasonable” excuse for not being part of the regulatory system. These definitions applies to vast swathes of the web, as well as the traditional newspaper industry.
For many, the realisation dawned that the new regulator would not simply cover the “bad guys” of the Murdoch papers and the Mail; rather, in an age when anyone can be a journalist, so too can anyone with an online presence be regarded as a publisher of “news-related material”.
The task of defining who’s in and who’s out was brought into focus when leading site Mumsnet asked the DCMS whether it would be seen as a relevant publisher of news-related material. “We don’t know”, came the reply, reflecting the ill-thought nature of the whole process. Shortly afterwards, Mumsnet were told they would “probably not” be covered, but that ultimately, it would be for the courts to decide.
The DCMS then set out to develop a list of who would not be covered: Wine magazine Decanter was mentioned as not being a news publisher. This, frankly, is an insult to Decanter, which publishes wine news for people who are interested in wine.
Then we were told individual bloggers would not be covered, but that blogs that had multiple writers, or an editorial process, might. So that’s group blogs regulated, while, for example, the extremely influential and widely-read Jack of Kent blog, run by a single person, lawyer and journalist David Allen Green, is not.
“Small-scale” blogs are now, we are told, to be protected, but how does one define this? On what scale do we measure “small”?
Confusing? Yes. Because the whole thing is confused. The entire proposal is flawed, which is why Index had no wish to take part in this week’s consultation: we believe the whole situation to be irretrievable. The principal Index has consistently held — that only non-statute based regulation can guarantee a free press — has only been reinforced by the current fiasco.
Politicians and campaigners are desperately trying to keep this ill-conceived “press reform” momentum afloat, having seen it dragged out to sea on a self-generated wave of something-must-be-donery. These blogger consultations — the latest attempts to make sense of a nonsensical law — are the actions of a government, and a movement, not waving but drowning.
Padraig Reidy is senior writer at Index on Censorship. @mePadraigReidy
