Bartholomew's Notes

Certain Muslim groups in Canada appear to be doing everything they can to ensure that their enemies enjoy publicity and sympathy, by going after them on inquisitorial “hate speech” charges brought through the Human Rights Commission. The Economist reports:

The criminal code has hate-propaganda provisions, but using these requires convincing a prosecutor. The bar is much lower for Human Rights Commissions and their tribunals. These were set up to deal with discrimination on grounds such as race or sex in jobs, housing or services. Even the man who inspired them, Alan Borovoy, a civil-liberties lawyer, is dismayed at their misuse to limit free speech. The tribunals can only levy small fines and give an order to desist. But the proceedings involve steep costs for defendants, whereas plaintiffs pay nothing if the commission decides there are grounds to proceed.

The Economist notes the case of Mark Steyn, the rightwing US columnist who recently had a typically alarmist “Muslims want to take over the world” piece published in a Canadian magazine, leading to a complaint from the Canadian Islamic Congress. There have been a number of other cases resulting in finings, and even criticising the process can get you into trouble: there was recently a court decision confirming that the description by Paul Fromm (a member of the Canadian far right) of an HRC lawyer as an “enemy of free speech” and as a waste of tax money amounted to defamation.

Also now making waves is the case of Ezra Levant, a right-libertarian called to account by the HRC for reprinting the Danish Muhammad cartoons in his now-defunct Western Standard magazine. Levant’s appearance at the HRC was videoed, and is now available at YouTube, in a number of segments. Here’s the first:

Levant is known for his strong support of some kinds of free speech, as was seen in December:

A protest planned for Friday afternoon in Calgary to condemn alleged violent and racist postings has been cancelled after an apology from the Western Standard magazine.

The comments appeared on the Shotgun Blog of the Western Standard website.

The entry, dated Dec. 5 and written by a user calling himself ‘Templar,’ said, “there is no such thing as innocent Muslims.”

Templar went on to write, “They must all be killed. All of them.”

…Levant, who no longer owns the website or the Western Standard name, said he doesn’t personally agree with the comments, but argued they should be protected as free speech.

However, according to conservative Canadian website Dust My Broom, he takes a rather different tack when it comes to other forms of expression; in particular, public criticism from former employees:

One of the articles of interest in Fast Forward Weekly was titled Lowering the Standard – Ezra Levant’s controversial right-wing mag is gone. Will anyone miss it? (October 25th, 2007). Read it then come back.

A week later a letter was written to Fast Forward Weekly by a former employee… Apparently Ezra contacted the rag to get an apology and retraction for the article and the published letter, didn’t get it and is now suing Fast Forward Weekly for the Lowering the standard article and letter writer [Merle] Terlesky for a combined total of $100,000 for libel.

Dust My Broom had republished the letter, but then removed it, fearing liability. I’ve read it via Google cache; it contains general criticisms about how Levant ran the magazine which look to me to be within the reasonable cut-and-thrust of fair comment. Of course, this response is not surprising: Saudi businessmen, Russian oligarchs, and right-libertarians are united in their fondness for using aggressive libel threats to squash critical scrutiny. I can think of a couple of right-libertarian examples from the UK; the name Paul Staines comes to mind.

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One of the websites I monitor on a regular basis so that others don’t have to is that of Irene Lancaster, an average UK academic (now based in Haifa) who managed to launch a successful media career propounding the view that critics of Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism and a wish to collude in a Muslim takeover of the UK. Despite the bizarre extremity of her rhetoric (she once accused the Bishop of Chester and his staff of “Jew-hating for kicks” and, inevitably, of being “like Hitler”), Lancaster is described by the intellectual Roman Catholic magazine The Tablet as “one of the United Kingdom’s leading Jewish academics”, and she was recently ranked by the London Times as number 28 in the “Most Influential Religious Blogs” category. Given Lancaster’s nasty and rambling manner of discourse as revealed on her blog and the comments she scatters around various websites (her formal academic work, on medieval Jewish texts, looks competent enough, although it is hardly broad or extensive enough to make her worthy of the Tablet plaudit), one can only assume that some kind of philo-Semitic stereotyping is at work in which Jews are inherently associated with intellectual and analytical ability, and that therefore to recognise her prowess must reflect well on one’s own wisdom.

