Friday, 9 October 2009

A blogger needs your moral support

I don't always support bloggers in libel cases, but I think my bete rouge deserves support:

Interestingly, the jury will be asked to rule on whether or not it is libellous to call somebody 'one cherry short of a Schwarzwalderkirschtorte'. Not my words, but those of a reader, left in the comments box. If I lose on that point, the consequences for internet freedom of speech are clearly considerable.


This is not a party political issue; indeed, the mighty bluerinse himself, Iain Dale, is appearing on Dave's behalf.

I wish Dave well, and I hope you will too.

4 comments:

JuliaM said...

Indeed!

*sigh* What happened to British justice?

Anonymous said...

You bloggers need to learn:

Insults and nasty comments do not a libel action make !!! Libel is about false statements of fact.

Don't let people push you around.

I reckon we need our own version of the EFF to stop this nonsense.

Aiden said...

Reading through Frau Kaschke's creepy little blog, including the German bits, leaves me with the feeling that Red Dave should be home and dry.

Appart from the threats of legal action for using any "words" from her blog or linking to pictures she admits she copied from Wikipedia, she is already appealing for cash to fight a list of libel cases she has started against UK bloggers and one against Der Spiegel, the biggest news magazine in Europe.

Good luck with that.

Although virtually unknown in Germany she is requesting German bloggers to provide details of any newspaper, Radio or TV articles referencing her in case she deems them worthy of a libel case too.

Pogo said...

In English law "Common abuse is neither libel nor slander" - it's effectively an absolute defence.