Student gets 20 years for 'blasphemy' about women's rights
Los Angeles Times Oct 22, 08 2:21 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Parwez Kambakhsh won’t be executed for distributing literature on women’s rights, but the student and part-time journalist will spend the next 20 years in prison, an Afghan appeals court ruled yesterday. “This is arguably worse for him,” one human-rights advocate told the Los Angeles Times of the 24-year-old’s death sentence for blasphemy being reduced, noting the influence of radical Islam on the country’s “kangaroo-court justice.”
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GLOSSIES
Beijing completely misses 'crass value of cultivating the press'
Atlantic Monthly Oct 16, 08 5:00 PM CDT
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It’s no secret that China is moving into position as a global superpower, writes James Fallows in the Atlantic , and this only further highlights its leaders’ baffling inability to understand how the country is viewed from the outside—and how to change those opinions for the better. Officials just don’t understand “the crass value of cultivating the press,” he writes.
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Statute violated First Amendment rights; man who sent 10M emails daily can go free
Richmond Times Dispatch (VA) Sep 12, 08 1:32 PM CDT
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Virginia’s anti-spam laws are unconstitutional because they prohibit behavior shielded by the First Amendment, the state’s supreme court ruled today. The ruling overturns the conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, who received the nation’s first felony spam conviction in 2004, the Richmond Times-Dispatch says. Prosecutors alleged Jaynes sent up to 10 million emails a day from his North Carolina home.
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Sez silly suits are fodder for routine
New York Post Aug 28, 08 12:42 PM CDT
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Jerry Seinfeld insisted yesterday that he didn’t slander a woman suing his wife for cookbook plagiarism because silly lawsuits are fodder for good comedy. The comic cited episodes from Seinfeld as well as his kid-friendly Bee Movie in a court filing as examples of the First Amendment-protected comedic license to poke fun at the legal system, the New York Post reports.
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Judge rules security concerns take priority over free speech
Reuters Aug 7, 08 4:15 AM CDT
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A federal judge has ruled that protesters can be confined to a fenced-in zone at the Democratic National Convention because security concerns outweigh activists' right to free speech, Reuters reports. The ACLU and a coalition of protest groups had brought a lawsuit against Denver and the Secret Service over plans concerning what activists have labeled a"freedom cage."
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Web subculture has disdain for just about everything
New York Times Aug 2, 08 11:09 AM CDT
(Newser)
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They gleefully wreak havoc online, tormenting the parents of a teen suicide victim, for example, or causing the website of an epilepsy foundation to flash brilliantly to trigger convulsions. These so-called trolls seek "lulz," or laughs, for their deeds and test the limits of free speech online. One leader sees it all as a grand human experiment. The New York Times looks into the subculture and its disdain for just about everything.
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More civil servants
filing suits when slighted
Times (UK) Jul 26, 08 7:40 PM CDT
(Newser)
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A Paris publisher has launched a high-profile crusade to legalize an increasingly popular crime: the insulting of public officials, the London Times reports. After being fined €150 for calling a cop a connard —or stupid bastard—Jean-Jacques Reboux got even angrier, and accused civil servants of abusing the law to make money. "It's like something from the ancien régime," Reboux said.
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Director's Darfur protest stunt may run afoul of Beijing leadership
Hollywood Reporter Jul 18, 08 4:33 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Steven Spielberg or his films could be banned from China under the new rules barring artists seen as a threat to national sovereignty, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Spielberg rankled Chinese leadership when he publicly withdrew from an artistic advisory board for the Beijing Olympics in protest of the nation’s trade arrangements with Sudan.
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'Good corporate citizens' send blogs, photos, videos to the trashbin
Associated Press Jul 7, 08 6:52 PM CDT
(Newser)
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A variety of websites are deleting postings that could offend, and with full legal protection—sparking debate about whether free speech exists online. Case in point: an image of a young smoker posted on Yahoo's photo service. It was cut for promoting underage smoking, but the photographer calls it a comment on Romanian street life. "I never thought of it as a photo of a smoking kid," he said.
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Seattle U cites warns students who break the rules
Seattle Times Jun 1, 08 6:56 PM CDT
(Newser)
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A Seattle school is tracking student parties through Facebook and threatening students who break the rules, the Seattle Times reports. Seattle University recently scrapped a party where men were to wear flipped-up collars, and women Victoria's Secret or Abercrombie and Fitch. "You will be held responsible" for hosting a party based on "gender bias," the school warned.
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Court rules sign not 'abusive, insulting'
BBC May 23, 08 1:10 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Charges against a 15-year-old who called Scientology as a ‘cult’ were dropped today, the BBC reports. The London police issued a mea culpa after a court ruled that the teen’s holding up a sign reading, "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult," did not constitute “abusive or insulting” behavior.
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But advocates say changes to free speech law mainly cosmetic
Financial Times (UK) Apr 30, 08 8:06 AM CDT
(Newser)
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The Turkish parliament has approved changes to a notorious law that makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness," reports the Financial Times . Ankara legislators today amended the notorious Article 301, reducing the maximum sentence and requiring the justice minister to approve all prosecutions. But while nationalists are outraged, civil rights lawyers call the changes cosmetic at best.
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Online rumor forum draws NJ Attorney General's attention
Associated Press Mar 19, 08 5:21 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Prosecutors have hit college gossip site JuicyCampus.com with subpoenas for records, the AP reports. New Jersey’s Attorney General Anne Milgram is investigating whether the site violates the Consumer Fraud Act by stating that it doesn’t tolerate offensive material but doing nothing to enforce that claim. "There's an unbelievable amount of offensive material posted and absolutely no enforcement," said Milgram.
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