I blogged on Lancaster back in August, but I’ve tried to avoid raising the subject again, despite coming across jaw-droppingly stupid utterances on an almost daily basis, and despite having had a couple of encounters with her in the comments section of Ruth Gledhill’s blog. However, sometimes I have to indulge myself, and a couple of days ago I noted her support for “Lionheart”, an extreme Muslim-hater who endorses the BNP (although I’m sure Lancaster wasn’t aware of the BNP link).

I also like to keep a note of the various people she attacks so bitterly. The latest targets of her wrath are Paul Vallely, who contributes to the Church Times, and his wife:

One of the [Church Times]‘s most prominent contributors is also Associate Editor of the Independent, as well as being the husband of the BBC’s head of radio religious broadcasting. I had glimpsed this personage once on a visit to the BBC studios in Manchester, and would not like to have crossed her on a dark night – no, not at all!!

Lancaster, from my own experience, has three rhetorical strategies for dealing with opponents: there are accusations of anti-Semitism, and arguments from authority – her links to public figures like George Carey and Andrew White, her academic credentials, and her position as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (which isn’t particularly difficult for an academic with the right connections to get, by the way). She might also suggest that as middle-aged Jewish woman she is being bullied, and I suspect that this is why she feels the need to make absurd insinuations that her opponents might be prone to physical violence.

Paul Vallely’s wife is the third person she’s tried this with. Previously she has said she might take up an invitation to meet Stephen Sizer, a pro-Palestinian vicar, but would be “sure to take a body-guard”. On another occasion it was Guardian columnist Giles Fraser, of whom she stated “he turned up at my house on one occasion without prior consultation… I can’t help feeling that one of these days he may need a lawyer himself.” Strangely, she had told the story before, but rather differently: she originally claimed that Fraser had been brought to her house by a mutual acquaintance to “apologise” to her for something (This is also rather unlikely to be the full story. See my previous blog entry for further details).

Meanwhile, Lancaster has also recently complained about a Muslim academic getting a peerage:

It was just one of those inane BBC programmes in which three people sit around talking, dismissing Muslim terror and extremism as nothing to do with religion per se, but only with culture. Whitewashing (excuse my French) and appeasement, naturally…And, no wonder York’s Muslim professor of politics is a member of the House of Lords.

Although Lancaster does not deign to tell us, this is Haleh Afshar. Given that Lancaster’s moment of fame as a media pundit seems to be passing, might this – along with catty comments about the BBC’s head of radio religious broadcasting – be a bad case of sour grapes?

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Staying with Private Eye, the latest issue also has a report on a keynote talk presented recently at a conference of London childcare workers by psychoanalyst Valerie Sinason, on the subject of “ritual abuse and Dissociative Identity Disorder”. The Eye observes:

The prospect of Sinason converting London’s childcare workers to a belief in the existence of ritual abuse and a dubious mental disorder is alarming – especially as the initial Satanic panic in the early 1990s was spread largely through conferences for childcare workers. (1)

The Eye is always good at keeping an eye on this kind of thing. Back in September 2006 it revealed that Sinason had tried to become involved in the investigation of the “Adam” killing, a few months before that it noted the continued existence of a

network of believers across the UK among professionals and assorted therapists who work with children and adult “survivors” who reinforce each other’s convictions that what they now term “ritual abuse” exists, through literature, websites, conferences and training courses.

One exponent, Sarah Nelson, who claims that “1,650 people in Edinburgh had been involved in satanic ritual abuse” had a booklet on child sex abuse published by the Scottish Executive.

I blogged the final unravelling of the old “Satanic abuse” cases in the USA and the UK here.

