Totalitarianism: our political enemies committed no crime, so we must chsnge the law!

[Solly]

Ministers are considering whether race hate laws should be revised after BNP leader Nick Griffin was cleared of charges relating to speeches he made.

A jury decided speeches by Mr Griffin and party activist Mark Collett in 2004 had not incited racial hatred.

Home Secretary John Reid said he would consult ministers after Gordon Brown said current laws may need reviewing.

Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said Muslims were offended and must be sure that the law would protect them.

The Leeds Crown Court jury heard extracts from a speech Mr Griffin made in the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on 19 January 2004, in which he described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and said Muslims were turning Britain into a "multi-racial hell hole".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6137722.stm

[Whoha]

If that was a jury nullification its not going to help much to change the laws. perhaps they should have sued the BNP for libel/slander:

http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2006/11/07/libel_tourism_and_the_war_on_terror/

AN IMPORTANT question will be argued tomorrow before the federal Court of Appeals in Manhattan: should American journalists who write about controversial issues be subjected to legal intimidation from abroad? More precisely, will American courts halt the growing practice of "libel tourism" whereby wealthy foreigners sue American writers and publishers in England, despite little chance of enforcing the judgment in this country?

Rachel Ehrenfeld, an adviser to the Defense Department and director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy , pioneered investigation into the financial roots of terrorism, first in her 1990 book "Narcoterrorism" and, most recently, in "Funding Evil -- How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It." She argued, controversially, that dollars from drug traffickers, corrupt state leaders, and wealthy Arab financiers, especially Saudis, fund terrorism.

One target of Ehrenfeld's work is Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz, former owner of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia and former chief operating officer of the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International. In 1992, he paid $225 million after his indictment in New York for his role in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

In "Funding Evil," Ehrenfeld reported that bin Mahfouz deposited "tens of millions of dollars in London and New York directly into terrorist accounts" and transferred some $74 million to the International Islamic Relief Organization and the Muwafaq Foundation run by Yasin al-Qadi, a US-designated terrorist.

Bin Mahfouz would have little chance to silence his accusers by a libel action in US courts. Under the Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan , public figures who sue media defendants must demonstrate that defamatory statements were "made with actual malice." The Sullivan case elevated free press over personal reputation except in egregious cases of reckless accusation.

No other nation goes as far to protect speech. Indeed, outside the United States, truth is often not a defense to allegations of defamation. The Sullivan standard is not accepted in Britain, Canada, Australia, or any of the 41 member states of the Council of Europe.

Bin Mahfouz and fellow libel tourists have made the English libel bar rich, leading the London Times to declare the United Kingdom the "libel capital of the Western world." English lawyers now refer to the "Arab effect" to describe the surge of English libel actions by wealthy, non resident Arabs accused of funding terrorism. This trend has produced a succession of rulings, settlements, and damage awards against English and American media defendants costing millions of pounds.

Bin Mahfouz has sued or threatened suit in England 33 times against those who linked him to terrorism. He runs a website boasting of his victories. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post all have settled with him. The English court enjoined publication of "Funding Evil" in Britain and awarded bin Mahfouz 60,000 pounds ($109,470), even though the merits of his allegations were never tried.

Rather than confront bin Mahfouz on England's libel-friendly turf, Ehrenfeld sued him in a New York federal court seeking a declaration that his English judgment is unenforceable in the United States as repugnant to the First Amendment.



The English judgment has impaired her ability to find publishers for her other work. Remarkably, the district court dismissed her case, ruling in effect that Ehrenfeld must await legal action in the United States by bin Mahfouz to enforce the English judgment before raising her First Amendment defense. However, his lawyers have declared he does not intend to enforce his judgment in this country.

Writers are now subject to intimidation by libel tourists. Little wonder that the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Association of American Publishers, and 14 other media groups have filed a "friend of the court" brief to support Ehrenfeld's quest to raise her First Amendment defense now. Until she is able to do so, she will have problems finding American publishers willing to risk publishing her research and writing.

