The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) are developing their three year strategic plan for 2008-10:

As we look ahead to manage current and emerging demands and we are inviting comments on our draft goals and key priorities which will form the basis of our plan.

We are consulting key stakeholders in the successful UK partnership for tackling potentially illegal content online, especially child sexual abuse content, and inviting your comments and contributions.

Here is a draft which sets out our role, our perception of our key priorities and our key three-year goals, together with some early ideas of the activities we might embark on to achieve our goals. Linking from the plan is a consultation document containing some questions and we would be pleased to receive your feedback.

We would appreciate your comments by close of business on Monday 14th January 2008 and we look forward to hearing from you.

As the IWF move from child protection into censorship of adult pornography there plans are surely of interest to all. In particular they are suggesting the analysis of: The (potential) inclusion or exclusion of content in its remit such as child sexual abuse cartoons, extreme pornography but seeking to drop incitement to racial hatred.

The popular Sex Gore Mutants website was under threat of closure as a result of legal action over a defamation claim.

Thankfully things have been sorted and Al posted the following note

Well four days of stress later and I'm informed that now no action will be taken to close down the site and that the legal folk consider that this matter is now fully closed as confirmed by the complainant.

However the entire affair has shown how easily sites can be threatened. It has also shown how little effort was made to either defend the site or even to see if the problem could be readily resolved without recourse to draconian measures.

Homophobic rap music has been banned in Brighton in case it offends the city's large gay population.

Music venues in the city have been ordered not to play certain tracks by artists such as Eminem and 50 Cent.

If pubs and clubs flout the ban, they can be stripped of their licence and closed down.

All music - whether played live or from a recording - that "incites hatred towards minorities" on religious, racial or sexuality grounds is affected.

The move follows an outcry last year over a scheduled performance by the notorious Jamaican artist Buju Banton.

Brighton and Hove's head of licensing, Dee Simson, said: We have a good record on equality and we felt it was important to include this in the licensing policy.

But Trevor Madison, production co-ordinator at Concorde 2, said: Who knows where these things are going?

The popular Sex Gore Mutants website is under threat of closure as a result of legal action over a defamation claim.

From Sex Gore Mutants:

I am very saddened to inform you that I have been contacted this afternoon and informed SGM will be forcibly taken offline this coming Monday afternoon after legal complaint was made in reference to our article on The DarkSide magazine.

I was contacted yesterday (Friday) at 4pm with an extensive Defamation notice, the basic core as follows...

Re: www.sexgoremutants.co.uk

We write (following) our investigations and further complaint from the solicitors acting on behalf of the complainant; we have noticed that the site above contains defamatory allegations against the complainant. In accordance with the jurisdiction of the English Courts this publication is deemed to be defamatory in accordance with the common law provisions of the Defamation Act 1996; on the basis that the statement "would tend to lower the party in the estimation of right-thinking members of society." This is not only against our terms and conditions but is also in breach of UK Law and various sections of the associated statute(s)

...and so it goes on, frustratingly there was no advance notice of this legal challenge nor no prior contact from the complainant. The Defamation notice only referred to SGM (as a whole entity online publication) with no clue whatsoever as to what the allegation referred to and worryingly only notice that they plan to 'take action (on myself and SGM) without any further notice' from this coming Monday at noon (and as I received the notice at 4pm on a Friday I only had one hour that day and three hours on Monday morning to try address this).

Obviously alarmed I made some calls to try find out what exactly the complaint was. Having clarified what the issue was my first step was to remove that page from our server immediately as I do not wish SGM to be forcibly removed from the net due to something as simple as an old critical review piece. Worryingly though, I also tried to clarify if this would stop further action taking place but have not been given any assurances nor will I receive any till Monday at the earliest as the issue is now in the hands of various solicitors and legal department (as they say, once a ball starts rolling it can be hard to stop).

Fingers crossed we can try stop SGM being pulled on Monday (I had been planning to run a massive update tomorrow but have put this on hold till we sort this out) - worst case scenario (at this point) is we find another server provider.

Either way, between legal costs and personal stress this is not a good day for myself or online journalism as a whole.

