Bartholomew's Notes

A couple of interesting free speech cases concerning the Guardian newspaper. Hold the Front Page noted a couple of days ago:

Amid the UN Committee on Human Rights’ recent criticism of our claimant-friendly libel laws, it is reassuring to see judges taking a robust line against dubious claims…Tesco brought libel and malicious falsehood claims against The Guardian and its editor over reports about alleged (but strenuously denied) corporation tax avoidance.

The Guardian accepted inaccuracies in its original report, although its apology seems a bit tongue-in-cheek:

‘The original Guardian articles did not correctly explain the effect of Tesco’s tax schemes. It was wrong to state that they were designed to avoid corporation tax. It would have been correct to refer to avoiding SDLT [Stamp Duty Land Tax].

‘As a result, the figure of “up to £1bn” – calculated as the amount which could have been saved on the disposal of £5bn of property – is wrong. The loss to the exchequer is likely to be nearer the region of £90m-£100m,’ the paper said.

Despite making an “Offer of Amends” regarding the libel claim, Tesco pressed on with the “malicious falsehood” claim. Mr Justice Eady (who has a mixed record on free-speech friendly judgements), though, was not impressed; as Hold the Front Page reports, he

…imposed a ‘stay’ on the malicious falsehood claim as it had no “substantive or legitimate purpose”.

He said the court must focus on the “real issues between the parties…There is no right to plead a cause of action just because it exists.

“The court is there to do justice…Litigation is no longer intended to be regarded as a game for lawyers; it is a means provided by the state of achieving justice for the parties.”

It looks as though those planning to bring dubious suits in the future may receive short shrift, both as regards libel actions and as regards other claims made strategically either in lieu of or alongside libel accusations.

And today, the Guardian reports that another libel case against it has been dropped:

Matthias Rath, the vitamin campaigner accused of endangering thousands of lives in South Africa by promoting his pills while denouncing conventional medicines as toxic and dangerous, has dropped a year-long libel action against the Guardian and been ordered to pay costs.

Rath sued over three Guardian articles that condemned his promotional activities among Aids sufferers in South African townships.

Rath sought to have part of one of the articles excluded from the court’s consideration; he apparently backed down when the court refused to accept this. Costs awarded to the Guardian amount to £220,000, and I’ll be interested to see whether Rath pays up or pleads bankruptcy; it seems to me grotesque an innocent defendant can end up out-of-pocket thanks to a plaintiff being unable to make good all the needless expense he or she has caused.

Meanwhile, Simon Singh is still facing a libel threat aimed at him personally for pieces published in the Guardian concerning the British Chiropractic Association.

And Tesco is still, so far as I know, pursuing aggressive libel suits against journalists in Thailand.

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Personality cult in Russia? Surely not…

Muslim artist Robert Gabitov from St. Petersburg painted a portrait-“icon” of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev…The president has a falcon on his shoulder and a tree of life is growing behind him. The author thinks these symbols stress “holiness of the Russian President.”

(The Ukrainians aren’t adverse to the same kind of thing)

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Media Matters logs some particularly clownish ramblings from Walid Shoebat, whose never-ending gravy-train has now brought him to The G. Gordon Liddy Show:

 [SHOEBAT:] “No one is called Hussein unless he is Muslim. So it is very clear that Barack Hussein Obama is definitely a Muslim…He is not called to be killed by the Muslims. Why do they support him? I haven’t heard a really serious testimony of his Christian conversion. A Muslim who converts to Christianity, the first thing he does is denounces Islam. Has Barack Hussein Obama denounced Islam as a false religion?…If he had converted to Christianity, he would change his name Hussein to something else. He would change his name Barack to something else.

The best discussion I have seen of why Obama “is not called to be killed by the Muslims” can be seen here.

Also:

[SHOEBAT:] Well, when I went to a government school — you know, it wasn’t a madrassa. He was not in a madrassa school, but it was a government school. And in those schools, from fifth grade, we learned what is called Islamic eschatology, that the day of judgment will not come to pass until the tribes of Islam destroy the tribes of Israel, the Jewish people.

LIDDY: Well, would he have achieved — been exposed to those things at the age of 10, in a government school over there in Indonesia?

SHOEBAT: Yes. It would be the same thing, it would be exactly the same kind of an education system.

