defamation – praag.org

Black French singer loses appeal against Marine Le Pen

Black French singer and celebrity Yannick Noah lost his diffamation case against Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National. Noah sued Le Pen because she had called him a “tax fugitive” on television. According to Marine Le Pen, he had “stashed” his money abroad. She made that allegedly defamatory statement on 9 March 2012 during a discussion programme on the pay TV channel Canal+. The talk show was on the contribution made by French immigrants such as Yannick Noah, Zinedine Zidane and Omar Sy.

Answering the question whether immigration was an opportunity for France, Marine Le Pen responded: “Two tax fugitives out of three, that’s not bad,” before referring specifically to Yannick Noah. “That means, instead of paying his taxes in France, well, this gentleman sees fit to give us moral lessons… giving us lessons on charity and sharing while he shares nothing, his money is stashed abroad and does not benefit the unfortunate French,” she declared. At the time she was a French presidential candidate.

As opposed to the argument advanced by the singer, “the statement does not imply any punishable fiscal fraud committed by him”, according to the judges of the 17th chamber of the correctional tribunal of Paris in their judgement delivered on 25 June 2013. Yannick Noah then appealed against the judgement.

After participating in a political gathering with François Hollande, the current French president, Yannick Noah was criticised by Valérie Rosso-Debord and Pierre Charon of the UMP party, then by Marine Le Pen, for his tax evasion. From 1992 to 1994 he was a Swiss resident and is still involved in litigation with the French authorities in a case pending before the Constitutional Court of France.

The ex-tennis champion has also sued the UMP senator Pierre Charon for defamation for calling him a “tax criminal”. During the first hearing the politician was fined 1 000 euros, but suspended, as well as a symbolic one euro of damages and interest, including judicial publication. The case on appeal will be heard on 16 October.

Mayor of Paris, minister call for ban on French comedian Dieudonne

The mayor of Paris is also calling for comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, known for his anti-Jewish humour, to be banned from performing in public.

France’s interior minister, Manuel Valls, voiced his displeasure first in wanting Dieudonne, as he is known, banned from the stage.

The well-known comedian, started out years ago with a Jewish partner in sketches that mocked racism.

But in 1997, he fell out with Elie Semoun over money owed to him.

He has now joined the political right and alienated some fans with anti-Jewish comments. Dieudonne maintains that most people find joking about blacks in order, but not humour about Jews.

His latest joke about gas chambers has irked Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe, who likened Dieudonne to a criminal who “defends crimes against humanity”.

“We must ban the performances” he said, echoing recent comments made by interior minister Valls. Valls himself has been accused of discrimination after he said in September that Roma did not want to integrate.

Dieudonne has already been fined a couple of times for defamation, insults, hate speech and racial discrimination, and over his salute, called the “quenelle”.

The “quenelle” has been used by several personalities since, including footballer Nicolas Anelka, who recently used it to celebrate a goal.

But the 47-year-old comedian says the Holocaust gets too much attention to the exclusion of other crimes.

Valls, meanwhile, has said he wants to ban performances by Dieudonne on his nationwide tour this month, after the comedian joked about Jewish radio presenter Patrick Cohen.

“When I hear Patrick Cohen speak, I tell myself, you know, the gas chambers… A shame,” joked Dieudonne.

Despite the criticism, the comedian has scores of die-hard fans who feel he is unjustly being hounded by the media and politicians.

Dieudonne’s official page has 466,000 likes.

He won fans by exposing a well-known Jewish author’s denials of ethnic focus as flimsy and insincere.

The French-born son of a Cameroonian father and a white mother, Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala shot to fame in the 1990s in a double-act with his childhood friend Semoun.

He stood for EU-wide elections in 2009 on an anti-Zionist platform, describing Holocaust commemorations as “memorial pornography”.

But his shows at a small theatre in Paris that he manages attract packed audiences.

At his show on Thursday, the comedian joked about “kippa city” and “the banking slave master” to general hilarity.

Google must pay Australian $200 000 for defamation

Google was ordered to pay Aus$200,000 (US$208,000) in damages to an Australian Monday after a jury found the Internet giant defamed him by publishing material linking him to mobsters.

Milorad Trkulja, an entertainment promoter who is now 62, was shot in the back in 2004 in a crime that was never solved.

He accused Google of defaming him with material which he said implied he was a major crime figure in Melbourne and had been the target of a professional hit.

Searches of his name brought up references to the city’s gangsters including crime boss Tony Mokbel and a now defunct site called “Melbourne Crime” chronicling gang-related incidents.

