March 17, 2011
Today’s guest post was written by Hannes Cannie, PhD candidate at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University. Further information on Hannes, including a list of his publications, can be found here. In Aydin v. Germany (27 January 2011) the Fifth Section of the Strasbourg Court held with six votes to one that the applicant’s […]
March 14, 2011
Mgn Limited v. the United Kingdom concerned several articles published in 2001 in the tabloid Mirror (now Daily Mirror), revealing that supermodel Naomi Campbell was attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings in an attempt to treat her drug addiction. The articles were accompanied by several photographs, including one in which Ms. Campbell was seen standing in […]
March 10, 2011
Guest post by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, PhD candidate at Ghent University. For more information on Rónán, find him here. The recent Article 10 judgment in Mouvement Raëlien Suisse v. Switzerland merits some close attention given the important questions of principle which are arguably involved. The First Section of the European Court found no violation of […]
March 08, 2011
By Dirk Voorhoof, Ghent University / Legal-Human-Academy* On March 3, 2011, the Tribunal de Grand Instance de Paris issued its decision in a case that has alarmed journal editors and reviewers, being afraid it could have a chilling effect on scholars’ and editors’ willingness to publish book reviews. The case concerns the criminal libel case […]
January 25, 2011
Today’s guest post was written by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. More information on Rónán can be found on the website of the Center for Journalism Studies of Ghent University, here. Amid all the discussion regarding the A., B. and C. v. Ireland judgment, it is interesting […]
January 06, 2011
Before its holiday break, the European Court of Human Rights released two judgments in defamation cases, Novaya Gazeta V Voronezhe v. Russia and Sofranschi v. Moldova. Both cases concern allegations of abuse and irregularities. While both judgments contain good elements, in my opinion they also reveal faulty reasoning on the part of the Court. Most interestingly, […]
November 22, 2010
This guest post on freedom of expression, academic research, privacy protection and access to official documents has been written by Professor Dirk Voorhoof. Professor Voorhoof is affiliated to both Ghent University (Belgium) and Copenhagen University (Denmark). He is also a Member of the Flemish Regulator for the Media. Further information on Professor Voorhoof can be […]
November 04, 2010
This post has been written by Laurens Lavrysen, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre. On 21 October the European Court of Human Rights delivered the judgment Saliyev v. Russia. The case concerned an article in a municipal newspaper about the acquisition of shares in a local energy producing company – at that […]
October 04, 2010
The case of Dink v. Turkey recently confronted the European Court with the most brutal affront on freedom of expression: the assassination of a journalist. The Court found a violation of Article 2 (in its both substantive and procedural aspects) and of Article 10. At the basis of the freedom of expression violation was a […]
September 02, 2010
My post on Aksu v. Turkey received some criticism for not taking the freedom of expression into account. A brief memory-aid: Aksu is the case of a man of Roma origin who complained about degrading stereotypical remarks made about Roma in government-sponsored publications. In a “dictionary for pupils” and a book entitled “The Gypsies of […]
August 27, 2010
This guestblog is written by our colleague Hannes Cannie* The Arnhem criminal court (the Netherlands) has overruled the judgment of the criminal tribunal of Utrecht (22 April 2010) in the (in)famous Dutch Holocaust cartoon case, in which the Dutch branch of the Arab European League (hereafter, AEL) faces prosecution for having published on various websites […]
July 22, 2010
In Sapan v. Turkey (8 June 2010) the European Court of Human Rights emphasised the importance of academic freedom of expression. The case concerned the publication of a book entitled “Tarkan – anatomy of a star” (Tarkan – yıldız olgusu), in which a doctoral thesis was reproduced in part. The first part of the book […]
May 28, 2010
In the case of Fleury v. France of 11 May 2010, the European Court of Human Rights held that the freedom of expression of a politician, member of the opposition on municipal level, had not been violated by his criminal conviction for defamation of a public official, the mayor of the municipality. The ruling of […]
May 26, 2010
The European Court of Human Rights has recently ruled against a ban imposed on an American citizen’s re-entry into Turkey for past opinions concerning Kurdish and Armenian issues during her teaching activities in the eighties (Cox v. Turkey). The applicant had allegedly said to her university colleagues and students that the Turks had massacred the […]
May 05, 2010
This guestblog is written by our colleague Hannes Cannie* The criminal tribunal of Utrecht (the Netherlands) has rendered an interesting judgment (22 April 2010) in a case in which an alleged discriminatory cartoon was at stake. The Dutch branch of the Arab European League (hereafter, AEL), a movement in Belgium and the Netherlands that aims […]
April 12, 2010
In the case of Akdas v. Turkey the Court was called upon to decide on a seizure of a novel. But it turns out, this is not just a novel, it is something more. The applicant published a Turkish translation of the erotic novel “Les onze mille verges” by the French writer Guillaume Apollinaire, which […]
April 12, 2010
Exactly one week ago, a lecture was organized at the Belgian University of Antwerp with the following title: “(long) live God, away with Allah”. A group of fanatic Muslims were not pleased about this title and they called their members to attend the lecture. When the speaker started his lecture, the followers from the Islamic […]
April 12, 2010
On 11 February 2010, the European Court of Human Rights released an interesting judgment in an art. 10 defamation case, Fedchenko v. Russia (no. 2). The case concerned a conviction for defamation of Mr. Fedchenko, the editor of a regional newspaper, after an article had been published in his newspaper in which allegations of mismanagement […]