Doug
Ken Hanly wrote:
>It seems to me that in UK libel law it is even possible to be found guilty of
>libel even if what you say is true--under certain conditions of course.
> Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
>Nathan Newman wrote:
>
>> All of this, going back to past debates on free speech, is why I go for
>> absolutist positions on free speech, defending Nazis et al, since one of the
>> hardest fought victories in US politics has been the elimination of most
>> criminal and civil threats to unpopular speech. "Free speech" may not be
>> the ideal when broadcasting it costs so much, but it is far better than the
>> libel and other laws in Europe that do little to suppress rightwing
>> attitudes (see Haider in Austria), but is used quite regularly to suppress
>> left dissent as in this case. And I say that not agreeing with LM's
>> political position on the former Yugoslavia.
>>
>> Despite the general rightwing swing of the US courts, broad free speech
>> protections, including limits on libel and other civil attacks on free
>> speech and press, have largely survived in the courts. There are few areas
>> where US law is far superior to other countries, but our press laws are one
>> of them.
>>
>> -- Nathan Newman
>>
>> On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
>> >
>> > THE TEARS OF THE MIGHTY
>> > by Jared Israel (3-15-00)
>> >
>> > A grim miscarriage of justice has just occurred in Britain.
>> >
>> > Living Marxism, the iconoclastic magazine edited by Mike Hume, was found
>> > guilty of libel against ITN, the British news station.
>> >
>> > Living Marxism has been ordered to pay $580,000 U.S. This punishment is
>> > an
>> > attempt to crush the Living Marxism (LM) journalists for doing their
>> > job. In
>> > this article, I'll discuss the background of the case and take a look at
>> > a
>> > truly amazing Reuters dispatch about the verdict.
>> >
>> > FIRST, SOME BACKGROUND
>> >
>> > In 1992, ITN, the British news station, sent a film team to Bosnia. It
>> > was
>> > led by Penny Marshall. The ITN people came back with what was supposedly
>> > a
>> > film of a Serbian concentration camp. A death camp, if you will.
>> >
>> > Or will you? A death camp? What is wrong with this story? First off, how
>> > did
>> > Penny Marshall and an entire film crew get into a Serbian death camp and
>> > shoot a film? Didn't somebody have to transport the crew members plus a
>> > mountain of equipment? Didn't somebody have to show them around, feed
>> > them?
>> > The crew needed time to set up their cameras and so on. How did they do
>> > all
>> > this without getting caught? Did they parachute out of the sky? I mean
>> > seriously, didn't they need the cooperation of the administration of the
>> > so-called death camp?
>> >
>> > They did.
>> >
>> > But why would the Serbian authorities want to help? Were they morons?
>> > Didn't
>> > they know the West was hostile to the Bosnian Serbs? Weren't they
>> > attacked
>> > every day in the British press? Wasn't the Islamist leader, Izetbegovic,
>> > treated as a hero? Knowing ITN was probably anti-Serb, why would the
>> > Serbs
>> > let an ITN crew in to film - a death camp?
>> >
>> > Could it be that the place they filmed was not a death camp? That the
>> > Bosnian
>> > Serbs let in Penny Marshall and her film crew precisely because they had
>> > nothing ugly to hide.
>> >
>> > A LUCKY BREAK...
>> >
>> > Fortunately we don't have to speculate. By coincidence, a group of
>> > Serbian
>> > filmmakers accompanied the ITN crew that day. The Serbs shot a movie -
>> > that's
>> > right, they literally shot a movie - of Penny Marshall and company
>> > shooting
>> > their movie. The Serbian film can be viewed on a standard VCR. I have
>> > watched
>> > it several times. In other words, I have seen a movie that shows every
>> > move
>> > Penny Marshall made that day.
>> >
>> > I know that the ITN crew shot at two locations. I know that the first
> > > was a
>> > detention center at Omarsk; the second was a refugee center at
>> > Trnopolje.
>> >
>> > The Omarsk detention center: not ready for prime time...
>> >
>> > The Omarsk detention center was a modern facility, pleasant, not at all
>> > like
>> > a jail. Before the war it had been a mining company's administrative
>> > center.