(1) “The devil’s in the detail”, Private Eye 1201: 29 (11-24 January 2008)

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Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov isn’t the only person to have managed temporarily to shut down websites in the UK by issuing a libels threat against an internet service provider; in 2006 a campaign group named GM Watch lost its service for a week after challenging the methodology of a study which purported to show that more people preferred genetically modified corn over the ordinary variety. The libel threat, and moves against other sites, came from one of the researchers, Shane Morris, whose actions led to condemnations by British and Irish politicians. Private Eye magazine now has an update (helpfully – and gleefully – reposted by GM Watch), which includes a hilarious quote from Morris:

“no website was attempted to be shut down, as any changes made to anti-GM websites were their decision based on complaints regarding specific wording claims that were requested to be changed.”

So there. Morris only “requested” to have critical material removed, on pain of a libel action, and any compliance was the merely “decision” of websites or service providers that wanted to avoid be bankrupted under the UK’s notoriously skewed and oppressive libel laws. No threat to free speech there, then.

But what does this have to do with religion? Not a lot, so here’s a picture of the Aztec corn god Centeotl to make up for it:

Whether he would approve tinkering with the DNA of corn is not known.

Incidentally, nothing so far seems to have happened following the Policy Exchange’s promise last month to pursue a libel action against the BBC “relentlessly, to trial or capitulation” for daring to broadcast evidence that undermined the credibility of a PE report on Islamic extremism in the UK

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“should be knighted by the Queen and all London should give him a parade”

I didn’t actually want to write anything about “Lionheart”, the British Nationalist Party-supporting blogger who claims to be under threat of arrest in the UK for anti-Muslim tirades made on his sewer-like blog. However, as someone with a particular interest in free speech issues, I didn’t want to be accused of ignoring a “hard” case, and so I made some observations here and here (more accurately, I didn’t want to accuse myself – I doubt anyone else cares what I think one way or the other).

However, I now find myself drawn to a third posting on this unwelcome subject, as various conservative figures continue to make hysterical claims about the UK and offer not just support for “Lionheart’s” free speech, but warm endorsements of his project. We’ve seen Atlas Shrugs and Irene Lancaster already; today is the turn of Phyllis Chesler:

Islamist rule over the UK may, alarmingly, be on its way. Today, the British police want to question and/or arrest the British blogger known as Lionheaert. His crime? Turning his life around as a young school dropout and petty drug dealer and emerging as a believing Christian who opposes the drug plague in his hometown of Luton and who views the Pakistani Islamist and al-Qaeda control of the drug trade in Luton as both criminally and politically dangerous. For this, Lionheart has been charged with “stirring up racial hatred”—which is a crime in the UK.

In fact, we don’t know why exactly he has been accused of “stirring up racial hatred”, but we can be sure it wasn’t simply for complaining about “Pakistani Islamists”. Sadly No has gathered some particularly inflammatory and sanguinary quotes from the blog that may be the real cause, although we can’t be sure. Chesler herself avoids any quotations from the blog; perhaps through laziness, perhaps because they are rather off-putting. It should also be noted that he hasn’t been “charged” – as EU Referendum observes, the arrest is probably an “‘administrative’ device” needed for a formal record.

Chesler continues:

Ironically, what is said in mosques and madrassas and on protest marches all over the UK is never considered to constitute a “racially” motivated hate crime. As George Orwell understood, not all pigs are equal.

A more appropriate Orwell quote here might be the ironical “Ignorance is Strength”, since Chesler seems eager to demonstrate her own lack of knowledge – one of Abu Hamza al-Masri’s 2006 convictions was for just the offence of “inciting racial hatred”; other Islamists have been jailed on similar grounds.

Chesler goes on to suggest that “Lionheart” “should be knighted by the Queen and all London should give him a parade”, and she commends his “‘stirring’ and highly informative articles”. Naturally, there is no word about his open support for the British National Party, which he expresses in those very articles. The BNP, it should be noted, a thuggish organisation whose leaders have only laid aside a long history of Jew-hating in favour of Muslim-bashing for strategic reasons (even Melanie Phillips understands this).

There follows a cozy interview between Chesler and “Lionheart”, in which he talks about his religious faith, but avoids repeating his belief that “the Living God is on the side of the BNP”. Interestingly, he also claims that he is being supported by Glen Jenvey, who has featured on this blog in the past, and who has links with the weird VIGIL Network.

