The Wardman Wire

Heave-Ho Harry’s Place

Here we go again; another random party using our atrocious Libel Laws to close down criticism and debate. In this case it appears to be Sheffield Academic Jenna Delich, or her supporters, making legal noises to intimidate the iSP hosting the blog Harry’s Place.

Harry’s Place comments:

Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.

This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Duke’s website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain.

They committed the unforgiveable sin of “publishing a fact”, which means that any Libel Case is down the toilet for a start - if my legal head is screwed-on correctly tonight. And any iSP should know that, but the law makes it easier to give in. If allegation is not correct (I think it looks fine), then they (and the rest of us) may be skewered.

Leftish imbroglios and nuances are not my strong suit - but closing down debate by running squealing to an iSP using Britain’s nonsensical Libel Laws is the best way to make yourself look ridiculous.

The actors in this case: Jenna Delich is an activist with a bee in her bonnet for the campaign for an Academic Boycott of Israel, and the UCU is one of the main Unions for staff in Higher Education.

The Articles about Jenna Delich on Harry’s Place

You can read an archive of the articles about Jenna Delich at the backup blog. I have a local copy here (there may be problems with the Style Sheet, so treat this as a last resort).

Hip-Hip Harry

The Very Public Sociologist has a decent brief summary (with lots of comments, and the formatting of my quote is slightly off - sorry as time is short tonight):

HP is under attack - and not for the first time. The (hopefully) temporary stand-in while HP is off the air takes up the story:

Harry’s Place may be removed (or rather have it’s DNS disabled) after a ‘complaint’ to the company that our domain name is registered with. We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this ‘complaint’ originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters. Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory. This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain. Nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made to the company hosting our DNS.

More background is available courtesy of Modernity Blog here, here and here.

More from Engage Online:

Harry’s Place, the website which published the fact that the University and College Union (UCU) had circulated an antisemitic link from David Duke’s website is currently offline. Its web service provider has been threatened with a libel suit and it has responded by suspending Harry’s Place.

This follows the advice circulated by the UCU on the activists’ list from Mike Cushman, who is one of the official leaders of the boycott campaign (BRICUP) within the union. He told Jenna Delich that he thought Harry’s Place had “potentially libelled” her and he advised her to “contact hurryupharry’s ISP”. One can only assume that he hoped that Harry’s Place would be silenced in this way.

The Boycott campaign has often criticized its opponents when there has been talk about bringing anti-racist law to bear on the UCU. Their position has been that it would be an illegitimate tactic to use the power of the state to interfere with free speech in the union.

But now at least some boycotters are hoping that British libel law is used to silence opponents of antisemitism and to protect themselves, and Jenna Delich, from criticism.

and also some background from the same source:

The email list within the union which links about 700 activists. Any union member may subscribe and the activist list is administrated and monitored by the union. You can see the kinds of things which pass for comradely and antiracist debate on the list by following this link. Antisemitism is routinely tolerated on the activist list when it is expressed in the language of hostility to Israel. Only a small group of Jews and antiracists have been standing up against this culture on the list. Some have been excluded from the list on trumped up charges. Others have been driven off the list by continual accusations of bad faith. Others have left the union because they cannot bear to pay their dues to what they consider to be an antisemitic organization.

All this is to do with the campaign to close down free Academic Debate in pursuit of the long term noises-off about Israel.

Read more »

It is a little over a month since Cease and Desist notices were sent to a series of bloggers.

I want to look back on what has been achieved - in both concrete terms and “soft” terms.

You can get up to speed by reading my “Introductory Guide“, or the list of people posting in support, or even the Press Room:

Dave Walker is a cartoonist who runs a popular website, which includes the blogs We Blog Cartoons, Cartoon Church and The Cartoon Blog.

On the morning of July 22nd 2008 he received a cease and desist letter threatening legal action unless he removed 75 posts from his Cartoon Church blog by lunchtime - i.e., half a day’s notice.

These 75 posts had reported the developing situation over a 2 year period in a UK book chain called SPCK, which had been taken over by a company run by Mark Brewer. Dave Walker’s was the main published source reporting the situation, asking questions about the management of the chain, and highlighting the treatment of the employees.

So, what has happened?

Public Interest

There have been several hundred articles written about the mismanagement of the SPCK shops, which Here are Blogpulse Graphs for “J Mark Brewer” and “SPCK“. Note that the first Cease and Desist notices were sent around the 20th of July.

Some Specifics

Things that have happened in the last month.

• The Support Dave Walker Facebook Group has 470 members, from nothing.
• The Support SPCK Facebook Group is up to just under 250 members.
• The documentation for an on-the-face-of-it illegal attempt to put a UK organisation into bankruptcy in Houston, Texas, has been put into the public domain.
• I have republished the full set of Dave Walker Blog Posts (PDF: 1.7Mb) that Mark Brewer “Cease and Desisted” in the first place, and there have been between 500 and 1000 downloads.
• Private Eye have revisited the story in some detail.
• As of this week, the Durham Cathedral petition has appeared in the wider book trade media. As has the large number of Employment Tribunals from ex-SPCK staff.
• The Bishop of Gloucester and Simon Kingston have responded officially for the first time.

Read more »

I am doing an upgrade of Wordpress, so you may see some interesting changes while I am doing the process.