>> > There, prisoners of war, captured from the Bosnian Islamist army, were
>> > held.
>> > The men were not shackled; they were not behind bars. Rather, they
>> > lounged in
>> > a cafeteria area. They looked well fed. The Serbian guards were casual.
>> > A
>> > Serbian administrator (later shot dead by NATO troops while fishing with
>> > his
>> > son) made a little speech. He explained that the Serbs viewed most of
>> > the
>> > prisoners as good people who had been suckered into supporting 'the
>> > rebellion', the secessionist revolt against Yugoslavia. He said only a
>> > small
>> > group was hard core. The Serbs wanted to keep the hard core in jail but
>> > let
>> > the others go.
>> >
>> > So here wa a real, live Serbian detention center. But Penny Marshall
>> > didn't
>> > use any of this footage.
>> >
>> > Why?
>> >
>> > Because it didn't have the look she was looking for.
>> >
>> > FEEDING REFUGEES AND OTHER ATROCITIES...
>> >
>> > The ITN crew moved on to the refugee center at Trnopolje. They set up
>> > their
>> > camera equipment inside a small barbed wire enclosure. The barbed wire
>> > was
>> > old, falling apart in places. It surrounded a storage shed, a
>> > wheelbarrow and
>> > other construction equipment. Outside the enclosure, refugees milled
>> > about,
>> > curious.
>> >
>> > Filming from inside the barbed wire, Marshall asked if anyone spoke
>> > English.
>> > One man replied, Yes. Marshall spoke to him. Are you a prisoner? No,
>> > said the
>> > man; we're refugees. Marshall was clearly impatient. She pressed the man
>> > to
>> > criticize the Serbian officials. The man insisted: the Serbs treat us
>> > well;
>> > they give us food; the only problem is the weather is too hot. Much too
>> > hot.
>> >
>> > Then Marshall spotted a tall, emaciated man. What is wrong with that
>> > man, she
>> > asked. The Bosnian refugee shrugged, said something about it being
>> > personal.
>> > (In fact the emaciated man was suffering from TB.)
>> >
>> > EDITING TO MAKE A STATEMENT
>> >
>> > None of this conversation was used by ITN. Why not? Was it because it
>> > showed
>> > the Bosnian Serbs in a humane light?
>> >
>> > Instead, ITN produced film clips and stills that made it look like the
>> > emaciated man and the other refugees were being held behind barbed wire
>> > -
>> > inside an enclosure. These pictures were sent around the world. Many
>> > newspapers ran them in montage with old Nazi concentration camp photos,
>> > using
>> > captions like:"Serb Death Camps!"
>> >
>> > Millions were fooled. They believed they had been shown pictorial
>> > evidence of
>> > a new Nazism in Europe. This helped swing Western public opinion behind
>> > Alija
>> > Izetbegovic, the Bosnian Islamist extremist whose model of tolerance was
>> > the
>> > Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini.
>> >
>> > DAVID TAKES ON GOLIATH
>> >
>> > LM, a brave little British magazine, exposed this fraud. A link to that
>> > exposé is posted below. Amazingly, they were sued by ITN for slander. A
>> > news
>> > station slanders the Bosnian Serbs and then sues a muckraking magazine
>> > for
>> > slander? I thought news stations were supposed to protect us from
>> > establishment lies? I thought they were supposed to get sued for libel -
>> > that
>> > they opposed such law suits on principle
>> >
>> > Not in this brave new world.
>> >
>> > Today we learned that ITN has won. Apparently, instead of focusing on
>> > the
>> > real evidence - the uncut footage of the film - the trial was dominated
>> > by
>> > the testimony of a witness who claimed the Serbs beat people at this
>> > "concentration camp." Alas, false witness is a commodity in the free
>> > marketplace of our brave new world, especially when one has the
>> > resources of
>> > the giant corporations that control the media in the NATO countries.
>> > Money
>> > buys lies. Moreover, LM was prevented from presenting expert witnesses.
> > > And
>> > in his final comments, the judge apparently sided with ITN.
