English libel law turns US protection for free speech on its head. Floyd Abrams considers how the UK became an international libel tribunal English defamation law is under fire. Last July, the United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed...
CATEGORY: News and features
Iran: elections free up the media
Fiery television debates, and the tactics of Ahmadinejad’s own supporters, have emboldened Iran’s newspapers, says Meir Javedanfar The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not make life easier for Iran's press. During his term of office, more than...
Weighing up the evidence
The House of Lords ruling on secret evidence raises the need for the admission of intercept intelligence in terror trials, says Roger Smith Nine-nil. A judicial decision of the House of Lords does not get more decisive than that. It was by this...
Shoot the messenger
Attacks on human rights representatives at the UN Human Rights Council are part of a campaign to undermine freedom of expression, says Roy W Brown Efforts of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing the 57 Islamic states, to...
Tiananmen 20: Qian Gang
The 4 June massacre signalled an end to 1980s press reform in China The Communist Party's crackdown on democracy demonstrators in Beijing 20 years ago brought hopes for political reform in China to an abrupt and violent end. For journalists, it...
Censorship is the wrong way to combat BNP
The illiberal obsession with silencing Nick Griffin and the British National Party in the run up to elections has won the party undeserved publicity, says Claire Fox “If you are not supporting Labour then … please go out and vote for one of the...
Tiananmen 20: Liu Hongbin
Poet Liu Hongbin fled China after taking part in the Tiananmen Square protests. Here, he describes his experience of returning to China as a persona non grata in 1997 In the dead of winter 1997, I landed back in Beijing. As I was passing through...
Police shelve review on Kingsnorth protest
The failure to publish the long awaited report on policing tactics last summer is leading to accusations of a cover-up. Chris Ames reports The Home Office and Kent Police have buried a report on the policing of last summer’s climate camp at...
The tyranny of the take-down notice
The closure of Nadine Dorries's blog simply on suspicion of defamation emphasises the need for reform of libel legislation says Padraig Reidy It's probably not the best time to be seen defending an MP, but here goes. Conservative MP Nadine Dorries...
Australia’s impotent censors
The Australian government's ignorance about the Internet is impeding attempts to ban online content, says John Ozimek Over the last six months, I have been keeping a close watch on events “down under”. The Australian government has proposed --- to...