Kiwiblog

The US Supreme Court has struck down part of the law which restricts private organisations from spending their money on election campaigns.

Cnet explains why:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling on Thursday that invalidated large chunks of campaign finance law arose in part from an unlikely source: the emergence of Facebook, YouTube, and blogs, and the decline of traditional media outlets.

A 5-4 majority concluded that technological changes have chipped away at the justification for a law that allows individuals to create a blog with opinions about a political candidate–but threatens the ACLU, the National Rifle Association, a labor union, or a corporation with felony charges if they do the same.

The now-invalidated law “would seem to ban a blog post expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate if that blog were created with corporate funds,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion (PDF). “The First Amendment does not permit Congress to make these categorical distinctions based on the corporate identity of the speaker and the content of the political speech.”

In NZ we don’t have a court that can strike down laws that breach the Bill of Rights. To get rid of the Electoral Finance Act, we had to sack the Government.

The court pointed out that the now-invalidated laws are more sweeping than the term “campaign finance” might imply–and amount to simple censorship. It listed these acts of political speech that previously would have been criminalized: the Sierra Club running an ad (close to the time of an election) disapproving of a congressman who favors logging in national forests; the NRA publishing a book urging a vote against an incumbent U.S. senator who supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creating a Web site telling the public to vote for a presidential candidate because of that candidate’s defense of free speech.

This law was even worse than the EFA!

Joel Gora, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and ACLU lawyer who argued a landmark 1976 Supreme Court case, wrote at The New York Times’ Web site today that the justices “dismantled the First Amendment ‘caste system’ in election speech. Before today, the right to speak depended on who was doing the speaking: business corporations, no, unless they were media corporations; nonprofit corporations, maybe, depending on where they got their funding; labor unions, no.”

What happened of course was these groups formed PACs instead, and just donated to the PACs.

The left in the US are calling this an awful decision. This is ironic as the Obama campaign was the highest spending of all time – the first oen to turn down federal funding and an associated cap. They are not against big money in politics – just against other people’s big money!

The US Embassy has e-mailed:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will deliver a major policy address on Internet freedom live from the Newseum in Washington, D.C. January 21, 2010, 9.30am EST, Friday 3.30AM NZ time.  Secretary Clinton will lay-out the Administration’s strategy for protecting freedom in the networked age of the 21st Century.

Following her speech, there will be a panel discussion on this issue. To participate, either by watching a high quality video stream of the speech and panel discussion or by submitting questions and comments while viewing go to: http://netfreedom.state.gov. From here, you may choose the high quality video option or the interactive CO.NX room. As always, no password is necessary. Enter as a guest and type the username of your choice.

For further information please visit http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/01/135379.htm

Information is also available at America.gov’s feature page on Internet Freedom. You can also follow the speech on Twitter: http://twitter.com/us_mission_nz

When released, a transcript of Secretary Clinton’s remarks will be available at http://newzealand.usembassy.gov/

I will be very very interested to watch this. Not quite enough, to be up at 3.30 am, but once I get up.

Hat Tip: Clare Curran

I was hugely disappointed in Google when they started censoring google.cn. It was the first time they really broke their motto of do no evil.

So I am equally pleased to see this story:

Google, the internet search engine, has set itself at odds with the authorities in China by declaring that it will stop censoring search results on its Chinese website.

This is going to be a fascinating battle between two giants.

Labour MP Grant Robertson blogs:

I probably disagree with John Minto about as much as I agree with him in terms of the various statements he makes.  I know that he irritates some New Zealanders, but he is someone who stands up staunchly for what he believes, and has played a real part in raising issues that  are important to New Zealand and New Zealanders.

If  it is true as reported on Stuff that the police are seeking an order to destroy the megaphone he used as part of his protest at the tennis in Auckland last week, then this is shocking.  We have to defend the right to protest in this country.  I have been on both sides of the fence when it comes to protests and they are a critical part of a functioning democracy.

Now I agree with Grant the Police should not be seeking an order to destory the megaphone. If Minto broke the law, then he will have his day in court, but destroying megaphones is a bad act symbolically.

Labour’s love of megaphones though seems only to extend to when they are in Opposition. What did they do when they were Government. This is what Labour, NZ First and the Greens voted for in reporting back the from select committee the Electoral Finance Bill:

Other types of broadcasting, such as the use of loudspeakers and megaphones, would be captured by the new provision in paragraph (i).

