I posted earlier about The Guardian being banned from reporting that an MP it couldn't name was asking a parliamentary question it couldn't repeat, at a time it couldn't mention, despite a constitutional ruling that newspapers could repeat anything said in Parliament (MPs are exempt from libel laws by Parliamentary Privilege, so that they can name and shame wrongdoers). In the comments section, Ewar and I posted the Twitter/blog rumours that the MP was Paul Farrelly (good Labour guy from Newcastle-under-Lyme) and the question concerned Trafigura, a toxic waste company which doesn't want any more attention devoted to its payment of lots of money to the 30,000 Africans it poisoned by dumping toxic waste in Ivory Coast.
This case raises a serious question of freedom of speech. There's no point an MP raising a point if his constituents and other citizens can't hear about it and discuss it. Lawyers shouldn't be able to use Britain's awful libel laws to silence any criticism of their clients.
The Guardian has now presumably won a court hearing, as it's identifying the matter in the 'breaking news' ticker. More background here.
Update: The Guardian's full story here.
2 comments:
38 Degrees are currently running a campaign on this. Take action now by emailing your MP and asking them to take a stand. Take action now, it only takes 2 mins. Go to:
38degrees.org.uk/stop-the-gag
Good advice - and 38 Degrees are a sterling bunch.
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