This has simply been pulled out of Shoebat’s backside – he has no knowledge or experience of primary education in late 1960s Indonesia. And the rest of Shoebat’s discourse is simply talking-points culled from Jermone Corsi: Obama’s supposed links to Raila Odinga, the evils of “liberation theology” and so on. There is no sign here of someone with any kind of special insight or knowledge, and every sign of a media-savvy chancer enjoying the status of “expert” simply because he is willing to pander to the prejudices of the ignorant (his preposterous forays into Biblical scholarship are of the same kind).

Shoebat also gives us a bit of extra personal background I hadn’t seen before:

And my mother’s side, her grandfather was friends with Winston Churchill…

Hating Muslims is now the Shoebat family business: I’ve blogged before on Walid’s son Theodore Shoebat, who makes anti-Muslim (and anti-science) hate videos. I noticed recently that Shoebat Junior is also a contributor to Mosquewatch, where his colleagues include none other than the absurd Pastor J. Grant Swank.

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From Haaretz:

Russian-born businessman Arcadi Gaydamak is expected to give up on his plans to run for mayor of Jerusalem after former Shas chairman Aryeh Deri announced on Tuesday he is running for the same post.

Even though Gaydamak has not made a final decision, his advisers say Deri’s candidacy would seriously harm Gaydamak’s chances in both the ultra-Orthodox and non-religious communities.

Gaydamak – whom I blogged here, and who has some controversial links with Angola – has recently been pressing a lot of religious flesh in his quest to become mayor; a strange report in Haaretz from a few days ago noted that:

Arcadi Gaydamak, the billionaire candidate for mayor of Jerusalem, met on Monday with the Vatican’s representative in Israel…The meeting was announced on the Web site “Axis Globe,” which American officials have been known to use in order to plant anti-Russian stories. The fact that the meeting took place, and that word of the meeting was leaked to “Axis Globe,” is intriguing. Under the headline, “The Vatican Made Its Choice,” it was noted that Vatican representatives have not met with any other mayoral candidates. In addition, Gaydamak held a meeting with the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theofilos III, who wished him victory in the upcoming election.

“Axis Globe” is slightly mysterious; it uses material from “journalists, ex-diplomats, and former officers of the special services of a number of Asian and East European countries”, some of whom use pen names. The orginal “Axis Globe” report is here, and as well as noting his links to Christian leaders, it adds that

[Orthodox Jewish] leaders already expressed their empathy for Gaydamak during the last year. The most prominent among them were the Rabbi and Member of Parliament (Knesset), Avraham Ravitz, another Rabbi and an even more powerful MP, Yakov Litzman, and one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the Orthodox Judaism, Rabbi Yosef Elyashiv.

…About 225 thousand of Jerusalem citizens practice Sunni Islam, and are concentrated in the Eastern part of the city. As early as in summer – autumn of 2007, Gaydamak established contact with the influential Muslim Sheikhs. He also began to study the problems of the Muslim population and its needs.

Traditionally, the vast majority East Jerusalem Palestinians have declined to participate in Israeli elections; however, a second report adds the claim that:

…the situation that persisted for more than forty years has now started changing rapidly. As the elections come closer, the representatives of the Arab city establishment, of the Palestinian Authority, and even of Jordan royal dynasty that still has a significant influence in Jerusalem, all started direct contacts with one of the candidates for the mayor…With consent of the both sides, the leaders of hundred of most influential families in East Jerusalem are going to meet with Gaydamak next week…One project, for instance, deals with engaging of massive tourism from Muslim States to Jerusalem. Realization of these projects offers the local Arabs a significant financial benefit, as well as a higher status in the eyes of their coreligionists all over the world.

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A piece of theatre from Burundi; the Kampala Monitor reports:

Last week, Pastor Robert Kayanja was on a state invitation to preach the gospel and join the President of Burundi, Jean Pierre Nkuruziza [sic], in celebrating three years in power…During the crusade, Pastor Kayanja took time off to join the President and his countrymen in a communal building exercise, which highlighted the unity level of Burundians.

It was a big crusade, attended by thousands, and the first lady opened the ceremony with a passionate prayer…When he came on stage, [the President] sang and danced, jumping around to his favourite songs like Our God is an awesome God as the whole nation followed.

It was amazing to see God performing miracles in people’s lives. Some received their sight back and others walked as Pastor Kayanja prayed for them. When it was time for his departure, the President refused to leave the stadium and just sat back to witness God’s hand in the land.

The Sunday Vision has a slightly different emphasis:

THREE years ago, when Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, took over leadership on August 28, 2005, uncertainty prevailed over how long he would last. This was because of the track record of the toppling and assassination of earlier presidents, including Melchoir Ndadaye and Cyprien Ntaryamira.