Paragraph (i) was expanding the definition of publish to include:

(i) bring to the notice of the public in any other manner

So Labour, the Greens and NZ First wanted to make it illegal to use megaphones to advocate against a party or candidate, unless one spoke your name and home address out loud to authorise the message.

So while supporting Grant on John Minto’s megaphone, I do wonder where was Grant’s voice when his own party was trying to regulate megaphone use in election year?

Incidentally the outcry from myself and some others over this odious clause, saw the then Government backdown on it just a few days later.

The Herald reports:

Danish police said yesterday that a Somalian caught breaking into the home of a cartoonist whose work sparked riots across the Muslim world five years ago was a would-be assassin with links to al Qaeda.

The 28-year-old had an axe and a knife when he was shot and wounded by police on Saturday after cartoonist Kurt Westergaard heard windows being broken and pressed a panic alarm at his house in Aarhus.

News of the attack on Westergaard, 74, who was with his 5-year-old granddaughter at the time, shocked many in Denmark who had believed the country’s brush with Islamist extremism was consigned to the past.

I’ve been planning to blog on this for a couple of days. What is significant is that it no longer looks like some madman acting alone, but that the cartoonist was marked for death by al Qaeda or an associated group.

Hopefully this will wake up some of the appeasers. Some on the left (not all) think that the extreme Islamists will be happy if the US leaves Iraq and Afghanistan and a Palestinian State is formed. Others advocate Israel should be destroyed/moved, as no peace is possible with it there.

This attempted assassination is a good reminder that there are a significant number of extreme Islamists who want nothing less than their religion enforced on the entire world, and they will kill any who refuse to submit.

The extremists are a small sub-set of all Islamists, and an even smaller sub-set of all Muslims. But they do exist, they will (sadly) never go away, and there is no appeasing of them.

The ODT editorial:

Central Auckland might not be Iraq or Afghanistan but it has been the scene of extremist religious reaction.

It was perfectly reasonable for certain churches and for various individuals to express their displeasure and even horror at what they saw as unsuitable or blasphemous in the Joseph and Mary billboard.

But the man who painted over it and the woman who attacked it with a knife are intolerant religious fanatics.

As such they are dangerous. In the name of their God they saw it as their right, even their obligation, to break the law and damage property.

The point I made.

While their actions are clearly of a different ilk to the suicide bombers of 9/11 or of a Baghdad market place, the fundamental impulse is the same. In the righteous name of God, they felt called to do their duty.

I agree. The moment you think doing God’s duty puts you above the law, it is a slippery slope.

But do the very values of the West contain the seeds of their own destruction? Is tolerance – and so-called “progressive” Christianity for that matter – a licence for wishy-washy thinking, policy and behaviour? Do the fanatics and the intolerant simply take advantage of weakness? Are the institutions and principles of democracy callously abused by ideologues for their own ends? These are dilemmas which liberal democracies face.

These are the concerns that echo through modern Western Europe as immigration swells the numbers from cultures and beliefs where ethics like individual human rights are far from sacrosanct.

The way forward has to be to ensure pride in the basic values that underpin democratic society and to defend them with vigour.

It means being prepared to be tolerant of different cultures and different beliefs but intolerant when aspects of those cultures and beliefs threaten the core on which Western democracies are based. Already, countries, institutions and individuals have been bullied over freedom of speech, with the most stark example the furore over the Danish Mohammed cartoons.

And the answer is to defend freedom of speech, not to applaud those who would deny it in Auckland.

Big Day Out has withdrawn the invitation to Beenie Man, which is the right thing to do.

Prior to that, No Right Turn blogged (as I did) that he did not agree with Charles Chauvel’s call to ban Beenie Man from entering New Zealand. He says:

In case Chauvel has forgotten, we are a country which supposedly respects freedom of speech. And that liberty applies to people we disagree with as well as those we like. The widely accepted limit on freedom of speech is “shouting fire in a crowded theatre”. While Beenie man’s music is hateful, like David Irving’s, it simply does not reach that standard. I am not denying the social consequences of his hate, but they are far too distributed and distant to provide a justification for censorship.

Now as I said, I agree with NRT that banning Beenie Man on the basis of some previous songs is inappropriate. But it has got me wondering – where do you draw that line, the so called shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

Wikipedia says:

The lyrics to some of his songs have been criticized for inciting the murder of homosexuals, with lyrics such as, “I’m dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays”[17]. In “Mi Nah Wallah”, he says he would like to cut the throats of all gay men.[18] In “Bad Man Chi Chi Man” the lyric instructs listeners to kill gay deejays, and in “Han Up Deh”, the lyric suggests hanging lesbians with a long piece of rope.

