Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Freedom of Expression

  • Lourdes Peroni

Freedom of Expression in Turkey: When Changes in the Wording Are Not Enough

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 […]

  • Alexandra Timmer

Just words? (Aksu v. Turkey Part II)

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 […]

  • Guest Blogger

AEL on appeal convicted in (in)famous Dutch Holocaust cartoon case

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 […]

  • Weichie

Academic Freedom and the European Court of Human Rights

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 […]

  • Weichie

Political speech under threat?

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 […]

  • Lourdes Peroni

Turkey: voicing minority concerns in academic discussions

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 […]

  • Guest Blogger

Dutch Holocaust cartoon case: a valuable lesson for the Strasbourg Court?

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 […]

  • Maris Burbergs

What is the European literary heritage?

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 […]

  • Saïla Ouald Chaib

Are some expressions more equal than others?

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 […]

  • Weichie

Some clarity in defamation case-law

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 […]

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