Of course, none of this means that Chesler or “Lionheart’s” other admirers actually share his enthusiasm for the BNP, or that they would go along with other things on his blog, if they actually read it in detail. More likely, they’ve simply seen a situation that can be spun as a story of Muslim conspiracy and liberal “oppression”, and decided to make the most of it. I don’t claim to know whether they are truly as ill-informed as they appear, or whether they simply assume that their target readership will be too stupid to notice or too lacking in intellectual integrity to care.

UPDATE: Looks like Chesler is to the right of Little Green Footballs: although LGF headlined its piece as “UK to Prosecute Blogger for Criticising Islam”, in an update the author notes the BNP connection and adds that “I am not supporting what Lionheart says on his blog”.

“Lionheart” is rather sore over this:

Little Green Footballs you are a traitor, nothing less than the equivalent of a Second World War Nazi collaborator who would have been shot because of his treason – I am sure there are many who would have obliged!

One wonders if Chesler and Lancaster and “Lionheart’s” other supporters will concur…

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Sadly No has the full low-down on “Lionheart”, the BNP-supporting blogger who claims to be facing arrest over anti-Muslim statements on his blog (I blogged this here). One of the team has waded through Lionheart’s ramblings; it appears that despite his claim not to be in favour of violence, he is actually rather sanguinary:

I personally would be more than willing to go to the North of England and do what needs to be done for the mothers and children caught up in this Moslem savagery that needs to be eradicated and I know I am not alone in that respect.

…There are gangs of Moslem rapists and murderers walking the streets terrorising our society…Do we give in like most of Europe and accept the Islamification of our Nation? Or do we stand up and fight with every last drop of blood declaring ‘No Surrender’ no matter what the cost? A few summer riots will probably be the spark that lights the British fury that no British government or police force will be able to quench. Go quench the army of Islam before you pick on the British defenders of our lands.

…This is the Islamic enemy my community and country is faced with and the Moslem enemy which has forced my community into ‘Dhimmitude’. Things can only get worse from now unless action is taken and this Pakistani Moslem community’s actions are stamped out.

Meanwhile, the news that someone who wants us to “quench” Muslims in the UK “with every last drop of blood” is to be arrested under public order legislation dating from 1986 has led to further hysteria about “Eurabia” and how this is all a conspiracy to silence the “truth” about how British Muslims are all evil and involved in a conspiracy to take over the UK. Here’s Atlas Shrugs:

Atlas readers are familiar with the a brave heart, Lionheart. He has been a warrior on the war on the jihad in the UK and exposed the drug running that funded Islamic jihad in Britain and posted on the tsunami of sharia enveloping his beloved country. The Brits have submitted to Islam and they mean to shut down anyone who speaks for freedom, justice and liberty.

Meanwhile the absurd Irene Lancaster (whom I’ve blogged before) sees this as a sign of the “total and utter dhimmitude of Great Britain”:

…Then we have this – a blogger threatened with arrest for describing how his home town of Luton has been taken over…

Archbishop Cramner is less enthusiastic about the man, but he blames “cultural Marxists” for the arrest and suggests that Lionheart’s use of Bible quotes and display of “the flags of England and Israel” might be the reason he was targeted.

There are also attempts to link Lionheart’s arrest with the default libel case victory in London of Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz:

What is clear is that there is a consistent and concerted effort being carried out by the apologists for and enablers of Islamic terrorism to stop the spread of information about them, their activities, their beliefs, and their goals from being written about in the popular press…

As I noted a few days ago, Alyssa Lappen and Jed Babbin both managed to miss the point of the bin Mahfouz case spectacularly: such is their monomania, it became a story of “Muslims and multiculturalists” attacking free speech and “imposing Sharia”, rather than of a wealthy individual using restrictive libel laws that have benefited all kinds of powerful people for decades.