From Starz Forum see full article

The Darkside contributor in question, Calum explains his case in comments on the Starz forum:

I have since emailed the server, who emailed me to say they were dealing with this, to state that - as Alan has kindly taken the piece down (which, again, I didn't ask for) I would be extremely upset if they did anything to censor his views of my work or to close down his site. If anything happens to the contrary I will happily fight with him to have the site restored.

I wouldn't have bothered complaining about one bleeding sentence if I knew the server were going to start going crazy!!

Hopefully all will be resolved shortly but it does rather show that a few ill judged words can cause sufficient hurt to get lawyers involved. And this may then create expensive legal juggernauts that  may escalate action way beyond that intended.

And of cause it is always a bit of background concern to the Melon Farmers website that surely contains more than its fair share of ill judged words.

The owners of a clothes shop have been ordered by police to censor artwork depicting a naked man for fear it may cause "harassment, alarm or distress" to the public.

An officer from Gwent Police told Flick Sawkins and Angela Harker of Starling Vendetta Boutique they could be prosecuted under section 5 of the Public Order Act unless the offending body part was covered.

A strategically-placed fig leave now hides the modesty of the "window installation" by artist Kate Montgomery which takes pride of place in the shop’s window in Newport, south Wales.

Wardens working for Newport City Council were initially approached by shoppers several weeks ago concerning the naked body before the complaint was passed to police.

According to Newport West MP Paul Flynn, there is now a 140 strong petition demanding the removal of the fig leaf on the grounds of artistic freedom plus a bit of council-bashing. On his website blog, he added: It’s difficult to believe that anyone would be outraged by what seems to be a human body made out of rags – sorry an attractive vintage art object.

It seems the owners of the boutique, which only opened last month, are similarly incredulous about the cover-up. On their website they said: We don’t entirely agree with this decision and would be interested to know what you, our customers, think.

Stephen Green of Christian Voice is having his day in High Court. He is seeking the right to bring a private prosecution for the common law offence of blasphemous libel.

The case arises over the production and presentation of the award-winning musical Jerry Springer — The Opera at theatres around Britain from October 2003 to July 2006 and then its broadcast on BBC in January 2005. Mr Green wants to prosecute Jonathan Thoday for the production of the play and Mark Thompson, then Director-General of the BBC, for the broadcast.

He applied last year, two years after the broadcast, for a summons to bring the prosecution but was refused at the City of Westminster magistrates' court. Now he is going to the divisional court to challenge that refusal.

Blasphemous libel is the publication of any matter that insults, offends or vilifies the Deity, or Christ, or the Christian religion. It is irrelevant whether there was an intention to blaspheme - the intention to publish the material is sufficient.

But the district judge who heard the initial application held that it was arguable that the Theatres Act prohibits prosecution on the ground of blasphemy; and in any event, Green had not shown a prima facie case. However, Green then won leave from Mr Justice Underhill to seek a judicial review of the district judge’s ruling.

The case is a key test of whether the laws of blasphemy are compatible with free speech, as enshrined in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Liberty, the human rights group, has intervened in the case and will argue that free speech protects the secular, sacred and profane alike — and that people should see free speech and conscience rights as running together.

But the case will also be a fresh test of whether blasphemy should exist as a criminal offence at all. Liberty will also argue that the offence should not be recognised in English law at all — because of its lack of sufficient legal certainty as held by the Irish Supreme Court in a case in 2000. The Council of Europe also recommended in June this year that blasphemy should be decriminalised, as has the Law Commission, in a working paper in 1981 and in its final report in 1985.

The chief reason cited for abolition is that blasphemy applies only to Christianity and the Council of Europe is concerned that members of a particular religion should be neither privileged nor disadvantaged by the criminal law.

But attempts to scrap it have foundered. David Blunkett, when Home Secretary, floated the abolition of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in 2004 as part of a package of measures to include the offence of incitement to religious hatred. The idea of the repeal was to answer critics, such as Rowan Atkinson, the comedian, who argued that the new incitement law would stifle criticism of religion, cartoonists' lampoons or jokes about vicars and priests.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: No person of faith should doubt the importance of free speech to freedom of religion — we must remember that even Jesus was prosecuted for blasphemy. This law has quite rightly been a dead letter for many years and is ripe for repeal, not a mischievous private prosecution.