Now since 2005 he hasn’t performed such lyrics. He claims that by homosexuals he meant pedophiles – old men picking up young boys. Personally I regard that excuse as disingenuous considering one of his lyrics is also about hanging lesbians. But the fact is he has not sung such lyrics or advocated such acts since 2005.

The question I ponder is, what if he still advocated such actions through his songs. Would that be sufficient reason to bar him entry?

I think of the comparison to David Irving, whom I also did not think should be banned. Irving is an anti-semite and a Holocaust denier. But he doesn’t actually advocate the executions of Jews. If someone actually did actively advocate the extermination of Jews, I would say that crosses the line.

Now likewise, if Beenie Man still actively advocated the murder of gays and lesbians, I think that would cross the line. There is a difference between mere bigotry and actual incitement to violence.

I’d be interested to hear NRT’s thoughts (and others) on where he thinks the line is. Of course to some degree the line might be like spam – hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

The Dom Post Editorial:

Few things are more abhorrent than the extreme Right and those who perpetuate its thuggish philosophies.

I always wonder why they are called extreme right, as invariably such groups support protectionism and left-wing economic policies. Take the BNP whose economic policies are:

• anti foreign investment
• wants the subordination of the power of the City to the power of the government
• self sufficiency in food production
• is critical of corporatism and big capitalism
• seeks to reduce income inequality

The arrival in the Hutt Valley of supporters of the far-Right National Front, Right wing Resistance and New Zealand Nationalist Alliance at the weekend is only slightly more concerning. With their truncated version of the Nazi symbol, skinheads and their sparsely-attended parade through Wellington’s streets, they succeeded only in demonstrating they are inconsequential and have no support in New Zealand.

True.

An anti-racism campaigner was appalled that a holiday park allowed the groups to stay. However, the alternative – allowing discrimination on the grounds of political belief – would not only be illegal, it would also be a difficult concept for many New Zealanders to swallow.

There is a sensible middle group. Don’t discriminate on the basis of membership or belief, but hell if I owned a holiday park, and you started waving a swastika about, you’d be gone.

More difficult to resolve is the debate raging in Britain over whether British National Party leader Nick Griffin should have been given a slot on the BBC’s Question Time programme. Those who believe he should not, argue that it gave his whites-only party an undeserved aura of political respectability. They claim 3000 expressed interest in joining the party just before and after the appearance.

BBC bosses argue that, as a state broadcaster, the corporation has to cover all political parties with a national presence – something it judges the BNP to have achieved because, though it has no MPs at Westminster, in European parliamentary elections this year it won two seats with just under a million votes.

The BBC is right in principle and in practice. A principled democracy cannot simply silence views that the majority disagree with.

Absolutely.  And a state broadcaster especially must not censor minority views.

In practice, Mr Griffin’s appearance has simply revealed his politics for the illogical farrago of prejudices they are. He floundered over whether he denied the Holocaust had taken place and defended the Ku Klux Klan as “almost totally non-violent”.

Griffin tries to pretend that he is now merely a defended of indigenous Brits. He is a former National Front member (he joined at age 14) and not only is he a Holocaust denier, he even criticised David Irving for admitting the number of Jews who died may be up to four million. He has also praised the Waffen SS and ironically attacked the RAF for its bombing of Nazi Germany.

He has also attempted to form an Alliance with Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini!

There is no room for complacency about those who preach the politics of hate, but the way to deal with them is to confront them and expose their policies to the unblinking light of reason. The alternative – pretending they do not exist – simply feeds their conspiracy theories and allows their distortions to grow unchallenged.

Again – I agree. One reason I publish regular updates on the National Front and its various splinter groups.

I think the Government is making a mistake by not conceding the law (passed by its predecessor) needs changing. The Herald reports:

The Immigration Advisers Authority has issued 18 warning letters to people it says are breaching the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act since it became law on May 4.

But a director of a defunct migrant workers support centre which received a warning says the authority is using the act to “attack migrant support services” rather than police dodgy immigration advisers. …

Mike Bell said he was forced to close the Skilled Migrant Resource Centre, a registered charity which operated as a drop-in support centre for skilled migrants, after being served a letter from the authority’s solicitor in July.