The late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said that "freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth." Investigative reporters cannot play their vital roles without support from our courts to prevent, in Brandeis's words, "silence coerced by law." We hope the Court of Appeals will agree.

[Tattila the Hun]

Wicked, vicious faith? Multi-racial hellhole? Isn't that... the truth?

[Elok]

I realize I'm feeding a troll, but it's been a while since PA's racist, rather than global-warming-apologist, side got to exercise itself. In fact, I'm not sure if it was even PA anymore...was it someone else who implied that black people are genetically predisposed to crime? I'm too lazy to check.

Anyway, it's quite sensible to revise laws like this, so long as they aren't applied ex post facto. And totalitarian gov'ts don't revise laws so much as ignore them.

[Solly]

"Anyway, it's quite sensible to revise laws like this"

Why?

[CerberusIV]

Under the Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan , public figures who sue media defendants must demonstrate that defamatory statements were "made with actual malice." The Sullivan case elevated free press over personal reputation except in egregious cases of reckless accusation.

No other nation goes as far to protect speech. Indeed, outside the United States, truth is often not a defense to allegations of defamation. The Sullivan standard is not accepted in Britain, Canada, Australia, or any of the 41 member states of the Council of Europe.

Under English libel law that what you have published is true IS an absolute defence. However the requirement is that you have to be able to prove it to be true in court.

A crude interpretation of the Sullivan standard as defined in this article is that, in the US, you can print whatever you like about anyone and, so long as you have anything to support your inferences, however tenuous, you can get away with it. That's not free speech, it is a licence to libel as long as you are creative with whatever facts you possess.

[CerberusIV]

As for the OP it is yet another thing that makes me glad I don't live in the UK anymore. I despise Nick Griffin and the BNP and all they stand for but persecuting them only gives their poisonous rubbish publicity and credibility.

Nick Griffin seems to have avoided being convicted on a technicality - being muslim does not mean being of a particular race so criticising muslims does not constitute an attack on a specific racial group (despite the fact that the majority of muslims in the cities of northern Britain are from the Indian sub-continent). The problem is that tightening the law will eventually make it an offence to say anything about Islam or particular racial groups, at which point it will become unenforceable and be ignored.

[Elok]

Well, I don't mean this specific law, but generally laws get revised when people notice that they are not sufficiently strict. That incitement to violence or whatever was the case here, that's open to debate. But, accepting for the sake of argument that it was and that there should be a law against it, I think it should be common sense that they go back to modify the law. Just like they close tax loopholes after they see them being abused. Crap, I'm not writing very well this morning. I hope you catch my drift.

[BeBMan]

I'm wondering about the relation between Totalitarianism and changing law.

[Pekka]

So they only tolerate speech that we all like? So if you attack multiculturalism, that is equivalent of hate speech? Right..

Just remember to never question.. at least outloud.. because soon you have no right to do that.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Elok
Anyway, it's quite sensible to revise laws like this, so long as they aren't applied ex post facto.

It's far more sensible to repeal laws like this.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
Under English libel law that what you have published is true IS an absolute defence. However the requirement is that you have to be able to prove it to be true in court.

the burden of proof should be on the accuser, not the accused. because that is a license to silence those you disagree with.

The problem is that tightening the law will eventually make it an offence to say anything about Islam or particular racial groups, at which point it will become unenforceable and be ignored.

if GB also lacks equal enforcement provisions then it will be merely selectively enforced.

[Kuciwalker]

PA

"Hate" laws

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Whoha
the burden of proof should be on the accuser, not the accused. because that is a license to silence those you disagree with.

That is precisely the problem with British libel law.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Whoha


the burden of proof should be on the accuser, not the accused. because that is a license to silence those you disagree with.

Very true. The burden of proving the allegation true/false should ALWAYS lie on the accuser, not the accused libeler. Requiring people to only print what they absolutely can prove would shut down most news operations. Printing things that are not true, without malice, ruins your reputation as a news organization / writer / etc. as much or more than any falsehood would ruin the recipient's reputation, especially if they can show that it's not true.