NewsAn Ontario judge has imposed a publication ban that prevents a group of terror suspects from exposing the conditions they face in solitary confinement. The men want to have their habeas corpus application heard in open court, and legal experts say the public deserves to know whether they are being detained “legally and by the…
CommentaryA pair of recently filed defamation suits have the potential to reshape free speech on the Internet in Canada, Internet law expert Michael Geist warns in this Ottawa Citizen commentary published on May 1, 2007. A British Columbia businessman is suing a who’s who of the Internet, including Yahoo!, MySpace and Wikipedia for allowing users…
CommentaryHow much information about Robert Pickton’s murder trial is too much information? Tony Burman, editor in chief of CBC News, comments on the public backlash against media coverage of graphic evidence being heard in a New Westminster, B.C. courtroom.
NewsIn many countries, it is a crime to insult public officials or any individual, group or religion. The World Press Freedom Committee has launched a campaign to eliminate this extreme form of defamation, used by many regimes to stifle press freedom. Read the committee’s press release.
NewsThe judge presiding over Robert Pickton’s murder trial has instituted a “sensible and practical protocol” to allow journalists to apply for access to exhibits. See the Vancouver Sun report.
NewsIn a move hailed as a step toward greater press freedom, Mexican President Felipe Calder??n has approved amendments to decriminalize libel, slander and defamation. Mexico joins El Salvador as the only two Latin American nations to wipe criminal libel off the books. Read Editor & Publisher‘s April 17, 2007report.
NewsVideo blogger Josh Wolf was freed on April 3, 2007after spending more time behind bars for contempt than any other American journalist in recent history. The 24-year-old, whorefused to comply with a grand jury subpoena for his testimony and video outtakes, spent 226 days in a California prison. Read the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of…
NewsBritain’s House of Lords has refused to review a landmark ruling that has been criticized for protecting privacy at the expense of free expression — and could restrict how journalists cover celebrities and public figures. The March 30, 2007 decision endorses a lower court’s finding that a former friend of Loreena McKennitt breached the Canadian…
AnalysisRoger McConchie, a Vancouver lawyer who specializes in libel and privacy issues, has compiled detailed summaries of Canadian court rulings on Internet libel.
Book ReviewJoseph Howe, the courageous editor of the Novascotian, has long been the poster-boy for freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Canada. His exposes of government corruption in Halifax in 1835, his prosecution on a trumped-up libel charge, the eloquent six-hour speech that won his acquittal – these are the stuff of…