In a despicable attack on the freedom of speech, a German right-wing journalist has been sentenced to seven months’ probation for mocking left-wing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
In its verdict on Monday, April 7th, the district court in the Bavarian town of Bamberg also ordered David Bendels to apologise in writing to Nancy Faeser.
“Orwellian” is an overused adjective in our post-Covid, technologically advanced modern world. Yet it is the perfect description of Germany’s new advice centre for people who have friends or family prone to “conspiracy thinking”. The country’s Ministry of the Interior is offering help and material to combat the “wrongthink” of those affected, supposedly to stop the spread of fake news and misinformation.
In a triumph for free speech, judges have ruled in favour of a Christian woman dismissed from her job at a school over her religious beliefs
What does a free speech campaigner look like in 2025? Militant, obviously. A bit shouty and emphatic, definitely. Willing to take on all-comers, shielded by an air of supreme self-belief? Incontrovertibly.
How about a shy, slender mother of two with an infectious smile, whose brown eyes film over with tears as she recounts the seven years of hell she has just endured? And who has just celebrated a milestone judgment in the Court of Appeal – but wants nothing more than to disappear from the spotlight?
JD Vance spoke over the weekend at the Munich security conference on behalf of the United States — the primary topic was Ukraine, for obvious reasons — but instead of discussing the immediate geopolitical matter, he took his time at the rostrum to deliver a harsh message to the European grandees gathered there about the enemy “within.” And he wasn’t subtle in identifying that threat as the overreaction of Europeans to dissident populist parties …
A war of repression is under way
We all know the old joke: when a European referendum delivers the “wrong” outcome, the country votes again until they get it “right”. The EU thought this would be the case after Brexit. But so far, no one’s laughing.
If anything, things have got worse. Take Romania, which recently cancelled its presidential election when Călin Georgescu, leader of a nationalist Right coalition, won the first round. Thierry Breton, former French European Commissioner, revealed the EU’s mindset during a damning recent TV interview. “We did it in Romania and we will obviously do it in Germany if necessary,” he said. In other words, if you can’t beat the far-Right, ban them.
By proroguing Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau snuffed the life out of one of his favourite darlings: Bill C-63, also known as the online harms act.
There’s no excuse for suspending democracy at a time like this, but we should at least celebrate the death of this atrocious bill. Had it (or the two bills the Liberals were to replace it with) passed, the Canadian Human Rights Commission would have been made sheriff of the Canadian internet, empowering it to drag anyone through a lengthy tribunal process making online comments perceived to be hateful. What’s worse, anyone reporting mean comments to this tribunal would be allowed to remain anonymous, which would have allowed the process to be weaponized with ease.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) obliges US social media platforms to take a whole arsenal of preventive and repressive measures, basically to prevent the sharing of information that displeases the European Commission. The new US administration will not tolerate levying fines of tens of billions of dollars on major US technology companies by a European Union that is drifting towards authoritarianism and is at the same time more dependent than ever on American power.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning American cartoonist has quit the Washington Post newspaper, claiming her latest sketch was axed by her editor due to its lampooning of the relationships between prominent tech and media figures and US President-elect Donald Trump.
Illustrator Ann Telnaes, 64, announced her resignation via her own Substack blog on Saturday, including a draft of the political cartoon in the post and accusing her editor of preventing her from doing the “critical job” of “[holding] powerful people and institutions accountable.”
A freedom of the press issue?
A reminder that the “press” almost universally lied about Covid about Biden’s descent into dementia and has smeared Donald Trump 24/7 since 2015.
Toronto-born journalist Catherine Herridge has spent 37 years working for some of the biggest media outlets in the U.S., including broadcasters ABC, CBS and Fox. But she’s now become the central figure in a high-stakes legal battle over freedom of the press and whether journalists can be compelled to disclose confidential sources.
Ms. Herridge, 60, was held in contempt of court last February by a district judge in Washington for refusing to identify the source for a story about U.S. academic Yanping Chen and her alleged ties to the Chinese military.
If you have ever doubted the existence of two-tier policing in the UK, just look at the appalling treatment of Christian street preachers. Earlier this year, a Christian pastor called Dia Moodley was arrested and held in a police cell for 13 hours. His alleged ‘crime’ was to have criticised Islam. Most of the details only emerged last week.
Some politicians in the US are itching to take away your free speech rights and, given the chance, if they get enough votes, they will. How do we know? Because they tell us that they will.
Last week, at a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on climate, former US Secretary of State and Biden-Harris administration climate envoy John Kerry complained that the First Amendment prevents the US government from shutting down what it deems to be “disinformation” on social media, which makes it more difficult to “hammer disinformation out of existence… particularly in democracies,” he lamented.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. Don’t protect the mosques. Blow the mosques up with the adults in it,” 53-year-old Julie Sweeney posted in response to a photo showing people cleaning up in the aftermath of the Southport rioting in a local Cheshire Facebook group. She later deleted her account in shame. Nevertheless, three police cars soon showed up at Sweeney’s home to arrest her. Within days, she was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment after pleading guilty to sending communications threatening death or serious harm, an offence under the U.K.’s 2023 Online Safety Act.
‘Don’t protect the mosque. Blow the mosque up with the adults in it.’
That Facebook comment has earned a Cheshire woman 15 months in prison. Julie Sweeney was reacting to a photo of people helping to repair a mosque in the aftermath of the riots triggered by last month’s stabbing attack in Southport that left three children dead. The prosecutor conceded that Sweeney was posting out of anger and not making a genuine threat, but the judge said that ‘so-called keyboard warriors like her, have to learn to take responsibility for their inflammatory and disgusting language’.
Author Jordan Peterson’s legal battle with the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) has come to an end.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed his application for leave to appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Ontario with costs. No reasons were given.
Peterson had asked Canada’s highest court to consider hearing an appeal of a decision upholding a lower court ruling that he take social media training as ordered by the College. Peterson has been a registered clinical psychologist since 1999, but has not had a clinical practice since 2017.
A Labrador man has lost his bid for a long-sought public hearing about his detainment by police in 2015 at a mental health hospital for a post he made on social media.
Andrew Abbass has alleged for years that his detention by members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary at a western Newfoundland hospital was illegal, and he has fought for a hearing that would examine the circumstances of his arrest.
In a decision dated Thursday, an adjudicator with the force’s public complaints commission said such a hearing would be “desirable” but ruled that Abbass did not file his complaint soon enough.
“How about this Premier of N.L. I’m going to bring down Confederation and have politicians executed,” one of Abbass’s tweets said. “Ready to have me shot, coward?”
Doesn’t seem an unreasonable thing to say about Trudeau.
