Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Article 10

  • Eva Meyermans Spelmans

Mestan v. Bulgaria – finally a genuine recognition of linguistic rights?  

September 08, 2023

by Eva Meyermans Spelmans In the case of Mestan v. Bulgaria, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) found that a law imposing Bulgarian as the official language to be used in election campaigns violated the right to freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 10. In 2013, Mr Mestan was fined for speaking […]

  • Meri Baghdasaryan

Sanchez v. France: Are the expanded liability rules foreseeable for social media users?

August 04, 2023

by Meri Baghdasaryan Earlier in July 2023, a blog post by Jacob van de Kerkhof discussed the shortcomings of the recent Grand Chamber judgment in Sanchez v. France, in which the Court expanded its intermediary liability rules for hate speech posted by third parties to individual users of social media platforms. This piece will not […]

  • Jacob van de Kerkhof

Sanchez v France: The Expansion of Intermediary Liability in the Context of Online Hate Speech

July 17, 2023

by Jacob van de Kerkhof Self-confident people are usually not too concerned about what other people post on their social media pages. But they should be. On 15 May 2023, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) released its judgment in the case of Sanchez v France, following […]

  • Alberto Godioli

Humour and Symbolic Violence: Canal 8 v. France

April 07, 2023

by Alberto Godioli In her concurring opinion to Patrício Monteiro Telo de Abreu v. Portugal (No. 42713/15, judgment of 7 June 2022), Judge Julia Motoc highlighted the importance of recognising the harm caused by what she referred to as ‘symbolic violence’ against women – namely the circulation and reinforcement of disparaging sexist stereotypes (see Balzaretti 2022 for a more detailed […]

  • Ingrida Milkaitė

Open Minds, Open Hearts: Macatė v. Lithuania on Restricting and Labelling a Children’s Book that Depicts Same-Sex Families in a Positive Light

March 31, 2023

By Ingrida Milkaitė On 23 January 2023, the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR found that restricting and labelling a book of fairy tales as harmful to children solely because of LGBTI content breached Article 10 ECHR. For the first time in the Court’s case-law, Macatė v. Lithuania (app. no. 61435/19) assessed restrictions imposed on literature […]

  • Jacob van de Kerkhof

Peradze v Georgia: Vulgar Language, Public Morals and the Right to Peaceful Assembly

February 28, 2023

by Jacob van de Kerkhof On 15 December 2022, the European Court of Human Rights rendered its judgment in Peradze et al v Georgia, concerning 7 protestors who were arrested at a demonstration against a construction project for holding banners with lewd language (along the lines of ‘[construction project], my cock’). The applicants received a minor administrative […]

  • Tommaso Virgili

Rabczewska v. Poland and blasphemy before the ECtHR: A neverending story of inconsistency

October 21, 2022

by Tommaso Virgili In the case Rabczewska v. Poland, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that the conviction of a Polish woman due to her blasphemous statements against the Bible violated her rights under Article 10 of the Convention. This case stands in contrast with the recent E.S. v. Austria, where the Court […]

  • Sofia Balzaretti

Political Satire and Sexist Stereotypes: A Critical Insight on the Case of Patrício Monteiro Telo de Abreu v. Portugal

September 14, 2022

By Sofia Balzaretti Introduction In the case Patrício Monteiro Telo de Abreu v. Portugal, the Strasbourg Court held that the judicial domestic authorities had not taken sufficient account of the context in which Patricio Monteiro Telo de Abreu, the applicant, had published satire cartoons depicting sexist stereotypes on his blog and that they had thus […]

  • Natalie Alkiviadou

A Joke-Telling Lawyer: the Case of Simić v. Bosnia and Herzegovina

August 09, 2022

By Natalie Alkiviadou Introduction In May this year, the Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held unanimously that holding a lawyer in contempt of court for a ‘caustic’ and ‘sarcastic’ comments amounted to a violation of his Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) right to freedom of […]

  • Valentina Golunova

Manannikov v. Russia: The Final Nail in the Coffin of Political Dissent?

May 18, 2022

By Valentina Golunova 24 February marked a turning point in modern history: Russia barbarously attacked Ukraine. Apart from other drastic implications, including the expulsion of Russia from the Council of Europe, the war set off a new wave of political repression within a country. Russian political activists and opposition figures have been persecuted for taking […]

  • Dirk Voorhoof

OOO Memo v. Russia: ECtHR prevents defamation claims by executive bodies

April 01, 2022

By Dirk Voorhoof, Human Rights Centre UGent and Legal Human Academy The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has recently delivered a judgment in which, for the first time, it refers to the notion of SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation). In its judgment of 15 March 2022 in the case of OOO Memo v. […]

  • Meri Baghdasaryan

Standard Verlagsgesellschaft MBH v. Austria (No. 3): Is the ECtHR standing up for anonymous speech online?

January 25, 2022

By Meri Baghdasaryan Standard Verlagsgesellschaft MBH v. Austria (No. 3) represents an interesting development in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, ‘the Court’) on user-generated content and anonymous speech online. This case stands out as it concerns the liability of host providers for refusal to disclose anonymous user data for […]

  • Tobias Mortier

Miroslava Todorova v. Bulgaria: Bulgaria joins list of serious rule of law offenders

December 08, 2021

By Tobias Mortier Art. 18 is a peculiar provision in the rights catalogue of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’). Only rarely is it invoked before the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) – and a violation of it is even rarer. Up until now, the Court had only found violations of […]

  • Sarah de Heer

Hurbain v. Belgium: Towards a Fairer Balancing Exercise Between the Right to Freedom of Expression and the Right to Privacy?

November 26, 2021

Sarah de Heer Admittedly, the right to erasure, or more colloquially, the right to be forgotten is nothing new in the European legal landscape. Indeed, this right can be found as far back as 1981 in the predecessor of the Modernised Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data […]

  • Ayşe Bingöl Demir

Akdeniz and others v Turkey: The ECtHR adopts a regressive interpretation of victim status in cases concerning injunctions contra mundum

November 05, 2021

By Ayşe Bingöl Demir On 5 May 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) handed down yet another judgment against Turkey finding a violation of Article 10 – freedom of expression – of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘the Convention’). Akdeniz and others v. Turkey concerned a general ban on the dissemination […]

  • Tobias Mortier

Preventing disorder or silencing political opposition? On (the lack of) legitimate aims in Dareskizb Ltd v. Armenia

October 29, 2021

By Tobias Mortier A little political tension in an electoral context is not uncommon. However, the Armenian presidential elections in 2008 were nothing short of riotous. The Court has already dealt with numerous cases in which the events surrounding these elections were contested. For instance, in the case of Mushegh Saghatelyan v. Armenia, the Court […]

  • Guest Blogger

Yes, Prime Minister (bis): prosecution for satirical collage criticising Turkish prime minister’s foreign policy violated artist’s freedom of expression

March 19, 2021

Ronan Ó Fathaigh and Dirk Voorhoof On 2 February 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) unanimously found that the criminal proceedings against an artist’s satirical collage ‘insulting’ the Turkish Prime Minister violated his right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In an earlier case (Tuşalp […]