Personally, I would like to see the UK introduce protections for free speech along the lines of the American First Amendment. However, the historic fact is that in most democracies free speech has been balanced against other factors deemed to be socially desirable. Thus some countries have laws against Holocaust denial, to prevent Nazi revivalism; some have laws against blasphemy, to prevent inter-religious strife and to keep the wrath of God at bay; some have laws against mocking the monarch, to avoid possible civil disturbance caused by undermining the established order. Unless you have a society where free speech is treasured as absolute virtue in itself, as we see in the USA, this is hardly a surprising state of affairs. Since intercommunal hatred and prejudice against ethnic and sexual minorities are clearly social evils, the easiest response is (or at least seems to be) to limit freedom to express views that might tend to provoke these things. Thus Mark Steyn faces investigation for anti-Muslim views in Canada, a Swedish pastor gets sentenced to jail for attacking homosexuality (so much for “Euarabia” there, by the way), and French journalists get fined for the “racial defamation” of Israeli Jews (ditto). And in the UK, we see the (failed) prosecution of the leaders of the BNP. Of course, those of us who have a more “American” view of free speech will see such laws as counter-productive and confused and tending towards other evils that must be opposed, but that’s the context in which they come into existence and are applied; conspiracy theories about Muslims and “cultural Marxists” miss the point.

UPDATE (10 Jan): More today.

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From the Nigerian Tribune:

The former Oyo state Action Congress (AC) gubernatorial aspirant and the immediate past Finance and Budget Planning Commissioner in Lagos state, Dr. Ismael Adebayo Adewusi, has been given the award of Youth Ambassador for World Peace.

The title, of course, was conferred by the Universal Peace Federation. Local Director of Project Ola Akinmolayan explained:

“The essence of the award is to involve people who will assist in changing the battered orientation of many of our youths and to develop their intellect, skill acquisition and mode of life through educative workshops and seminars. Our objective is to seek a common ground of shared principles aimed at promoting reconciliation, overcoming barriers and building a world of lasting peace.

“At this time that the youth of our nation and world need to have exemplary leaders as role models, we are carefully selecting such leaders and appointing them as Youth Ambassadors for Peace. One of the role models in this category is Dr. Adewusi”, the organisers said.

Meanwhile, The News Today reported from the Philippines last month:

Another feather on the cap was added to Mayor Jerry Treñas after he was named as Ambassador for Peace by the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) for his “exemplary contributions in the building of peace.”

…With such honor, Treñas will join UPF’s global network of Ambassadors for Peace worldwide “to bring civil society solutions to global problems.” UPF is a global network of individuals and organizations committed to peace building through dialogue, education and service.

What neither paper mentions, however, is the person behind the UPF: none other than Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The UPF has persuaded hundreds (perhaps thousands) of locally prominent politicians – including some former heads of states – and high-achievers from around the world to accept “Ambassador” status, and so lend credibility to Moon. The above are just two recent examples; I’ve blogged some others here, here, here, and here. It’s a remarkable achievement which apparently no-one else has much noticed.

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A crank right-wing blogger in the UK by the name of “Lionheart” claims he has received word that he is to be arrested on suspicion of “stirring up racial hatred” for his virulent and obsessive anti-Muslim blog. The blogger concerned is deeply unpleasant; here’s a taster, chosen more or less at random (he’s easy to find on-line, but I’m not linking him):

In Luton we have a very large Pakistani Moslem encampment that has evolved over the last 40 years into a mini Islamic state with all the ingredients needed for it to be a state within a state within Britain. The Pakistani forbearers of this community were welcomed into our country to work alongside our forefathers in local industry to earn money to provide food, shelter and clothing for their dependents, just like the average British citizen. Little did the British public realize about the beast ‘Islam’ they were welcoming with open arms into their midst… The only way you can conquer another land and people is by military force, the first Pakistani Islamic religious leaders who arrived here would have known this fact and would have encouraged the first welcomed invaders to raise up from amongst them an army of young men who can defend this new Islamic community in this foreign land and when the time is right to rise up and conduct Jihad for Islam and conquer the Nation.

Etc, etc. Unsurprisingly, he also advises us to “get wise and vote B.N.P.” Apparently the police claim they are acting on a complaint received; once they have investigated, they will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to bring charges. Possibly the police will be reluctant – in November 2006 two leaders of the BNP were acquitted of the same charge after making anti-Islamic speeches. Tim Worstall puts the liberal free-speech view:

My view on this is pretty simple: other than libel and incitement to violence (which includes that shouting “Fire” in a crowded theatre thing) we’ve a right to say anything we damn well please without fear of the law. I also realise that this isn’t quite what the law itself says, but then that’s an error with the law, not with the right to free speech.

