‘Fake sheikh’ gag order lifted

Posted by Martin Stabe on 6 April 2006 at 17:41
Tags: Blogs, Ethics, Injunctions, Investigations, Journalism, Media Law, News of the World

At 4pm today, the News of the World’s injunction against publishing pictures of its undercover investigations editor, Mazher Mahmood, was lifted.

MP George Galloway promises to publish the photograph on his web site, and many others have, as well. The Guardian has published the pictures, distributed by Galloway on Tuesday, it on its web site.

But even before the injunction was lifted, the image was widely available online. A number of bloggers received the Screws’ writ, but some chose to ignore or satirise it in one way or another. Tim Ireland created a video game, Sheikh Invaders, using with the image. Some bloggers published the image in other jurisdictions.

One bloggers who openly violated the injunction, Guido Fawkes, today reflected:

Guido wonders can gagging injunctions work in a world with millions of citizen publishers? Secrets are difficult to keep when one person can broadcast to the world. Interesting.

Another blogger, one of a number who pledged to violate the injunction even if the Screws had pursued its planned appeal to extend the gag, is less than impressed with us in the MSM:

I was riled enough when our supine press wouldn’t publish the Danish cartons … as I felt it was a sad reflection on the belief systems adopted throughout journalism: exceptions to the rule as ever but we have a dead-tree media that relies on famous people for nothing stories, photo’s and tittle-tattle gossip to sell their publications.

The NOTW has successfully requested an injunction forbidding the publication of photographs of a man who makes money from dressing up and elicting information under false pretences. That ‘newspaper’ and its sister titles should be boycotted for being so spineless. They are continuing to pursue Guido and Galloway.

Another blogger was outraged into posting several Mahmood pictures when he received a rather firm e-mail allegedly from Zak Newland, the News of the World’s Night News Editor:

There is currently a High Court injunction in place banning the publication of the photos of Mazher Mahmood which you have posted on your webpage. I have passed the link to your webpage on to News International lawyer Tom Crone.

One blogger defending Mahmood and disagreeing with other bloggers’ decision to publish his picture was journalist Paul Linford.

Linford says the campaign to out Mahmood was “spearheaded by an unholy alliance of George Galloway, the most ridiculous man in British politics, and Roy Greenslade, the most ridiculous man in British journalism.”

Galloway and Greenslade, Linford argues, “want to neuter investigative journalism and remove the threat that it presents to those who abuse their positions of privilege and power?”

“This attack on Mazher Mahmood is nothing less than an attack on journalism and an attack on freedom,” Linford says.

Is it?

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?