“I was told the reason I was sent the warning letter was because of my appearance on a TV3 news report where I apparently presented myself as an immigration adviser,” he said.

“Being served a notice like this, with up to seven years’ jail as a penalty, I took it very seriously.
“As a result, New Zealand’s only dedicated facility for skilled migrants was closed down.

Great.

Registrar Barry Smedts denied that the legislation was being used to target non-advisers, but would not say how many of the warning letters had been issued to unlicensed fee-charging advisers.

“The act is in place to protect migrants from poor advice from would-be experts. Forewarning letters have been sent to individuals whose activities appear to breach the act,” Mr Smedts said.

And this is the wrong focus. The focus should be to protect migrants from scamsters who offer a commercial service to assist people with gaining residency or work permits. By claiming their job is to protect against poor advice, suggest the Govt is guaranteeing all advice given will be “good”. I think most people can understand the difference between advice on a blogsite, or someone giving opinions on a TV interview, and a professional immigration advisor.

I don’t agree with a huge amount of what the Greens do, but one thing they do that deserves praise is their constant willingness to invite and host in New Zealand dissidents from countries who try and pressure us to lower our own standards of freedom of speech, to meet their own.

The Herald reports:

Exiled Chinese Muslim leader Rebiya Kadeer says she wants to “meet with the enemy” during her New Zealand visit.

“Change can only happen when you change the hearts and minds of those who oppose you,” she said as she arrived in Auckland yesterday for a four-day visit. …

China tried to stop Maori TV from screening a Kadeer biopic last month, and despite talks among some Chinese students about staging a protest at the airport yesterday, no one turned up.

“If the Chinese here learn that it is okay to protest peacefully, then they would have learned a valuable lesson about living in a democracy,” Ms Kadeer said.

Meanwhile, following “internal messages of protest” by university staff on the administration’s stopping Ms Kadeer from holding a public meeting on campus, law professor David Williams has invited her to speak at the law faculty at midday instead.

“I hope that university security personnel will not be called upon to prevent the exercise of free speech,” Professor Williams said. “Rebiya Kadeer is the sort of person whose voice needs to be listened to. Her voice should not be silenced in a university.”

Ms Kadeer was once a successful businesswoman in the northwest Xinjiang region but spent six years in jail after speaking out against Beijing.

China regards her as a criminal who orchestrated the ethnic violence in Xinjiang in July that left nearly 200 dead.

It is opposed to countries providing her with a platform to engage in anti-China separatist activities, a charge she rejects.

Her visit, as a guest of the Green Party, will include meetings with human rights groups, a visit to Parliament and meetings with MPs.

I hope that over time, China will realise it should just accept dissidents will criticise them, and stop trying to pressure other countries to silence them. It just results in their message getting more attention – not less.

I think Jonathan Coleman has made the wrong call here:

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman says there are no plans to review or change the Immigration Advisers Act, which makes it illegal for anyone who is an unlicensed immigration adviser to give any advice on immigration matters.

This means people who do not hold an immigration advisers licence can be prosecuted if they discuss, direct, assist, or even blog anything that can be constituted as immigration advice.

The intention of the Act was excellent – to deal to the shonky advisers who exploited migrants. But it seems to have massively over-reached.

Kiwi Immigration Watch, an immigration watchdog group headed by former United Future MP Bernie Ogilvy, says the act breaches the Bill of Rights and the basic human right to freedom of speech.

He wants the act to be scrapped or reviewed.

But Dr Coleman said the act had been passed with the support of all political parties in Parliament, and the question of whether it breached the right to freedom of speech was never raised.

“Part of the act’s passage was subject to expert scrutiny in terms of New Zealand’s human rights commitments,” he said.

“No inconsistency with those commitments was raised.”

That’s a process argument. I want to hear a common sense argument. Was it really the intention of Parliament that people offering their own experiences of immigration be banned from publishing those views on the Internet?

The Immigration Advisers Authority defines immigration advice as “using or purporting to use, knowledge of or experience in immigration to advise, direct, assist, or represent another person in regard to an immigration matter relating to New Zealand, whether directly or indirectly and whether or not for gain.”

The authority, which administers the act, has issued 18 warning letters since the law came into effect on May 4, and has warned one blogger, Helen Winterbottom, to stop posting immigration suggestions on her blog.

And this has a whiff of the EFA about it – a definition that is too widely reaching. The prohibition on giving advise, not for gain, seems to have little benefit and is what concerns me the most.

