Slashdot Mirror
Bloggers Versus Billionaire
Roger Whittaker writes "An interesting case in England is pitting the combined power of multiple bloggers against an Uzbek billionaire. The bloggers are supporting the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who has written a book about what happened there after the fall of Communism. The book is apparently unflattering in the extreme to oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who has engaged the law firm Schillings (which seems to specialize in getting unfavorable Web content removed for rich clients). Their threats have led to the removal of Murray's blog site by his hosting company Fasthosts. But a large number of bloggers have taken up Murray's cause, and the content that caused the original complaint, and links to it, have now sprung up in a very large number of places. The Internet still seems to regard censorship as damage and route around it."
It's called the Streisand effect, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect Bet he's got a smaller nose though :-)
Is this perhaps the same guy who's famous for boiling people alive: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3943.htm
September 2, 2007
Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist
I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:
"Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record."
Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke "Gorbachev", a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue.
Usmanov's pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991 President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the "Pardon" because of his alliance with Usmanov's mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on Gorbachev's side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin standing on the tanks outside the White House.
Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the World's most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into the "privatisation" process at a time when gangster muscle was used to secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.
Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the country's natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.
Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through Putin's long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski. Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college. Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests outside Russia, Usmanov's role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom's bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.
Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has bought out - with the owners having no choice - the only independent national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death from a window.
All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist's death, is set out in great detail here:
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html
Usmanov is also dogged by the wides
"England has no freedom of speech as it is understood in the USA.
:)
It is very easy in England to go after someone for slander/libel/defamation and win."
I'm here in the USA so I know our legal system a little better as far as slander and libel laws than that of the UK. However, I do have a very good friend from London who is well educated and we talk a lot about the differences between the UK and the USA. Libel and slander laws have been the topic more than once. It's my understanding that you can pretty much say whatever you want about anything in the UK as long as you cite fact that YOU can prove in court. The burden is on you. As long as you can convince a UK court that what you said/wrote is true, you're okay. In the USA it tends to presume that I can state my opinion freely until the party criticized can prove ME wrong. So, here in the USA, prove me wrong. In the UK, I have to prove I'm right. I might be generalizing a little too freely but then again...IANAL and IANAS (solicitor).
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
The article barely mentions it, and the summary not at all, but the background to this is the battle over the ownership of Arsenal, one of the big four English football (soccer) clubs. The Arsenal fans (and apparently Craig Murray) are generally opposed to Usmanov's takeover of the club and some of them have blogs, hence the attacks on him and the unleashing of lawyers in response.
Some more details here: ahref=http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/18/arsenal-usmanov-kroenke-lifestyle-sport-cx_pm_0918arsenal_print.html/rel=url2html-32009http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/18/arsenal-usmanov-kroenke-lifestyle-sport-cx_pm_0918arsenal_print.html/>
Otherwise why would a bunch of British bloggers care about the business practices of an Uzbekistani businessman, and why would he care what they think.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
A very favourable tax regime for those with non-domiciled status. They pay tax only on assets brought in to the country and keep the rest in off-shore tax havens.