Bloggers get ‘fake sheikh’ writs, too
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 6 April 2006 at 14:31
Tags: Blogs, Contempt of Court, Freedom of Expression, Injunctions, Journalism, Media Law, News of the World, copyright
Bloggers who published the pictures of News of the World investigations editor Mazher Mahmood that George Galloway distributed earlier this week have been hit with the same injunction that other media, including Press Gazette, received from Screws lawyers on Tuesday.
Journalist Alex Hilton, who blogs under the name Recess Monkey, removed the picture from his web site after receiving the injunction, but has posted a version of the image digitally altered to show Mahmood disguised as Che Guevarra.
Pseudonymous blogger Guido Fawkes has also received the writ, but is also displaying some doctored versions of the image, saying that he “just can’t be bothered with this injunction malarkey”.
Another blogger, Tim Ireland, has already developed an online game, Sheikh Invaders, mocking the tabloid’s attempt to gag the blogosphere. Players zap Mahmoods flying through space.
Other bloggers are engaged in a civil disobedience campaign against the injunction, with some setting up new blogs in the United States or other jurisdictions outside the court’s immediate reach.
A temporary extention to the 24-hour injunction, which Mahmood’s learned friends obtained to buy time for an appeal, is due to expire at 4pm today. Galloway — and presumably an army of bloggers — is expected to publish the picture online, although the News of the World has again appealed to the media not to use the images. This clearly won’t impress some bloggers who hold Mahmood with contempt.
The episode shows how the Internet is making a nonsense of traditional legal mechanisms for controlling the spread of information. It is the second time in a month that the News of the World has learned this the hard way. Remember Ashley Cole?