If I were to blog that prospective migrants to New Zealand should not joke on their interview forms about wanting to blow up Parliament on Guy Fawkes Day as in my experience that goes down badly, would that mean I breach the law?

At the least why doesn’t the Minister commission a review of the wording. Maybe ask the Human Rights Commission to consult with stakeholders on it, and see if a revised wording could still achieve the laudable aims of the Act, but lessen the impact on non-commercial personal advice.

The Herald reports:

A blogger who came to New Zealand from Britain has been warned to stop giving immigration advice on her blog – or face prosecution under the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act.

The Immigration Advisers Authority says Helen Winterbottom was breaking the law by posting on avalonsguide.com, and has told her she must get a licence if she wants to continue.

Yes Immigration advisers are now licenses, but those enforcing the law should be able to recognise the difference between someone who is in business charging fees for immigration advice, and a blogger talking about their immigration experiences online.

And if no such discretion is possible under the law, it is a damn stupid law that should be repealed.

Sadly it may not be the only one. The new regulating of financial advisers may also capture far more widely than intended, according to Stephen Franks.

But the former pharmacist said she was only “speaking her mind” on her blog, which she started last November, and did not have any intention of becoming an immigration adviser.

Ms Winterbottom said she did not have the written warning, but had been told by the authority that one of her blog entries broke the law.

“I can’t believe that in New Zealand we have a law that makes it a criminal offence to offer advice to someone,” she said. “It really takes away our basic right to freedom of speech.

“My blog is an immigration support forum, so discussing the topic openly is what we do, just like support forums for people who have a specific illness.

That sort of blog should be encouraged, not discouraged.

Mr Smedts said the act was in place to protect migrants from poor advice.

“If someone is giving immigration advice, they must be licensed, unless exempt.

“Helen Winterbottom has suggested in her blog on July 6 that she is exempt, but she does not fit any category of exemption that we are aware of.”

Lawyers, diplomats and MPs are exempt from licensing.

“If bloggers wish to continue writing about immigration issues, they need to consider if they are giving immigration advice as defined by the act,”Mr Smedts said.

“If the answer is yes, are they licensed or exempt, and if not, I recommend they either apply for a licence or invite a licensed adviser or exempt person to contribute to their blogs.”

My suggestion is every blogger in New Zealand starts giving immigration advice on their blogs, and we all appear in court together.

The Act may be well intentioned, but the vast majority of people realise that free advice on a blog or a forum, is just that – free advice. It is not official advice. It is not paid advice. It is not expert advice. It is people sharing experiences. Now the site does have an e-book available for sale but it appears to be a general read about why people should move to NZ etc.

I hope Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman investigates this situation, and if a law change is needed, promotes one. The Government does not want a blogger in court charged with the crime of talking about immigration issues.

The Economist reports:

BARELY two months into its six-month presidency of the European Union, Sweden’s government is entangled in a scrap with Israel. Because it pitches Swedes’ cherished free-speech principles against Middle Eastern sensibilities, it is loaded with a wearying sense of déjà vu—and a potential to escalate.

It started on August 17th when Aftonbladet, a Swedish tabloid, published an incendiary article claiming that Israeli soldiers had harvested the organs of some Palestinians whom they had shot. Within hours, Israel’s deputy foreign minister had denounced the article for racism and demanded that it be condemned by the Swedish government. …

Sweden’s ambassador in Tel Aviv obligingly called the article shocking. But she was countermanded by the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt. Israel, he wrote in his blog, wanted the Swedish government to distance itself from the article or take steps to prevent a replication, but that was not how the country worked. This robust defence of freedom of expression was endorsed by the prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt.

Matters quickly deteriorated. An internet campaign called for a boycott of Swedish companies, including IKEA and Volvo. A planned official visit by Mr Bildt to Israel may be under threat. Lawsuits have begun. And Sweden stands accused by prominent Israelis, including the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, of blood libel and anti-Semitism.

This has uncomfortable echoes of Denmark’s cartoon wars, started when a Danish newspaper published drawings of the prophet Muhammad in late 2005.

The article in the Swedish tabloid newspaper was racist and gross anti-semitism. It was designed to give credibility to the lies spread in many Middle East countries about Jews and organ harvesting.

The newspaper incidentally is owned by Swedish Trade Union Confederation and has a history of anti-semitic articles.

