Monthly Archives: November 2012

Escondidos recent settlement of a free speech lawsuit could become a model for how law enforcement agencies across the nation handle protests at traffic safety checkpoints, several attorneys said this week.

The settlement, which was reached last week by Escondido and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, vindicates free speech rights by establishing that opponents can protest and film the controversial checkpoints.

But the settlement also allows police to prohibit protestors and other people from entering an operational buffer zone police say they need to safely and efficiently conduct the checkpoints, where drivers are stopped and asked to show their licenses and vehicle registrations.

City Attorney Jeff Epp said the settlement, which limits the size of the buffer zone to a maximum of 15 feet, should be held up as a model of compromise between the needs of law enforcement and the importance of government transparency and accountability.

David Loy, legal director for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, agreed that the settlement should be viewed as a model.

I would think other law enforcement agencies would look at this case as the right way to respect free speech, Loy said this week.

Other high-profile free speech attorneys agreed.

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, said the settlement was the first time a city had addressed the rights of protestors at checkpoints, which have become more common in California and across the nation in recent years.

It sets no legally binding precedent, but I suspect that it might influence future decisions, Volokh said, noting that limiting the police buffer zone to 15 feet could become a model. This could provide a legal roadmap.

Guylyn Cummins, a San Diego attorney focused on media law and First Amendment issues, said the settlement clarifies that police must respect the rights of people who want to observe their work, including the media.

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Escondido checkpoint settlement may set free-speech standard

05 Nov 2012

Greek Journalist Kostas Vaxevani after his arrest for exposing alleged tax cheats Athens Stathis Kalligeris | Demotix

The European Union has a duty to speak out against increasing censorship, writes Rohan Jayasekera

It was disappointing to see the European Union reacting so slowly in the days following the arrest of Greek investigative journalist Kostas Vaxevanis. The EU and its executive Commission (EC) frequently steps up to defend free media in Europe and in the neigbourhood states Middle East and East European nations with EU commitments, or membership aspirations.

So Index on Censorship and nine other freedom of expression rights defenders across Europe & the region, all members of the IFEX network, wrote on 5 November to remind the Union that under the Lisbon Treaty, compliance with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is legally binding on EU members. This includes the right to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers, and the obligation that that the freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.

Even the EU itself says it must be exemplary in enabling its citizens to enjoy the rights enshrined in the Charter and build mutual trust, public confidence and improve credibility of EU external action on human rights. In fact the EC had been relatively forthright when member state Hungary introduced new and restrictive media legislation last year. The ECs reluctance in this case when the Union has more at stake will surprise few and disappoint many.

Vaxevanis walked free from an Athens court last week after naming alleged account holders in an offshore bank that had been protected from tax investigation for two years. He walked free from an Athens court last week after but another journalist, Spiros Karatzaferis, still faces trial on an old, unrelated criminal libel charge after claiming he would publish classified files on Greeces financial bailout.

Appeal to EU Institutions to Defend Free Expression in Greece

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INDEX Q&A: Its not easy being Green for US third party candidateInternet freedom? Not in Azerbaijan

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Greece: Europe must defend free speech

Christine Ritter, Naples

Signs

Once again, someone stole my Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan sign from my front yard.

I thought America was a free country where we had free speech and could fight for the people we believed in. Did we lose this right in the last four years?

We also had freedom of religion and the choice to believe what we wanted. We were a proud country, and the world looked up to us.

I am proud to be an American and believe in the right to free speech and religion. I had the opportunity to come to Naples in 1965 with nothing; and through my own hard work, built a comfortable life.

I want all our grandchildren to have the same right. Be proud to be an American, with the advantages this great country gives.

Please vote to keep American free.

We need change to bring American back to her greatness. No excuses.

Signs in our yards are part of our free speech. Don't steal our signs!

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Letter: Signs

The so-called "fighting season" is over and an Afghan leader's fancy can turn to antagonizing his American patrons for amusement over the cold winter months.

