The Zimbabwean government has issued an arrest warrant for exiled editor Wilf Mbanga. Here he describes the charge against him and the dire state of free expression in Zimbabwe
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Sentence has now been upheld in a devastating blow for free speech. Lauren Davis reports
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UPDATE: Paul Chambers appeal of his twitter conviction has been rejected
The Twitter joke trial is the clearest indication yet that the world is divided into two sorts of people at the moment. The people who “get it”, and the people who don’t.
The people who get it are those who are living in a world that the internet has created. A new world which would have been unimaginable as little as 15 years ago. Few predicted that this place of cat videos and porn would also allow ordinary people to create content, to engage in citizen journalism, to organise peaceful online protests that bring about actual change, or to do any of the other countless, enriching things that it has made possible.
The people who don’t get it are the people in charge. Politicians (for the most part), judges (for the most part), the policemen who came to Paul Chambers’ place of work and arrested him for posting a piece of frustrated, jokey hyperbole on Twitter. These are the people who, more than anyone, need to understand the modern world. And they simply don’t.
From what I understand, much of the Twitter joke trial has involved trying to communicate to judge and prosecution what Twitter actually is. And if they don’t understand it, then how can they be trusted to make proportionate, reasonable or just decisions about it?
This is the kind of case that would make me refuse jury service. It obliterates my confidence in the judicial system. Why should I let people who don’t “get it” have any power over me or anyone else?
We’re trying to evolve here, and the people who don’t get it are slowing us down. If they can’t keep up, they need to get out of the way.
Graham Linehan blogs at whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com, and tweets at @glinner
A Russian editor who was nearly killed in the attack two years ago, has been convicted of slander.
Mikhail Beketov, who is confined to a wheelchair and can barely speak, has been found guilty of insulting the local mayor by the court in Khimki. He has been instructed to compensate damages by paying 500 roubles (100 British pounds).
Beketov had been covering the plans to build the road through Khimki’s protected forest. Although the motorway works have been stopped, another journalist and an ecologist have been assaulted this month.
Oleg Kashin, a correspondent of Russia’s well-known paper Kommersant, has been badly beaten with an iron bar on Saturday. Two days earlier, Khimki opposition activist Konstantin Fetisov had his skull broken after being released from police, where he was questioned about the protest.
Mikhail Mikhailin, editor-in-chief of Kommersant said he is sure the attacks are connected to the articles written about the motorway. It has also been said that they carry the same signature.
Before Beketov endured brain damage and lost his right leg and four fingers in the attack in November 2008, his car was set on fire and his dog was killed. Nobody has been brought to court.