This explains why each year, the month of August is set aside for public prayers and thanksgiving for peace in Africa’s smallest country, which has Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican and Orthodox believers.

…President Nkurunziza, an ex-rebel, said it was by divine appointment that he was joining the entire country to celebrate three years of relative peace.

“When given stewardship, there is need to seek God’s assistance for direction since all gifts come from him,” he said.

There seems to be a blurring of thanks for three years of peace and thanks for three years of Nkurunziza’s “divine appointment”. Some problems with political freedom in Burundi are highlighted by Human Rights Watch here.

The Vision notes the presence of some American guests:

Others were pastors Marty Martinez from the Family Worship Centre, Louisiana, US, Dr. Brigitte Kitenge of the African Global Mission, Tennessee, US, and Dr. Steve Ball and Nathan Westfield from Metro Tabernacle Church Chattanooga, Tennessee, US.

The “Family Worship Center”, in Baton Rouge, is better-known as Jimmy Swaggart’s base; Kitenge is a genocide survivor; and Ball is a prosperity gospel evangelist whom I have noted in the past, and who has long-standing links with Kayanja (whom I profiled here).

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From Interfax:

The Moscow Prosecutor’s Office has ruled that the 2×2 cartoon channel airs extremist cartoons.

“On the basis of the federal law on countering extremism a district prosecutor’s office has forwarded a paper to the Basmanny Court in Moscow asking to recognize a South Park episode as extremist,” a spokesman of the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office told Interfax on Monday.

The ruling follows complaints from The Russian Union of Evangelical Christians, as reported by Novosti:

The group’s leader, Konstantin Bendas, urged the prosecutors to ban the popular animated comedy series on the grounds that it contains “covert and overt propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia as norms of sexual life.”

He added that some 20 experts in law and psychology had been involved in studying the issue.

“We have received some 15 reports by experts and they all agree that broadcasting the cartoon has a negative impact on viewers, especially on children and teenagers,” he said.

“Extremism” is often used in Russia to ban materials. Kommersant reported in December:

The latest, third, list of banned extremist publications (periodicals, book and films) was issued on Saturday by the Federal Registration Service (Rosregistratsia). With 61 entries, the new list is twice as large as the previous one. The first version of the list was compiled in July of this year and contained 14 titles. All of the publications are of a fascist, ultranationalist or ultrareligious nature.

…Although the list contains Russian nationalist publications, such as the newspaper Divizia (Military Division) in Russkoe Prikamye and Za Rus (For Russia) in Novorossiisk, 13 publications are by the same author: Said Nursi. “Said Nursi preached the most tolerant form of Islam,”said Nafigula Ashirov, cochairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia. A scholarly council from the Al-Azkhar University in Cairo, the Turkish Ministry of Muslim Affairs and the European Council for Fatwa Research have also come to the author’s defense…Possession or distribution of extremist material is punishable by up to five years in prison in Russia.

The International Federation for Human Rights adds:

In addition to the anti-terrorist legislation, there is now a law to fight extremism aimed at cracking down on acts that incite racial, religious and political hatred , as well as membership in an organization qualified as extremist. The nebulous definitions given for extremism and terrorism, have made it possible for intolerable excesses and abuses in the eyes of civil society, namely the creation of a climate of intimidation that targets individuals, NGOs, groups, societies, and associations for example the Sakharov Centre case. The same lack of clarity has made it possible for certain cases, namely those involving Muslims, to be tried for extremism rather than anti-terrorism, making them easier to bring to trial. Moreover, the list of outlawed publications is getting longer everyday and now includes, without explanation or clarification, any works titled “The Founding Principles of Islam”. The State clearly uses anti-extremism legislation as a mechanism for social and political control that is detrimental to freedom of expression and freedom of belief.

The “Sakharov Centre” case involves a art display called Forbidden Art-2006, which was regarded by Orthodox Christians as blasphemous; the director was charged with “inciting religious hatred” (a strategy also currently being used in the UK).

Forum 18 notes another case of an Islamic book being banned:

…Under the Extremism Law, anyone carrying out mass distribution, preparation or storage with the aim of mass distribution of the texts risks a four-year prison term. Handed a list of the titles and asked if any support terrorism, leading Islam specialist Aleksei Malashenko told Forum 18: “If you say this, then every book, including the Bible, may be called pro-terrorist. The problem is not the books, but one of commentary – how they are used.” Forum 18 has read one of the banned publications, Muhammad Ali al-Hashimi’s “The Personality of a Muslim”. The book’s sole emphasis is on kindness and generosity, including towards non-Muslims – but a criminal case has now been opened against the head of Moscow Islamic University’s publishing department for distributing it.

