25 Jan 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
Radio journalist Johnny Alberto Salazar has been found guilty of libelling a lawyer, he is the first journalist to be jailed for defamation in the Dominican Republic. Salazar made comments on his radio station about local murders and said that lawyer Pedro Baldera Gomez, who works for the Human Rights Commission of Nagua, had defended a number of thieves in the area. Salazar has been ordered to pay a one million Dominican Peso (approx. 16,705 GBP) fine and spend six months in jail.
24 Jan 12 | Uncategorized
This article was originally published in The Times
Sometimes the most reasonable-looking laws can cause the most damage. Let’s hope members of the Leveson inquiry into media ethics are familiar with this awkward fact. In France, stringent privacy laws have prevented investigation into the dodgy financial dealings of leading public figures. In Hungary, a media law has in a matter of months emasculated a free press, leading to radio stations being closed down and reporters and editors fired. That law includes many items on the wish lists of several witnesses to the inquiry, such as press regulation, licensing and fines.
In the UK journalists pride themselves on the irreverence and bolshiness of their newspapers. Yet despite the outrageous behaviour that led to the phone-hacking scandal, the real problem with Britain’s press is that it is too weak. It finds out far too little. If the job of journalism is to put into the public domain inconvenient truths that the rich and powerful would like to hide, then the performance of Britain’s press is nothing to be proud of. Part of this is economic (investigations are costly); laziness is another factor.
By far the biggest reason, however, is the number of laws that impede proper scrutiny. The most pernicious area is our defamation culture. Index on Censorship, together with its partners, has been leading the campaign to reform England’s libel laws. A defamation Bill has been drafted and should be included in the Queen’s Speech in May, as ministers have promised. Libel reform was, after all, part of the coalition agreement.
London has for years been a rich men’s playground, with oligarchs, oil barons and autocrats using our plaintiff-friendly courts to bully bloggers, newspapers and civil society groups. It was bad enough when the creators of South Park satirised our legal system (with Tom Cruise threatening: “I’m going to sue you — in England!”), but when President Obama signed into law the Speech Act, designed to protect Americans from English libel rulings, we went from farce to tragedy. MP’s rightly described that action as a “national humiliation” for the UK.
Until recently, libel reform appeared on course; broad consensus has been achieved on the main points of a final Bill. Yet some are now calling for delay, for defamation to be thrown into the post-Leveson soup. This would be folly. As he proceeds in his vital task of improving the standards of British journalism, Lord Justice Leveson should make clear that his inquiry will not be used as a device to delay implementation of a law that goes to the heart of democracy and the public’s right to know.
John Kampfner is chief executive of Index on Censorship
17 Jan 12 | Russia
Popular Russian blogger Oleg Kozyrev has been threatened with a defamation lawsuit by Moscow Region Election Committee for filing a complaint on alleged election law violations.
“Clearly this is an example of pressure against bloggers who succeeded on election law violations reporting,” Kozyrev told Index. “This may be regarded as a part of the Central Election Committee policy which is likely to take vengeance on bloggers by initiating show trials”, he concluded.
Two months ago Kozyrev filed a complaint to the Central Election Committee in the time leading up to Russia’s parliamentary elections on 4 December. He complained that the posters used by Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party were far too similar to those used by the committee to remind citizens to vote.
The blogger said that it was likely that the posters could confuse voters by leading them to believe that the state supported one party — United Russia. According to Kozyrev, this could compromise the impartiality of the election commission, and place political parties on different footing, which is against the law. Kozyrev used Russian election statutes to support his allegations, and asked that the Central Election Committee take down the confusing posters, and investigate whether or not United Russia also violated the law with their campaign materials.
Moscow mayor and secretary of the local chapter of United Russia, Sergey Sobyanin, slammed Kozyrev’s complaint, claiming that the resemblance between the posters did not violate the law. Sobyanin told Itogi magazine two weeks before the election that there was no use in “stretching the truth” and that when talking about United Russia in Moscow, they “imply that the party and city superiors are in fact, the same unit.”
After the elections, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) filed a report reiterating the concerns of activists, stating that the parliamentary elections were “marked by the convergence of the State and the governing party.”
In late December Oleg Kozyrev received two replies to his concerns—one from Moscow Election Committee, the other from Moscow Region Committee. Both committees refuted his claims, and said that the United Russia posters did not violate the law. Moscow Region Committee head Irek Vildanov added that Kozyrev’s complaints had “no proper proof, do not meet reality and are slanderous, undermining the Committee’s reputation.” The blogger’s complaint was then forwarded to the local prosecution office, and the Ministry of Interior department as well as Investigative committee are both seeking an investigation of Kozyrev for slander.
Kozyrev remains optimistic, as he thinks that Vildanov’s attempt to prosecute him will not be pursued, as prosecution of citizens for their complaints is against the law in Russia. The State Duma also amended the Criminal Code to decriminalise defamation. Still, he is concerned, as bloggers who actively monitored the recent parliamentary elections have been threatened with prosecution. As Russian general prosecutor Yuri Chaika said in January, the administrative punishment for slander “is still quite sensible financially”. On his blog, Kozyrev wrote that such threats are merely “the authorities’ attempt not only to punish bloggers for their successful coverage of election fraud, but also to smooth out the information field on the eve of presidential elections.”
09 Jan 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
The author of a discredited report linking autism to the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine has filed a defamation suit against the British Medical Journal. Andrew Wakefield launched his libel case against three defendants in the United States last week. The gastroenterologist is suing investigative journalist Brian Deer for a BMJ article which analysed his data and accused him of fraud; BMJ editor Fiona Godlee who supported the accusation in an editorial, and the BMJ as a whole. Wakefield claims that the journal acted with malice and suggests a conflict of interest because the BMJ receives money from vaccine makers GlaxoSmithKline and Merck.