>> >
>> > COMPOUNDING A LIE
>> >
>> > Below I've posted a link to the Reuters story covering this verdict. You
>> > will
>> > notice that Reuters never mentions what was said in the Living Marxism
>> > exposé. It never mentions that ITN shot pictures from inside a barbed
>> > wire
>> > enclosure and then claimed the people in the film were "behind barbed
>> > wire."
>> > Instead it simply asserts that Trnopolje was a concentration camp as if
>> > that
>> > assertion were a proven fact.
>> >
>> > So then, ITN sues to silence freedom of speech - freedom of speech which
>> > was
>> > here used in the most honorable way, to challenge the lies of the
>> > mighty. ITN
>> > wins. LM is crushed for telling the truth.
>> >
>> > And what does Reuters do? It uses the occasion to once again broadcast
>> > the
>> > very lie that Living Marxism got sued for disproving! Truly beyond
>> > belief.
>> >
>> > Playing for effect
>> >
>> > One final point. In the new journalism, emotions are shamelessly
>> > exploited
>> > for political effect. Consider this from the Reuters story:
>> >
>> > "Marshall, wiping tears from her eyes, said the judgment was 'important
>> > for
>> > the people who were in the camp.'" (Reuters, 3/124/00)
>> > This is a crass emotional lie. Consider: Marshall, in reality the
>> > representative of great power, is presented as frail, in need of
>> > protection
>> > (the weeping woman). By focusing our attention on her tears
>> > (vulnerability)
>> > Reuters engages our emotions and suspends our disbelief. Penny Marshall
>> > has
>> > been made real to us precisely the way a fictional character is made
>> > real -
>> > we identify with her emotions. Having identified with her, having
>> > suspended
>> > disbelief, we tend to receive with scant skepticism her comment that:
>> >
>> > " the judgment was 'important for the people who were in the camp."
>> > How clever! A fiction within a fiction. Reuters has made up a weak,
>> > defenseless Penny Marshall that we can believe in - the real P. Marshall
>> > is
>> > backed by the most powerful forces in Britain - and likewise Marshall
>> > has her
>> > own little fiction. For she has invented the Bosnian victims in that
>> > non-existent 'death camp' where refugees came for food and where the
>> > only
>> > complaint was 'the weather is too hot.'
>> >
>> > No similar emotional pitch is made for the LM people. Marshall comes
>> > alive
>> > but they lie flat. And LM, which dared defend the victims of Ms.
>> > Marshall's
>> > lies - LM that has been crushed under an impossible financial burden -
>> > LM
>> > comes off as - a bully!
>> >
>> > Unbelievable.
>> >
>> > LET'S STOP BEATING AROUND THE BUSH, SHALL WE?
>> >
>> > Why didn't Britain just launch a missile attack on the LM offices like
>> > the
>> > one where they killed those dangerous reporters and makeup girls at
>> > Serbian
>> > TV, and get it over with? Hmmm? Afterwards, the media could endlesly
>> > repeat,
>> > like a mantra, that the LM people were lying propagandists who had
>> > accidentally died as collateral damage in a revenge attack for which the
>> > finger of responsibility must in the end ultimately and totally point
>> > to...
>> > Slobodan Milosevich.
>> >
>> > Lady's and gentlemmn, this is Jared Israel signing off, and that's show
>> > business.
>> >
>> > Ms. Marshall is still weeping? Of course Ms. Marshall is weeping. She's
>> > weeping all right, she's weeping all the way to the bank.
>> >
>> > Let's hope there's a Hell.
>> >
>> > ***
>> >
>> > Further reading on the Libel case...
>> >
>> > * 'English Libel law, a Disgrace to Democracy' by Mike Hume, editor of
>> > LM
>> > magazine. Mr. Hume remains defiant, and is looking for a job. Also, for
>> > those
>> > near London, details of an after-the-trial party, March 18th.
>> > http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/hume/english.htm
>> >
>> > "The Truth vs. ITN - And Reuters" Includes the original LM article, over
>> > which ITN sued, and the Reuters article on the trial.
>> > http://www.emperors-clothes.com/images/bosnia/camp.htm
>> >
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