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Where Are You Publishing?

Posted by timothy on from the from-au-to-zw dept.

AndrewRUK writes "A reporter for The Guardian is being prosecuted in Zimbabwe for a report that appeared on the newspaper's website, the newspaper writes in this report. If the case is successful, it would allow Zimbabwe's courts to apply the country's draconian media laws to any online publisher, putting reporters and editors at risk of arrest if they go to Zimbabwe, or any country with extradition treaties with Zimbabwe. Once again, we see a case which raises the question of which courts have jurisdiction over online publishing. Is a UK newspaper, with webservers in the UK, and a site accessable to anyone on the net, publishing only in the UK, or is it publishing everywhere where there's net access?" An issue that just doesn't seem to go away ...

3 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting connection. by Mike+the+Mac+Geek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Zimbabwe prosecutes people outside of it's borders for breaking internal laws.

    Sounds a lot like the US and the Skylarov case huh?

    Or DeCSS? Or any of the forthcoming lawsuits?

    We are no better. I hate to say it, but it's true.

    --
    -------------------------------------------------- ---- The man, the myth, the something or other.
  2. Re:Consider the government... by Goonie · · Score: 5, Insightful
    All the more shameful is Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and the rest of the putatively democratic ANC's refusal to speak out against Mugabe and his thugs.

    Yeah, it's pretty disappointing, but to be fair it's a lot easier to say those kinds of things when you don't have to live next door to them. The Australian government is, for instance, mealy-mouthed about Indonesia's corruption and thuggery, mainly because there are certain things we need from Indonesia (like not letting drug and people smugglers through, and shutting down Al-Queda cells there) and if we don't kiss their arse occasionally they are petulant enough to stop doing those things to spite us. Similar things probably apply WRT Zimbabwe and SA. They did have the courtesy to go along (once beaten round the head by the UK, NZ, and to a lesser extent Australia) with the suspension of Zimbabwe from the British Commonwealth (which says to the world that they now regard Zimbabwe as undemocratic).

    Of course there's the issue that some in the ANC, whatever the leadership knows, probably have a sneaking sympathy for people sticking it to rich white landowners.

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  3. everybody does it by g4dget · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The US tries hard to impose its draconian laws in areas like computer security, child pornography, and copyrights on other countries. The US assists police in foreign countries with raids on their citizens, detains visitors to the US (viz the Adobe case), and seizes assets. And the UK (libel) and Germany (Nazi hate speech) are trying to do the same thing.

    Given what restrictions powerful nations like the US, the UK, and Germany are trying to impose on speech in other countries, they really don't have any reason to complain when other countries try to do this as well. What they can do and should do is criticize is Mugabe, his regime, and his policies, independent of how those policies spill over into the Interne.