As for the Nursi book, Forum 18 tells us that

The ban relies solely upon analysis of the work by psychologists and linguists of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Russia’s Ombudsman for Human Rights, Vladimir Lukin, and a wide range of Russia’s Muslim leaders and scholars has condemned the ban.

I’ve noted before that Russian psychologists have been co-opted by nationalist agendas.

Bendas’ opposition to South Park is of a part with his distaste for Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“We are convinced that the time has come to reexamine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are against those human rights that lead to the corruption of society and contradict moral bases,” said Konstantin Bendas, business manager of the Russian Union of Christian Evangelicals.

However, it should be remembered that evangelical Christianity is viewed generally with hosility by the Russian Orthodox Church, which now enjoys close links with the state; such denunciations are doubtless designed to allay concerns about patriotism.

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OneNewsNow puffs an apocalyptic paperback:

In his latest book What in the World is Going On?, Dr. David Jeremiah examines and explains current global trends through the lens of scripture. He says natural disasters, famine, the energy crisis, terrorism, and other events should cause Christians to live expectantly.

“When you add to that the fact that Israel now is celebrating its 60th anniversary as a nation, and that Israel has to be in its own land for the end-time events to take place, I’ve never lived in such a time,” the pastor exclaims. “And while it is…challenging it [also] is really exciting — because you read the Bible in one hand and you read the newspaper in the other, and you see the prophecies of the Bible are absolutely correct.”

The idea that “the newspaper” is a record of unfolding prophecy has been around for a long time. Here’s a certain John Cumming, writing in The End back in 1855 (p.19):

It seems to me that [the “dispensation’s”] end is near…in a comparison of what the New Testament predicts as the marks of the end, with what the newspaper registers as the facts of the day, there is a coincidence so startling, so striking, the one so dovetailing and fitting in with the other, that I cannot help taking up a newspaper in this very year, and during the last two or three years, with a sort of sense of sacredness with which I never read the newspaper before….I think the newspaper of the nineteenth century is man unconsciously recording, “It is done.” God writes the prophecy; the journalist steps in, and without thinking of the prophecy testifies its complete and magnificent fulfilment. (1)

More than a hundred years before that, Jonathan Edwards would scour Boston newspapers looking for signs of the end times. As George Marsden notes in his biography of Edwards (pp. 415-416):

…Edwards was still tracking the decline of the papacy in his notebook “An Account of Events Probably Fulfilling the Sixth Vial,” which had to do with the drying up of the Rivers of Babylon (i.e. Rome). In it he was meticulously recording items from newspapers that dealt with any adverse financial news about the pope and his minions.

Then as now, the belief was that international turbulence proved that the end was nigh; and while “the Rivers of Babylon” might dry up, books claiming to link current events to prophecy have proved to be a continual cash cow. Particularly shamelessly, sometimes you can find a “revised edition” of the same apocalyptic paperback: revised because the original predictions have shown themselves to be bogus.

Jeremiah is the pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, which was previously pastored by none other than Tim LaHaye; the book is endorsed by LaHaye and by Joel C. Rosenberg, both of whom have churned out end-of-the-world bestsellers. The content is the same old stuff we’ve heard from Hal Lindsey over the past forty years:

The future manifestation of the Roman Empire that Daniel prophesied twenty-five hundred years ago will take the form of a coalition or confederation of ten world leaders and will encompass the same territory as the historic Roman Empire. And today we can see that coalition taking shape right before our eyes!…The Rapture will give irrefutable confirmation of end time events seven years before they come to pass for those who are left behind…There are also other factors that make the ascendance of a global leader more plausible than ever before.

And:

Clearly America did not become the land of the free and the home of the brave by blind fate or a happy set of coincidences. A benevolent God was hovering over this nation from her very conception so that today, although America has only 5 percent of the world’s population, she has more than 50 percent of the modern luxuries that characterize civilization…

Not much chance of a Jeremiad from Jeremiah, then. The author thinks there is some spiritual significance in the fact that America is not mentioned in Bible prophecy; clearly it can’t simply be because Biblical authors new nothing about the existence of the Western hemisphere.

Jeremiah’s website includes an unfortunate advert:

Well, Jeremiah, if you want to call your books “unbelievable”, I’m not going to argue…

****

(1) This book is available for free on Google Books. It was brought to my attention by Joseph Canfield’s The Incredible Scofield and his Book.

