Harry's Place is reporting that MCB member Daud Abdullah is to sue Hazel Blears MP after she accused him of supporting terrorism in signing the Istanbul Declaration.
Blears to be sued for libel?
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Padraig Reidy
Padraig Reidy is the editor of Little Atoms and a columnist for Index on Censorship. He has also written for The Observer, The Guardian, and The Irish Times.
The Economist on religious defamation
The Economist has run a strong editorial on the UN Human Rights Council's 'religious defamation resolution', and the idea of ideologies demanding 'protection': [T]here is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you...
Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez
The proposal to drop the US's ban on its citizens travelling to Cuba is to be welcomed, not least for the simple fact that Cubans could do with the money that tourism from the US will bring. This is a welcome step towards normalisation. The Cubans...
Regulation of New Media Bill
Tom Harris MP has a report on the UK government's latest legislation on blogging. The most interesting section of the bill concerns the new regulatory body, BlogOff: 'But by far the most controversial part of the Bill is the section that demands...
Beating censorship with the 'Way of the Blogs'
As part of the Libel Bind series, a collaboration between Index on Censorship, English PEN and the Guardian's Liberty Central, Robert Sharp of English PEN is wondering what the alternative to laws on religious defamation might be. He suggests...
No jokes please, we're Irish
This article was originally posted on Comment is Free This is Brian Cowen. He is the Taoiseach of Ireland. He is a man noted for a certain belligerent political style, and certainly not noted for his sense of humour. Earlier this week, a man called...
Moyles and homophobia – 2
BBC Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt has 'warned' breakfast DJ Chris Moyles about 'homophobia' and 'bullying' on his breakfast show. The BBC reports Parfitt as saying 'I made it absolutely perfectly clear to him and everyone at Radio 1 that we don't...
The joy of privilege
Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott has finally given the lie to the idea that the upper house is full of dusty old men confused by the modern world. Apparently, he's been on wikileaks and Twitter, reading all about Barclays' tax affairs. And he's used his...
Grass-mud horse banned?
The YouTube phenomenon Song of the Grass-Mud Horse (Cao Ni Ma), has been doing the rounds since January. It's a jaunty little children's tune, with some rather, well, crude punning lyrics, taking a swipe at 'harmonisation', the PRC's polite term...
Moyles and homophobia
Interesting article by Zoe Williams in the Guardian today on Ofcom’s censuring of DJ Chris Moyles for negative gay stereotyping of singer Will Young on the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. ‘…banning offensive words here and there is pointless. Trying to...
Libel: today in parliament
I’ve just got back from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee meeting on press standards, privacy and libel in Whitehall. The meeting was split into two sittings: the first with journalists, and the second with members of the Press Complaints...
Harris seeks amendment to Coroners And Justice Bill
Lib Dem MP Evan Harris hopes to lead a debate this evening on an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to have the laws of seditious libel and criminal defamation scrapped. Seditious libel is an archaic law that makes it an...