Now it is debatable about whether the Swedish Government should or should not condemn the article, but there is absolutely no way the Government should be trying to prevent the article, or be held responsible for the actions of the newspaper.

So the campaign against Sweden, and especially Swedish companies, is misguided and wrong. Do not hold a country responsible for the actions of one newspaper.

There are some parallels to the Danish cartoon controversy. The aspect in common is the misguided desire to punish an entire country for the editorial decisions of one newspaper.

But I have not seen any burning down of Swedish embassies or incitements to violence against Sweden.  A boycott campaign is not the same as death threats against journalists.

The Herald has an example of the media censorship now occurign in Fiji. It is like they are in Orwell’s 1984:

THE REAL STATEMENT

Statement by Commissioner Louis Michel on the situation in Fiji:

Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid, expressed deep regret and disappointment regarding recent regressive developments in Fiji; in particular the abrogation of the Constitution, the sacking of all judges, the delay of general elections until 2014 and the curtailment of freedom of speech.

Commissioner Michel said: “These developments are unacceptable for the international community. Commitments must be respected. An early and inclusive domestic political process leading to a return to constitutional order and democracy in Fiji will allow us to provide assistance to Fiji, at a time when global economic prospects are becoming increasingly difficult.”

THE CENSORED REPORT

EU ready to assist Fiji
Fiji’s largest donor the European Union has again extended a helping hand.

Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Aid, today said the EU wants to assist Fiji “at a time when global economic prospects are becoming increasingly difficult”.

The EU is looking to provide substantial financial support to rescue the sugar sector and help restore the economy.

Once again it does not matter how much one does or does not agree with the Commodore’s purported aims. This sort of censorship should and must be resisted. Media and press freedom is even more important than the right to vote in my books – the right to communicate, the right to just know the truth is paramount. A Government that arrests journalists (and bloggers if it could work out who they are) for reporting the truth has no redeeming qualities.

A great editorial from the Dom Post:

Despots and dictators are expected to come up with reasons to limit free speech. The United Nations isn’t.

That is why it is abhorrent that the UN’s top human rights body has approved a proposal urging countries to pass laws to protect religion from criticism. Its Human Rights Council voted to accept a resolution proposed by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference calling for a global fight against “defamation of religions”. It singles out Islam as a victim. “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism”, the resolution states.

The problem is the despots and dictators are all on the Human Rights Council. They see its job as to protect their rights to be despots and dictators.

It will have little practical impact in the West, because it will not be put into practice. However, it should not be ignored. Its critics which include a coalition of 186 secular, Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups rightly see it as an attempt to give legitimacy to the anti-blasphemy laws that theocratic Muslim regimes use to stifle dissent and persecute non-Muslims. It is born of the same philosophy that regarded it as appropriate to issue a fatwa in effect, a death sentence against author Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses, which was ruled to be blasphemy against Islam.

It is terrible that any country has a law that makes it a criminal offence to change your religion, let alone one carrying the death penalty.

It also, as the coalition has pointed out, alters the very notion of human rights. Those rights are meant to protect individuals from harm. They are not meant to protect beliefs from critical inquiry. The resolution, if taken seriously, would damage freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion in any country that adopted it, and that is why protests against it should be loud and long. Too often the West has mumbled, shuffled and looked the other way when its core values are attacked. It needs to take the same pride in the principles that underpin its culture as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference does in its, and push them with the same vigour. Freedom of speech is worth fighting for, rather than surrendering to those more determined in their world view.

I could not agree more. This is why every newspaper in the world should have published the Danish cartoons, rather than cower behind threats of violence and trade sanctions.

Back home in New Zealand, I would love to see the Government appoint a “Free Speech Commissioner” to the Human Rights Commission. Their job would be to fight against censorship, support a free media etc etc.

Against that background, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has made the right call in withdrawing New Zealand’s bid for a place on the Human Rights Council, freeing up a spot for the US. As Mr McCully observed when he announced the decision, “by any objective measure, membership of the council by the US is more likely to create positive changes more quickly than we could have hoped to achieve them”.

Even for a country with the diplomatic heft of the US, that is a big task. The council’s predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, dissolved because it had lost all credibility. The council is showing all the signs of going down the same shameful road.

Yes it was a good call, and yes Obama will probably fail also – but good on him for trying to save the Human Rights Council from indeed going down the same shameful path as its predecessor.

