Posts Tagged ‘freedom of speech’
Make a vid for freedom and defy #Trafigura!
Earlier today we showed up outside Trafigura’s offices to video ourselves reading out the information they have been trying so hard to suppress.
If you couldn’t make the protest, you can still help to drive the point home, by reading out the ‘banned text’ in your own Youtube video at home or work.
The more of us do this, the more clearly we can send out the message that the internet can’t be gagged, and that efforts to do so are doomed to backfire.
Please be as original and creative as you like, but if you need a starting point here’s the basic text that we’ll be using:
I am [name] and I’m using my freedom under the 1688 Bill of Rights to read the following quote from Parliament, in defiance of Trafigura:
“The recent example of the release of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast leading to the deaths of a number of people and the hospitalisation of thousands underlines the risks involved in the movement and management of waste.”
The next step is then to upload the video to Youtube (or Vimeo or Yfrog), with the word “Trafigura” somewhere in the description text, and tell as many people as possible. If you’re on Twitter, please do spread the word by Tweeting the link to your vid with the #Trafigura hashtag.
We’ll be embedding and linking to every video we find, and eventually editing them all together as part of a top-secret new web 2.0 project, so please do let us know via this page once your work is published!
Here’s Kate defying #Trafigura!
…and here’s Chris
Here’s Simon
Here’s Sly…
Here’s Reggie
…and here’s Lianne
Here’s Alex defying #Trafigura!
Here’s Jimbo Gunn defying #Trafigura to the tune of “Ode to Joy”
Here’s Derek defying #Trafigura
Here’s Dom defying #Trafigura
Here’s Lauren’s cat defying #Trafigura
Here’s Peregrine defying #Trafigura
Here’s Joel Sams defying #Trafigura with gravitas!
Here’s a robot space alien defying #Trafigura
Here’s one I made earlier
Here’s Paul defying #Trafigura
Trafigura coverage still curtailed by libel abuse. UK media unable to report freely on deaths allegedly caused by dumping of Trafigura’s toxic waste
*Update* See also: Doc Richard – Trafigura suppresses scientific lecture – allegedly
*Update 2* Rebellion spreads – Caroline Lucas MEP mentions the unmentionable.
There’s renewed coverage today of the ongoing legal battles following the notorious Ivory Coast toxic waste incident, in which the oil trader Trafigura has been implicated.
The Guardian (UK), Times (UK) and New York Times (US) all report that the £30 million compensation payment by Trafigura to victims of the disaster is in danger of being misappropriated after an Ivorian court ordered that the funds be frozen.
But note also the contrast in how the UK and US media have reported the background to the story. Here’s how the New York Times covers it:
The waste was shipped by Trafigura, an international commodities trading giant. About 108,000 people sought treatment for nausea, headaches, vomiting and abdominal pains, and at least 15 died. All had apparently been poisoned by the toxic brew of gasoline and caustic soda, refining byproducts dumped by Trafigura’s contractor.
Here’s the Guardian:
Hundreds of tonnes of sulphur-contaminated toxic oil waste were cheaply dumped on landfills and in ditches around Abidjan in 2006. The cargo ship had been chartered by Trafigura. In the weeks after, the fumes caused thousands of sick people to besiege local hospitals.
…and here’s the Times:
A cargo ship chartered by Trafigura dumped hundreds of tonnes of sulphur-contaminated toxic oil waste around Abidjan in 2006. In the following weeks the fumes caused thousands of people to need hospital treatment.
The deaths of “up to 17″ Ivorians has been widely reported elsewhere. In previous articles, both the Times and the Guardian have referred to a UN report citing “official estimates” of 15 dead. So it seems odd that this seemingly crucial detail should now be omitted.
The New York Times is of course free to say what it likes because freedom of speech is protected under the US constitution, and New York State has a law which specifically prohibits the enforcement of UK libel judgements in NY, due to human rights concerns.
Fortunately in the UK we do still have (despite some recent confusion) an absolute right to report the proceedings of Parliament, so I can draw your attention to this recent statement from Evan Harris MP:
My understanding is that “Newsnight” is being threatened by the lawyers for Trafigura, Carter-Ruck, if it repeats an allegation… that deaths were caused by the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast, even though in 2007 Hansard reported the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations laid by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs before Parliament, and a memorandum of explanation to those regulations stated:
“The recent example of the release of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast leading to the deaths of a number of people and the hospitalisation of thousands underlines the risks involved in the movement and management of waste.”