Google denied publication in the Supreme Court of Victoria, saying it had innocently disseminated material published by others. It also disputed that the material conveyed the defamatory implications claimed by Trkulja.

But a jury ruled in his favour, finding the Internet firm had been on notice and failed to act on the issue from October 2009, when Trkulja’s lawyers wrote to them demanding action over the “grossly defamatory” content.

Bond University media law expert Mark Pearson, who specialises in social media and legal issues, said it was a “groundbreaking” precedent in Australia and could have broader implications.

“What the court’s said here is that this isn’t just innocent architecture, what this is is a human-designed software to showcase information in a certain way,” Pearson told AFP.

“The judge has said that because you (Google) have designed (the search results) to appear in this way, you are the publisher of the material.”

Google, which is understood to be contemplating an appeal, stood by its arguments in court.

“Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web,” a Google spokesman told AFP.

“The sites in Google’s search results are controlled by those sites’ webmasters, not by Google.”

Judge David Beach ordered Google to pay Trkulja Aus$200,000, likening their role in publication to a library or newsagent, which have “sometimes been held to be publishers for the purposes of defamation law” in Australia.

“Google Inc is like the newsagent that sells a newspaper containing a defamatory article,” Beach said in his judgement.

“While there might be no specific intention to publish defamatory material, there is a relevant intention by the newsagent to publish the newspaper for the purposes of the law of defamation.”

Beach said the jury was “entitled to conclude that Google Inc intended to publish the material that its automated systems produced, because that was what they were designed to do upon a search request”.

Trkulja argued that his reputation was central to his work and had been seriously damaged by the defamatory material. He had already won Aus$225,000 from Yahoo in an earlier case on the same matter. – AFP

Frankie Boyle wins 54 000 pounds for being called a ‘racist’

London, Oct 23 (ANI): Comedian Frankie Boyle has been awarded more than 54,000 pounds in damages after a High Court jury found that he had been libelled by a newspaper which described him as “racist.”

The jury concluded that Boyle, 40, from Glasgow, had been defamed by the Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail reported.

After the verdict, the comedian gave a V-for-Victory sign on the court steps and revealed that he would be donating the money to charity.

Boyle said that he filed the lawsuit because he had always “made a point” of being “anti-racist.”

He had claimed that a Daily Mirror article published on July 19 last year defamed him by describing him as “Racist comedian Frankie Boyle,” adding that he had been “forced to quit” BBC panel show ‘Mock The Week.’

Daily Mirror publisher Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) defended the article, arguing that the “racist” description was either true or “honest comment on a matter of public interest.”

MGN also argued that the words “forced to quit” did not mean that Boyle had been sacked and were not defamatory.

Boyle was awarded 50,400-pound damages for the “racist” assertion and a further 4,250 pounds in relation to the claim that he was “forced to quit” the BBC show.

Boyle was also awarded legal costs, estimated to be in the region of 100,000 pounds. (ANI)

Pietersburg mayor, City Press settle

City-press-ferial-haffajee — Ferial Haffajee, editor of City Press

The executive mayor of Polokwane (Pietersburg) in Limpopo, Freddy Greaver, and the City Press newspaper have reached a settlement over his defamation case, editor Ferial Haffajee said on Wednesday.

“Mr Greaver started off by suing the newspaper for R15 million. We agreed to apologise and settled at R100,000,” Haffajee said.

“We never meant to implicate Greaver as corrupt and I have learned that when you publish a graphic image, you need to add explanatory text.”

The settlement was reached in the Polokwane High Court on Tuesday.

Though both parties were not present, Judge Francis Legodi read the settlement signed by the affected parties’ legal representatives.

The newspaper was ordered to publish an apology on Sunday, give Greaver the right to reply, and Greaver was rewarded R100,000 in damages.

The City Press was also ordered to pay for the legal costs incurred. The court ordered the money to be paid within 30 days.

The newspaper published graphics and an article depicting Greaver as part of the “Limpopo mafia” — a group of politicians and business people involved in awarding tenders to companies with links to expelled former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.

The story was published on August 21 last year.

Haffajee said the graphic was intended to show the network of power.

Greaver was the only person mentioned in the article who took legal action against the paper. Those mentioned included Limpopo premier Cassel Mathale and some MECs.

A statement from the City of Polokwane said Greaver had emerged victorious.

“They [City Press] reluctantly admitted that councillor Greaver was not guilty of any corruption or abuse of his office,” spokesman Simon Mokoatedi said. – Sapa