AP reports:

BANGKOK, Thailand – A few lines in a novel that sold just seven copies have earned an Australian writer three years in a Thai prison.

The conviction of Harry Nicolaides yesterday for insulting the monarchy is one of a recent flurry of such cases, underlining Thailand’s sensitivity about how to safeguard the royal institution when 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej – the world’s longest-serving head of state – passes from the scene.

Nicolaides, 41, was sentenced for insulting the king and Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn in his self-published 2005 book Verisimilitude, which he has said sold seven copies.

The Thai monarchy is in fact getting more and more involved in politics, which makes its exemption from criticism even more deplorable.

Sean Plunket expounds on why he is looking to leave Radio New Zealand:

Frosty relations between Plunket, 44, and his Radio New Zealand bosses came to a head when they refused to allow the broadcaster to host an election debate on TVNZ7.

An election debate on Internet issues of all things. Hardly a commercial threat to Radio NZ.

He believed appearing on the TVNZ show as a public broadcaster would only enhance the brand of Morning Report and Radio New Zealand.

Exactly. Exposure is good, if done in a complementary way. And this would have been very complementary.

Then in the full interview we get:

It’s not the first time he’s left a job on a matter of principle. In 1995 he quit the Holmes show over stories he was doing on New Zealand First allegedly using parliamentary staffing money to run the party.

Well some things do not change.

Plunket’s favourite fable is The Emperor’s New Clothes. The role of the journalist is to point out that the emperor is naked, he says, not to “weave the cloth that makes someone nude. The worse censorship is self-censorship within an organisation”.

Indeed, and within a country. Read this article in The Australian about losing the battle for free speech.

The Hive covers the jailing of Malaysian anti-Government blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin for two years.

Presumably MFAT will once again courageously monitor the situation, but not actually apply any pressure.

The bastards want to ban South Park!

Matthew Hooton asks if a re-elected Clark Government will abolish the free press. Now of course they will not abolish it, but as we have seen with the EFA one can generate a “chilling effect. And the Government is already consulting on whether the press council’s functions should be tranferred over to the Government appointed Broadcasting Standards Authority. Hooton make the following points:

• Helen Clark, of course, viciously attacked the media in her speech to the Journalism Education Association last year.
  
• She accused the New Zealand Herald of running a “full-blooded attack” on her Government and lamented that complaining to the Press Council “just doesn’t get you anywhere”, suggesting she wants other remedies available to her.
  
• Earlier, in 2006, Clark attacked the Sunday Star-Times for daring to run my fortnightly column, and Radio New Zealand National for my half hour a week politics slot with Laila Harre.
• Frighteningly, as part of her attack, she used a Maoist-sounding description – “the peoples’ radio” – to describe Radio New Zealand National, suggesting what she thinks the role of the public broadcaster should be and that providing a range of contestable opinions for listeners to consider is not part of it.
• Finance Minister Michael Cullen has threatened the New Zealand Herald with changes to its tax status if it didn’t change its position on taxation, and accused press gallery journalists of self interest in asking him questions about tax relief.
• Former Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey broke the law in trying to influence Radio New Zealand’s editorial content but, when challenged, said he would do it again.
• If it hadn’t been for the “chilling” Electoral Finance Act, it would be possible to dismiss speculation about a secret Labour agenda to control the press. But they did it for paid media. Why wouldn’t they extend that principle to unpaid media?

As I said above, there is already a consultation document on replacing the industry self-regulating Press Council with the Government appointed Broadcasting Standards Authority which could be given legislative control over broadcasters, print media and Internet media. I attended one of the meetings held to discuss this (I volunteered to be on the body of this new media overlord!).

And as Matthew says, who would have thought in 2005 that Labour would pass a law making it illegal for the EMA to run newspaper advertisements against changes to KiwiSaver by Trevor Mallard!

Some in NZ I am sure will want NZ to follow the EU in “voluntary” blog regulation.

From the Daily Telegraph:

It’s the same when it comes to the EU’s determination to clamp down on blogs. Eurocrats instinctively dislike spontaneous activity. To them, “unregulated” is almost synonymous with “illegal”. The bureaucratic mindset demands uniformity, licensing, order.

Eurocrats are especially upset because many bloggers, being of an anarchic disposition, are anti-Brussels. In the French, Dutch and Irish referendums, the MSM were uniformly pro-treaty, whereas internet activity was overwhelmingly sceptical.