Sure, NATO soldiers, the bulk of them Americans, will be fighting and dying to protect his government in Kabul even as winter embraces Afghanistan, but President Hamid Karzai will probably get even more latitude than normal for airing his views. This is among his favorite times of year to lash out at the Western powers who have given so much so that he can lead Afghanistan. Last October, he said Afghanistan would back Pakistan if the US ever ended up going to war with Afghanistan's neighbor. In April 2010, he sought to blame the UN and the EU for Afghanistan electoral fraud.

This time, Mr. Karzai is unhappy about the International Crisis Group, probably the world's leading think tank when it comes to unbiased, factual reporting on conflict (full disclosure; I briefly worked on contract for ICG 12 years ago helping to write a report on religious wars in eastern Indonesia). The Brussels-based research organization receives much of its funding from the European Union and the US, but has established a reputation for independent analysis in its 17 years of work.

How well do you know Afghanistan? Take our quiz.

Earlier today, a Karzai spokesman said the government was investigating the ICG for possible legal action, complaining that "the ICG reports and activities have been politically motivated" and that "it is detrimental to Afghanistan's national interests and no country will allow such activities by a foreign organisation."

What has so upset Karzai, who returned to power in a fraud-riddled election in 2009 (Afghan elections in general are driven by vote-buying, intimidation, and stuffed ballot boxes)? Well, the ICG had the temerity to suggest in October that Afghanistan is an unstable place that could easily descend into widespread civil war again. As the first sentence of the ICG's executive summary had it: "Plagued by factionalism and corruption, Afghanistan is far from ready to assume responsibility for security when U.S. and NATO forces withdraw in 2014."

That is as uncontroversial a sentence about the current reality of Afghanistan as one could concoct. That the country is one of the most corrupt in the world, enabled by the billions of aid money and reconstruction spending that sloughed through Kabul over the past decade, is not an opinion. It's a fact. That Afghan government security forces have consistently failed at demonstrating they can operate on their own is likewise not open to interpretation; the Afghan National Army's operations rely on a $4 billion annual subsidy from the US, and the US military continues to run logistics for the Afghans.

The ICG also reported that "there are alarming signs Karzai hopes to stack the deck for a favoured proxy" before scheduled 2014 presidential elections, when Karzai will be term-limited out. The Afghan president might not like this being discussed, but fraud and vote-buying are practically the whole point of the Afghan electoral process.

While the State Department and other government-affiliated agencies like to talk about the wonders of Afghan voting, as if there's merit in the simple act itself, voting in the country has been largely drained of any democratic meaning since backroom deals between warlords and fraudulent counts are where the rubber hits the road.

So, the ICG is only telling the truth. But it now faces sanction for truth-telling, by the very man who the US installed as leader of Afghanistan at such great cost in blood and treasure. And that is the broader context.

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Aghanistan's Karzai back to antagonizing the US and attacking free speech

Published: Nov. 6, 2012 at 10:52 AM

GENEVA, Switzerland, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Freedom of expression is a basic right though national laws must be crafted carefully to prevent incitements to violence, a U.N. official said from Geneva.

Human Rights Watch in recent weeks issued statements condemning Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for prosecuting individuals based on comments made on social media websites. Last week, the organization called on Riyadh to free a citizen held since April for posting statements seen as critical of the Prophet Mohammad.

Frank La Rue, U.N. special envoy on freedom expression, said restrictions on free expression should be enforced only in extreme circumstances.

"States must invest more in the promotion of human rights education and must continuously promote open public debate as the best antidote to combat discriminatory patterns," he said in a statement. "Laws to combat hate speech must be carefully construed and applied by the judiciary so as to avoid excessively curtailing legitimate types of expression."

Similar concerns were expressed in September following the online broadcast of a film clip produced in the United States seen as insulting to Islam. The film sparked widespread violence across much of the Middle East, prompting security alerts from the U.S. government.

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Curbing free speech extreme, U.N. says