British libel laws violate human rights, says UN

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Human rights committee says UK laws block matters of public interest and encourage libel tourism

* Duncan Campbell
* guardian.co.uk,
* Thursday August 14 2008 13:27 BST

Britain's libel laws have come under attack from the United Nations committee on human rights for discouraging coverage of matters of major public interest. The use of the Official Secrets Act to deter government employees from raising important issues has also been criticised.

The intervention by the UN comes in the wake of international disquiet over the use of British courts for "libel tourism", whereby wealthy plaintiffs can sue in the high court in London over articles that would not warrant an action in their own country.

The criticisms are made as part of the committee's concluding observations on the report submitted by the UK on civil and political rights. UN member states are required to submit reports on human rights in their jurisdictions every three years.

The committee warns that the British libel laws have "served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as libel tourism".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/14/law.unitednations

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1. The heart of the rotten core:

Blackout in Britain
Alleged Pedophiles Helm Blair's War Room
by MIKE JAMES

CounterPunch

January 29, 2003

A child-sex scandal that threatened to destroy Tony Blair's government last week has been mysteriously squashed and wiped off the front pages of British newspapers. Operation Ore, the United Kingdom's most thorough and comprehensive police investigation of crimes against children, seems to have uncovered more than is politically acceptable at the highest reaches of the British elite. In the 19th of January edition of The Sunday Herald, Neil Mackay sensationally reported that senior members of Tony Blair's government were being investigated for paedophilia and the "enjoyment" of child-sex pornography:

"The Sunday Herald has also had confirmed by a very senior source in British intelligence that at least one high-profile former Labour Cabinet minister is among Operation Ore suspects. The Sunday Herald has been given the politician's name but, for legal reasons, can not identify the person.

There are still unconfirmed rumours that another senior Labour politician is among the suspects. The intelligence officer said that a 'rolling' Cabinet committee had been set up to work out how to deal with the potentially ruinous fall-out for both Tony Blair and the government if arrests occur."

The allegations are the most serious yet levelled at an administration that prides itself on the inclusion in its ranks of a high quota of controversial and flamboyant homosexual men, and whose First Lady, Cherie Blair, has come under the spotlight for her indulgence in pagan rituals that resemble Freemasonic rites. Unconfirmed information also suggests that the term "former Labour Cabinet minister" is misleading and that the investigation has identified a surprisingly large number of alleged paedophiles at the highest level of British government, including one very senior cabinet minister

http://www.counterpunch.org/james01292003.html