17 Aug 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Brazil has banned broadcasters from showing programmes that poke fun at the country’s presidential candidates. Ridiculing the candidates could result in a fine or even licence suspension. Brazilian producers and comedians intend to fight the ban, with one comparing it to a Monty Python sketch. It is not the first time that politics and comedy have collided in Latin America. In July, a Nicaraguan comic revealed he was offered money not to ridicule presidential candidate Daniel Ortega in his performances.
17 Aug 2010 | Index Index, minipost
Conrad Black has been given clearance to sue six former colleagues for libel in Canada. The defendants, who include Hollinger International Inc directors and a vice-president, are based in the US. But the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the former press baron could sue them for libel in Ontario because he built his reputation there.
17 Aug 2010 | Uncategorized
Justice Minister Lord McNally seems to have suggested that the government will introduce new legislation on privacy.
In a report in the Daily Telegraph, McNally is quoted as saying:
[Super-injunctions are] “something that has grown up by stealth, rather than by considered desire of Parliament and therefore they will be in the sights when they look at the reform of the law”.
The report continues:
The new legislation would be a “consolidation” and “clarification” of the case law that will “hopefully remove some of the more onerous aspects of the way that case law has grown up”.
It’s always a concern when governments suggest laws that could restrict free expression. However, it is a fact that through the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, the right to privacy does exist in English law, and judges must bear this in mind.
Index has always argued that if laws are to be made concerning free expression, it is better they emerge from proper democratic debate, rather than complex and sometimes contradictory court rulings that leave both the press and the public unsure of their rights and responsibilities.
Hence, we should not entirely shun the idea of privacy legislation, so long as that legislation is based on the presumption of free expression as a principle right.
16 Aug 2010 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Carlos Flores Borja, winner of the Guardian Journalism award at this year’s Index on Censorship Free Expression Awards Ceremony, has been told that he will not be allowed relaunch of Amazonian community radio station Radio La Voz de Bagua, in spite of promises from President Alan García.
Carlos Flores Borja, the manager of Amazonian radio station travelled to Lima last week because he had been given an appointment with transport and communications minister Enrique Cornejo on 11 August to discuss the reopening of the station, which the government closed 14 months ago.
But in the end, Flores was received by deputy minister Jorge Cuba Hidalgo, who told him that the station will remain closed.