I concur with this, although of course this begs the question as to what we mean exactly by “libel” and “incitement to violence”. Might it not be libellous to suggest that the first Muslim leaders from Pakistan plotted to overthrow the UK by violence? Might it not also encourage certain individuals to go out and physically attack Muslims in the area? Perhaps, but without direct calls for violence (which Lionheart insists he has not made), where do we draw the line? And is it fair that we should only find out after the authorities decide it has been crossed? One wonders what public good is served, especially after the BNP trial fiasco. I would prefer it if the law treated citizens like reasonable adults and merely made it clear that those who allow themselves to become incited by this kind of rubbish will face serious consequences. Indeed, given that there is no practical way to stem the flow of inflammatory writing from abroad, this is the only sensible way to deal with the problem.

Meanwhile, news of the arrest has prompted the expected conspiracy-mongering from bloggers on the anti-Muslim right, with the whole thing seen as a plot by Islam to take over the UK. The fact that extremist Muslims have been jailed under the same laws is either ignored or played down; and of course I doubt that many of these sudden defenders of free speech would feel particularly bothered if a blogger targeting some other group got the same treatment.

UPDATE (10 Jan): More here and here.

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A bit of hysteria from Alyssa Lappen at International Analyst Network:

Unless the U.S. Congress and New York legislatures act immediately to stop them, foreign terror financiers and libel tourists now can essentially impose sharia (Islamic) law on American writers and publishers.

This is foolish demagoguery. Lappen is referring to a New York court judgement that was made just before Christmas concerning US author Rachel Ehrenfeld and Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz, whom she (along with a number of other authors from across the political spectrum) has accused of terrorism funding. Bin Mahfouz chose to sue Ehrenfeld through the London High Court, taking advantage of the UK’s notoriously restrictive libel laws, and won a default judgement. Although Lappen quotes a restrictive definition of slander from an Islamic source, “sharia” has absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand, and one wonders why she thinks this hyperbole is in any way helpful.

The December New York court decision was the result of a counter-suit brought by Ehrenfeld against bin Mahfouz. The judgement summarises her complaint:

Plaintiff alleges that the process server who visited her on March 3 [2005] threatened her, stating: “You had better respond, Sheikh bin Mahfouz is a very important person, and you ought to take very good care of yourself.”…In an affidavit, the process server stated that plaintiff “grossly misrepresented” their meeting.

…In addition, plaintiff claims that the ongoing threat of enforcement in New York has led her to decline publishing certain articles and to attempt to conform her writing to the standards of English libel law. Plaintiff also asserts that the alleged chill caused by the English judgment has been felt by certain publishers who have accepted her work in the past, but decline to do so now for unspecified reasons, and by other authors engaged in the investigation of international terrorism whom she alleges must now tailor their writing to avoid foreign libel suits.

However, despite the First Amendment issues arising from this, the court decided that it would be concerned only with the narrow question of whether it had jurisdiction over bin Mahfouz, and it decided that it didn’t. The ruling does not mean that the New York court supports the British libel judgement – much less an Islamic interpretation of “slander” – or that bin Mahfouz would not face serious obstacles should he try to collect his damages in New York.

Ehrenfeld’s case tried to make use of Yahoo’s lawsuit against La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L’Antisemitisme to establish jurisdiction, despite the fact that that suit had been ultimately dismissed. The ACLU has a piece on that case:

In November 2000, a French court said it would fine Yahoo approximately $13,000 per day unless it took action to prevent French Web users from gaining access to Nazi-related materials, including memorabilia up for auction on Yahoo.com.

…Yahoo filed suit, Yahoo!, Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L’Antisemitisme, and asked the U.S. district court to rule the French judgment unenforceable in the United States because it violated the company’s free speech rights.

