Child protection is a sensitive area of law and a deserved focus of public concern. As there is no clear legal definition of the concept of indecency, and because of the sensitivity of the matter, decisions made by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) can be subjective and inconsistent, and in the wrong context can seriously compromise freedom of expression rights.
Index’s case study on the production of a play covering the Trojan Horse affair
It is nearly 300 years since bookseller Edmund Curll was convicted in 1727 on a charge of obscenity in an English court for his publication of the mildly pornographic Venus in the Cloister or The Nun in Her Smock. Obscenity was thereafter recognised as a crime under common law.
Under the Human Rights Act 1998, police officers must respect people’s right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). However, Article 10 of the convention states that restrictions on people’s free expression rights may be justified on the grounds of preventing disorder or crime, protecting public safety and protecting the rights of others
Counter-terrorism laws seek to address the application of “violence for political ends”. It is the “political ends” element that makes these laws interact so frequently with free expression rights, as the law tries to clamp down on expressions of sympathy with terrorist organisations and ideologies, as well as any resulting violence.
The UK should make it harder for powerful individuals and companies to bring libel actions or use other vexatious legal threats designed to stifle investigative journalism, Index on Censorship said on Friday.
Free speech is in danger of being co-opted by extremists. This has led to all sorts of effects on our societies, from “deplatforming” on social media and in debates, to proposed laws on curbing speech which might cause offence. Here at Index, we want to push back against that.
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We, the undersigned organisations, welcome today’s judgment on meaning in the case of Arron Banks vs Carole Cadwalladr. The judgment clarified the context of the comments that form the basis of this lawsuit, and noted that aspects of the claimant’s...
A judge has issued a preliminary ruling in a libel action against the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and warned that broadcasts and public speeches should not be interpreted as though they were formal written texts. A coalition of free...