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Mark Elf at Jews sans Frontieres has an interesting follow-up piece on the Jenna Delich vs Harry’s Place story. Delich, as I blogged here, is a lecturer who, as a member of a University and College Union activist forum in the UK, posted a link to an article hosted on David Duke’s website concerning Israel. This was brought to the attention of “liberal hawk” blog Harry’s Place, which ran posts denouncing her as an anti-Semite (including a photograph). The article she linked to was not by David Duke, and while it avoids obviously anti-Jewish rhetoric, its author does suggest that “conspiracy theories” about control of the media may be correct. Delich explained that she had not known who David Duke was, and admitted to making a mistake. She also complained to Harry’s Place‘s ISP, and the blog was taken down for a while. This in turn led to various blogs offering “solidarity” with Harry’s Place on free speech grounds, including blogs usually at odds with the site politically.

Mark believes the calls for “solidarity” were misguided:

Jenna Delich is the victim of a witch hunt intended to intimidate academics from speaking out in support of Palestinian human rights and liberation.

We condemn the misguided “solidarity” of confused leftists with the perpetrators of this witch hunt on the bogus justification of protecting “free speech”. We condemn Harry’s Place and its sock puppets for the campaign of deliberate omissions and misrepresentations intended to defame Delich.

We support Delich because she deserves our support and yours. Delich made mistakes, but nothing she said or did remotely justifies what is being done to her.

My view was that Delich would have been wiser to ignore it all and accept the unhappy consequences of giving her opponents such a gift, but that she may indeed have had a case over certain statements on the HP site. However, I find the idea of choosing to go after a webhost rather than an author to be inherently undesirable on free speech grounds, and to me it suggests that the threat of following through a libel action is probably hollow. And as a blogger, I’m also against it for reasons of self-preservation. It was a poor strategy in any case, as HP managed to find a new webhost that was more willing to make a stand.

However, Mark points out that HP has since made some revisions:

[HP author David] Toube claims that the post was not defamatory. Then what happened to the headline UCU and the David Duke fan? Why was that headline removed from HP only to appear on sock puppet blogs around the web. It now appears on HP as the “David Duke link”. Jenna Delich’s photo has been removed from the original post, together with the accompanying text “links to far-right websites associated with the Ku Klux Klan.”

These rather important revisions, by which HP surely admits that it has not been “whiter than white”, have not been brought to the attention of readers.

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From (as ever) Interfax:

A silver lamp before royal doors in the cathedral of the Iveron Monastery in Mount Athos started swinging back and forth early in August not long before Georgian troops attacked Tskhinvali.

Athos monks claim that the icon-lamp has started swinging by itself during many centuries on the eve of great disasters and trials, the Zhizn daily writes.

The lamp was swinging before the six-day war in Israel, an earthquake in Armenia, and before American troops invaded Iraq it was swinging so much that oil almost splashed out, the paper says…

The supposed “swinging lamp” of Iveron has been remarked on before; according to this site

on Athos, when during Passion Week a lamp in the monastery of Iveron often swings by itself, it has been noticed that the swinging is reduced in size whenever the monks chant too loud.

The lamp is associated with an icon, the Panagia Portaitissa or Theotokos Iverskaya, which is believed to have miraculous properties (weeping myrrh, moving around). A woman whose cousin is a monk at the monastery wrote on a discussion forum that

There have been many recorded miracles associated with this icon and the monks and visitors have seen the oil lamp that hangs in front of it swaying just before certain events. The whole matter has been scientifically examined and there is no explanation for why this happens i.e. geographic faults under the monastery or whatever, or abnormalities in the building itself. Only the oil lamp in front of the icon sways, all the other hanging oil lamps in the church are still, so it is something of a mystery.

Meanwhile, a pro-Russian cleric in South Ossetia claims that the Virgin Mary showed up in person to rally morale against the Georgians:

Many residents of Tskhinvali saw the Holy Virgin during the most violent battles, Bishop Georgy (Pukhate), head of the Alania Diocese acting in the territory of South Ossetia and not recognized in the Orthodox world.

“She was seen in long garments. She mournfully passed along the streets. She was seen in the evening and at night in places of most violent and cruel battles. Militiamen realized, the Holy Virgin didn’t leave the city to save it from total destruction. She came to help us,” Bishop Georgy said in his interview published on Tuesday by electronic paper Utro.ru

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A statuette of Jesus with an erection attached has resulted in an art gallery facing a private prosecution for allegedly causing “harassment, alarm and distress to the public”. Various reports assembled by me at The Sun – Tabloid Lies.

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