The district court [in California] held that it had personal jurisdiction over the two French organizations, and that enforcement of the French order by an American court would violate the First Amendment. The French organizations filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, but appealed only the ruling on personal jurisdiction.

…Relying in part on the important First Amendment issues raised by the case, an 8-3 majority of the 11-member en banc panel hearing the case held that the district court did have personal jurisdiction over the French litigants.

However, three members of the eight-member majority favored dismissing the case because it was uncertain whether the French court would actually enforce its order. When their three votes were added to the three votes of the judges who said the case should be dismissed because there was no personal jurisdiction, the result was a 6-5 majority in favor of dismissal. Thus the case was dismissed.

…The ACLU-NC believes that if a foreign person or entity takes affirmative steps both in a foreign court and in the United States to force a U.S.-based speaker to censor constitutionally protected speech, U.S. courts have jurisdiction to protect that speech.

(We’ll leave aside the hypocrisy of Yahoo, an organization which colluded in the jailing of a Chinese dissident, making a stand for free speech)

The New York judgement has drawn fire from Ehrenfeld and some other commentators. She writes:

Falling to protect my rights for freedom of speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment laws, the New York Court of Appeals, opened the door to those wishing to curtail the U.S. press and media willingness and ability to freely investigate and report on matters important to our survival as a free nation.

Solicitor Mark Stephens, a media law specialist partner with London law firm Finers Stephens Innocent , who also represents the WSJ is quoted by a British legal publication saying: “New York court’s decision was “obviously wrong” and not merits-based.”

…The New York Sun newspaper reported the decision by saying the State’s highest court had “turned down a chance to protect American authors from libel judgments awarded by foreign courts”.

The newspaper quoted Boston lawyer Harvey Silvergate, who has written on the case, as saying that “The New York Court of Appeals could have done a better job of protecting our Constitutional rights than it did here with this rather technical opinion.”

Perhaps a bit of a concerted effort from across the Atlantic would be in order as well: in the UK we’ve recently seen libel threats being used to suppress legitimate discussion of public figures such as the blogger Paul Staines (a supposed “libertarian”) and the Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov (in the latter case the attempt was a dismal failure).

Meanwhile, it’s interesting to see that Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud, which in the UK proudly bears the label “banned by Amazon.co.uk” is actually available from second-hand merchants on that website, and I’ve seen the book available in Waterstones.

UPDATE: It seems Lappen got her idea from Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events. According to Babbin,

Under assault by Muslims and multiculturalists, free speech and freedom of the press are dead in Britain…

Actually, I can think of all kinds of people who have undermined free speech in the UK by resorting to repressive British libel laws – and most of them are certainly not Muslims.

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I’m a bit late with this – via Jurist:

The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution against “defamation of religion,” expressing concern about laws that have led to religions discrimination and profiling since Sept. 11. The resolution urges all:

States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions, to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and their value systems and to complement legal systems with intellectual and moral strategies to combat religious hatred and intolerance.

The full text of the resolution – A/C.3/62/L.35 – can be seen here; it was put forward by Pakistan “On behalf of the States Members of the United Nations that are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference”. The document claims that “defamation of religions is among the causes of social disharmony and leads to violations of human rights”, and calls for freedom of expression to

be subject to limitations as provided by law and necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals and respect for religions and beliefs.

Defamation and incitement against Muslims is mentioned in particular. The resolution comes two years after a UNHCR Resolution on Islamophobia, again raised by Pakistan, which I blogged at some length at the time.

Among the 108 countries which voted in favour of the resolution was Lebanon, which in 2005 banned The Da Vinci Code while allowing Hezbollah to broadcast an anti-Semitic TV programme on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the grounds the censorship would “be a violation of free speech”. Also on the list were Belarus and Iran, both of which are more laid-back when it comes to the publication of anti-Jewish screeds. There’s also Russia and China, notorious for their pursuit of “totalitarian sects” and “evil cults” – definitions that apply to any religious group which refuses to toe the line.

Meanwhile, the 51 countries opposing the resolution included nations such as Poland and the United Kingdom, both of which have laws against blasphemy…

(Hat tip: MediaWatchWatch and Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

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