How can it be that that can be in Hansard, yet there are still threats of legal action against “Newsnight” if it reports the very same wording that is used in there? That cannot be right.
What Dr. Harris could also have mentioned is that, astoundingly, alongside these renewed threats, Trafigura’s libel action over this damning May 2009 news report, appears still to be ongoing.
MPs to debate libel abuse and freedom of speech tomorrow
CarterRuck have already contacted your MP to give their views on libel, ahead of tomorrow’s debate on freedom of speech. Now’s your chance to give yours: www.tr.im/Cl3D
Burundi activists launch campaign to free Alexis Sinduhije and Jean-Claude Kavumbagu
The Burundian activist Frederic Gateretse has launched a campaign to free Alexis Sinduhije, Jean-Claude Kavumbagu and the other political prisoners arrested in President Nkurunziza’s latest crackdown on dissent.
Both Alexis and Jean-Claude were enormously helpful to me while I was researching and writing Titanic Express (and I quote extensively from Alexis in the book’s final chapter), so I’m happy to support them now.
Frederic Gateretse says:
It appears the government has decided to focus on winning the upcoming 2010 general elections at all cost for the alternative will be disastrous to the current leadership which has a lot to answer to in terms of corruption, mismanagement of public funds, human rights violations and the scrapping of political freedom.
Jean-Claude still being held by Burundian government – Amnesty International lists him as a “Prisoner of Conscience”
It’s now one month since my friend Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, who helped me enormously with “Titanic Express” (he is mentioned in the acknowledgements), was arrested and detained on bogus grounds in Burundi.
Jean-Claude, a journalist and ardent critic of corruption and human rights abuse in his country, had the audacity to question the tens of thousands of dollars spent by President Pierre Nkurunziza during his visit to the Beijing Olympics. Jean-Claude’s news agency says it was $90,000. Nkurunziza’s CNDD-FDD government claims it was about half that figure, and has jailed Jean-Claude for “defamation” simply for saying otherwise. The average income in Burundi is $700 a year.
Amnesty International has taken up the case, listing Jean-Claude as “a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression.”
Jean-Claude’s arbitrary arrest sits in sharp contrast with the PR campaign by religious groups seeking to portray President Pierre Nkurunziza – a born-again Christian and vocal supporter of greater church involvement in politics – as the model of the humble and ‘forgiving’ African leader.
UK government plans blanket monitoring of emails, phone calls, and web browsing – while insisting that “no formal decision” has yet been taken
The Times reports that the UK government is considering plans for a £12 billion database to monitor and store the emails, phone calls and web browsing records of everyone in the country. While the Home Office is reportedly at pains to insist – echoing the rhetoric in the run-up to the Iraq war – that “no formal decision” has yet been taken to go ahead, The Times says that the government has already committed up to £1 billion to the project.
In “Don’t Get Fooled Again“, I look at the arguments used by politicians to grant themselves “sweeping new powers”, and the unintended consequences that result when checks on government power are undermined.
Attack of the ‘rogue state’ libel laws…
Last week I wrote about the defensive measures being taken in the US to prevent Britain’s rapacious libel laws being used to undermine freedom of speech internationally. Now, via Craig Murray’s blog, I’ve learned that our rogue state laws may have claimed another victim. The longstanding politics discussion site “Harry’s Place” has reportedly been temporarily closed down simply by the threat of libel being made against the site’s internet service provider, following a dispute with a Sheffield academic, Jenna Delich.
Contributors to “Harry’s Place” have accused Delich of linking, via her own website, to the site of the far-right anti-semite KKK all-round bad egg extremist David Duke. Delich says that these claims are libellous, hence the reported take-down demand.
As is traditional in such cases (see here for a previous fiasco in which, bizarrely, Boris Johnson got caught in the crossfire), the full saga is now being recounted on a site hurriedly put together on blogspot, which is a) very easy to use and b) hosted several thousand miles outside of UK jurisdiction.
