Free The Heretical Two

“Hacktivists ransack Hitler defender’s email: Self-proclaimed anti-fascist hackers have struck a major blow at controversial World War II historian David Irving by taking down two of his websites and publishing scores of his emails and private information. The 16,000-word missive posted to Wikileaks contains the names and contact details of supporters of Irving, who – among other things – claims that Adolf Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust. It also includes passwords for accounts Irving used to receive email, administer his websites, and process online purchases of his books and tickets. Its posting over the weekend coincided with the outage of his two websites, Irvingbooks.com and Focal Point Magazine. … The contents from Irving’s America Online email account showed contemporaneous messages with supporters and assistants as Irving toured the United States promoting his latest book. Many of the emails reveal locations of appearances that were generally kept secret until just hours before they were to begin. “We trust you to keep this location confidential,” the messages conclude. Irving avoided wide disclosure of the locations to prevent the events from being disrupted by protesters. On Friday, Irving had to cancel a talk in New York City that had been reserved under the name “Michael Singer”. When the venue learned Irving planned to speak, it revoked permission, according to Tablet Magazine. Many messages list the names, contact details, and donation amounts of Irving supporters. Others, such as an email Irving sent a supporter in late October, reveal tensions during his recent tour. “I am sorry to inform you that we cannot allow your attendance at my future events,” Irving wrote. “Among your guests, it appears, were some who caused a serious affray and damage to hotel property.” The intercepted communications also include bank identifier codes Irving used when wiring money.”

Want to read Irving’s private e-mail? Here it is. Now you don’t have to wonder why contributors to freethehereticaltwo.com use stupid fake names like “Juror 02.” We Jurors like being able to hold down jobs, pay our bills, raise our families – things that the noble anti-fascists need to stop so we will have to pay the high price for our free speech.

Arabs charged over Dutch cartoon

(source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8234359.stm)

An Arab organisation is to be put on trial in the Netherlands over its publication of a cartoon deemed offensive to Jews, prosecutors say.

The cartoon, published by the Arab European League (AEL) on its website, questions the Holocaust.

It said the decision to prosecute illustrated bias against Muslims.

It said the same standards were not applied to the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who made a film including cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Last month prosecutors said they would not put the far-right MP on trial for distributing the controversial Danish cartoons, which caused a storm of protest after their publication in 2005.

Freedom of expression is only a pretext to make life bitter for Muslims

However, he is still being investigated separately for inciting hatred against Muslims by making statements comparing Islam to Nazism.

But Dutch prosecutors said the AEL cartoon was “discriminatory” and “offensive to Jews as a group… because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion”.

The cartoon shows two men standing near a pile of bones at “Auswitch” (sic). One says “I don’t think they’re Jews”.

The other replies: “We have to get to the six million somehow.”

A spokeswoman for the prosecuting authority said the group could be fined up to 4,700 euros (£4,100), though in theory a prison sentence was also possible.

‘Perverse’

AEL chairman Abdoulmouthalib Bouzerda said the charges proved “what Muslims have been saying for decades”.

“Freedom of expression is only a pretext to make life bitter for Muslims… and if [they] try to bring this hypocrisy to light, that right is denied them.”

The AEL says it does not deny the facts of the Holocaust but posted the cartoon as an “act of civil disobedience”.

It said it had agreed to remove it from its site, but reversed that decision to protest over the failure to prosecute Geert Wilders.

“Double standards are being applied,” it said in a statement.

But Jewish groups said it was not reasonable for the group to express its opposition to alleged bias against Muslims, by attacking Jews.

Ronny Naftaniel of the Center for Documentation on Israel, said: “Imagine if Dutch Jews insulted Muslims every time they heard an anti-Semitic remark. What kind of perverse world would we be living in?”

Tensions over the Netherlands’ Muslim population have increased in recent years, notably since the killing of a controversial film-maker by a Muslim extremist in 2004.

via BBC NEWS | Europe | Arabs charged over Dutch cartoon.

Another UK case, currently in the courts, is the case of the scientist Simon Singh. This case has received much press and blog coverage, unlike the Heretical Two…

From Wikipedia:

On 19 April 2008, Singh wrote an article in the The Guardian, which resulted in him being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association. When the case was first brought against him, The Guardian supported him and funded his legal advice, as well as offering to pay the BCA’s legal costs in an out-of-court settlement if Singh chose to settle. The suit is ongoing, with Singh stating that he will “contest the action vigorously… There is an important issue of freedom of speech at stake.”

The article developed the theme of the recently published book by Singh and Edzard Ernst, Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial, and made various statements about the usefulness of chiropractic “for such problems as ear infections and infant colic“:

“You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.”

On Thursday 7 May 2009, a preliminary hearing took place at the Royal Courts of Justice in front of Mr Justice Eady. The judge held that merely using the phrase “happily promotes bogus treatments” meant that he was stating, as a matter of fact, that the British Chiropractic Association was being consciously dishonest in promoting chiropractic for treating the children’s ailments in question. Singh has denied he intended any such meaning and that such an interpretation makes it very difficult for him to fight his case in court as he had planned: “If we go to trial it’s almost impossible for me to defend the article, because it’s something I never meant in the first place.”

Singh’s campaign team announced via its Facebook group on 4 June 2009 that Singh had resolved to make an appeal against Mr Justice Eady’s ruling. This decision raises substantially the potential financial liability that Singh may face personally if he loses the case.

Some commentators have suggested this ruling could set a precedent to restrict freedom of speech to criticise alternative medicine.^[15][16] An editorial in Nature commented on the case, and suggested that the BCA may be trying to suppress debate and that this use of British libel law is a burden on the right to freedom of expression, which is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.^[17]

The Wall Street Journal Europe has cited the case as an example of how British libel law “chills free speech”, commenting that:

“Mr. Singh is unlikely to be the last victim of Britain’s libel laws. Settling scientific and political disputes through lawsuits, though, runs counter the very principles that have made Western progress possible. ‘The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error,’ Bertolt Brecht wrote in The Life of Galileo… It is time British politicians restrain the law so that wisdom prevails in the land, and not errors.’… the U.S. Congress is considering a bill that would make British libel judgments unenforceable in the U.S.”

The charity Sense About Science has launched a campaign to draw attention to the case. They have issued a statement entitled “The English law of libel has no place in scientific disputes about evidence”, which has been signed by myriad individuals representing science, journalism, publishing, arts, humanities, entertainment, skeptics, campaign groups and law. As of July 27, 2009, over 15,000 have signed. Many press sources have covered the issue.

The publicity produced by the libel action has led to formal complaints of false advertising being made against more than 500 individual chiropractors within one 24 hour period, prompting the McTimoney Chiropractic Association to write to its members advising them to remove leaflets that make claims about whiplash and colic from their practice, to be wary of new patients and telephone inquiries, and telling their members: “If you have a website, take it down NOW.” and “Finally, we strongly suggest you do NOT discuss this with others, especially patients[.]“

For whatever good they do, if any, there is a petition online.