Bruno Waterfield recently reported on a secret Commission report about the danger posed by online libertarians: “Apart from official websites, the internet has largely been a space left to anti-European feeling. Given the ability to reach an audience at a much lower cost, and given the simplicity of the No campaign messages, it has proven to be easily malleable during the campaign and pre-campaign period.”

The EU’s solution? Why, to regulate blogs!  Back in June (hat tip, EU Referendum), MEPs began to complain that unlicensed blogs were “polluting” cyberspace with “misinformation and malicious intent”. They wanted “a quality mark, a disclosure of who is writing and why”.

At the time, I dismissed it as the ramblings of a single dotty MEP. Not even the European Parliament, I thought, would actually try to censor the internet. I was wrong. We now have the full report and, sure enough, it wants to “clarify the status, legal or otherwise, of weblogs”, and to ensure their “voluntary labelling according to the professional and financial responsibilities and interests of their authors and publishers”.

Iain Dale also expounds:

We all know that ‘voluntary’ soon becomes ‘compulsory’. My label is the title of my blog. That is quite sufficient, and I don’t need some faceless Eurocrat to tell me otherwise.

And will it be adopted?

Europhiles will now, no doubt, accuse me of scaremongering, and point out that it’s only a Parliament proposal and has now to be agreed by the Commission and the Member States, and in all likelihood won’t get very far. I’m too old to fall for that old trick.

I wonder how long until we see such a proposal down under?

Hat Tip: No Minister

Homepaddock has the full range of “If leaders were cars“.

Karl du Fresne blogs on a forum on media reporting of challenging stories such as the N&S Asian Angst, the Clydesdale research on Pacific immigration and the Danish cartoons. Karl makes many excellent points including:

I also expressed my firm belief that in a liberal democracy, the right to freedom of expression is far more precious than the right of a minority – in this case the Muslim community – not to be offended.

I’m not even sure there is a right not to be offended. I can maybe accept a right not to be vilified, but that is a very different thing. And Karl nails it again:

The greatest threat to the healthy process of disclosure and debate that followed the Clydesdale story is the belief that the state must protect us from harmful ideas because we’re not mature and intelligent enough to deal with them. Underlying this is a fundamental distrust of democracy.

Trevor at New Zeal profiles the Trotskyist background of Andrew Geddis, the Labour/Green appointed Chair of the electoral reform expert panel. Andrew is an expert in the area of political financing, and very respected. But when appointments are made without bipartisan consultation, then the background of appointees come under great scrutiny. All Labour had to do was ask National and other parties if they agreed with the proposed appointees, or have any names of their own they wished to propose.

Stephen Franks blogs on how spin should not save crap managers, applying it to the party that has managed NZ’s military, SOEs, and hspitals for the last nine years. A good read.

Boing Boing reports that Iran is bringing in the death penalty for certain types of blogging.

Yes it will be a crime to establish a blog which disturbs mental security in society. Examples are promoting corruption, prostitution or apostasy. So athiests might be up for the chop.

The proposed Act lists such blogging amongst other crimes such as rape, armed robbery and kidnapping.

Now let me remind people that Iran is a member of the UN’s Human Rights Council. The one we are trying so hard to join. Now do you think that body will ever criticise Iran? Oh no.

Hat Tip: Larvatus Prodeo

Phil U at Whoar links to a story in in the Guardian about how a record number of bloggers are being arrested.

“Egypt, Iran and China are the most dangerous places to blog about political life, accounting for more than half of all arrests since blogging became big,” said Phil Howard, an assistant professor of communication at the university.

He believes that the figure of 36 may be a dramatic underestimate, because many arrests are never made public.

The full report reveals the average jail term is 15 months for bloggers.

The same report also looks at online political content (87 GB of it) by ideology of the arrested bloggers. They find:

1. Socialist 21%
2. Conservative 16%
3. Liberal 15%
4. Communist 4%
5. Islamic Fundamentalist 3%
6. Islamic Secular 3%

A disturbing case from Europe, where Seppo Lehto has been jailed for two years for hate speech, including violating religious sensibilities.

Now the man in question is an objectionable racist, He is an extremely offensive individual.

But just as I don’t support David Irving going to jail for denying the Holocaust, I don’t support Seppo Lehto going to jail for saying offensive things. I recall the words of Noam Chomsky who said something along the lines of there being no virtue in defending popular speech.

Unless the speech is directly inciting violence or criminal acts, it should not be a crime to say offensive things which upset religious sensitivities.