The proposal was welcomed at the time by the National Secular Society, which said that it had been fighting the blasphemy law for more than 100 years. But at the same time, it expressed concern that the new incitement laws may be creating a new “all religions” blasphemy law.

The balance is a fine one — but incitement to religious hatred is clearly distinct from remarks that followers of a religion find insulting, disrespectful or undermining of their beliefs.

There is a growing case that the laws of blasphemy are anachronistic, inconsistent and ripe for repeal. Religions, it is said, should be strong enough to defend themselves. What is even more unarguable is that they should not be a tool to stifle freedom of expression.

Christian evangelists have launched a High Court battle for the right to bring a private prosecution for blasphemy over Jerry Springer: The Opera.

The show was an offensive, spiteful, systematic mockery and wilful denigration of Christian belief, one that that no-one would dream of making about the prophet Mohammed and Islam, two judges were told.

Stephen Green, national director of the evangelical group Christian Voice, is challenging a refusal by District Judge Caroline Tubbs at the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court in January to issue a summons for the start of a private prosecution against the Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson, who allowed the controversial show to be screened on BBC2. Green also wanted to issue a similar summons against the show’s producer, Jonathan Thoday, who staged it at the Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End and then in a nationwide tour.

Michael Gledhill, QC, appearing for Green, said that such prosecutions for blasphemous libel were extremely rare, occuring perhaps once a generation. He said it was not being argued that God cannot be criticised, he said. Such criticisms were commonplace in a number of plays and productions broadcast on television. Rather, he said, the complaint arose from the manner in which the criticisms were made.

Gledhill argued that the district judge had erred in law in refusing to issue the summonses as the show had clearly “crossed the blasphemy threshold”.

He argued: This is not just about protecting the rights of a section of the Christian population. It is about protecting the constitution of the nation which is built on the Christian faith.

Neither Mr Thoday nor Mr Thompson felt the least inhibition in ridiculing God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the sacrament of the eucharist and Christian belief, Gledhill told Lord Justice Hughes and Mr Justice Collins at the High Court in London.

Through Jerry Springer: The Opera they had treated the Christian faith with contempt, reviling it by parodying Christian beliefs scurrilously and in the most ludicrous manner.

The human rights group Liberty is intervening in the case to argue that the blasphemy laws are outdated and that free speech rights must protect sacred, profane and secular language alike.

Gledhill accused District Judge Tubbs of failing properly to assess whether the elements of blasphemous libel had been made out in the case of Jerry Springer: The Opera. He argued no reasonable person, applying the correct legal test, could find that the elements of blasphemy were not present.

David Pannick, QC, for Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, said that people’s religious beliefs might be integral to British society but equally so was freedom of expression, especially in matters of social and moral importance.

The Opera won a large number of awards for exceptional artistic achievement, a recognition that this was a powerful satire on a particular type of exploitative television and not, as the claimant fails to appreciate, an attack on Christianity. He added that the target of the satire was not religious belief but the confessional talk-show genre.

Thompson, in a submission, said that the judges should refuse permission for a private prosecution for several reasons: there had been “very considerable delay” by Mr Green in making his application: the programme was broadcast in January 2005; the attempt to bring criminal proceedings was “verging on the vexatious”; and the claimant had sought at a late stage to amend his application.

The hearing continues for a 2nd day.

The Daily Mail reported:

Mr Green said he was 'hugely disappointed' Liberty was seeking to use his case to challenge blasphemy laws, which he described as vital for protecting God's name.

He added: "It is a great shame that Liberty have gone down this road, and strayed away from their core activities of defending civil liberties, which we as an organisation support."

Looooooooool! Christian Voice support defending civil liberties!

Yeah they do! They want civil liberties for all...

Apart from gays.

And people who say things which upset their precious religious beliefs.

Yeah civil liberties for all say Christian Voice!

Lol!

From the Times

Meanwhile the case has now completed and the High Court reserved judgment on whether Christian evangelists could bring prosecutions against Mark Thompson, BBC Director-General, and the producer of the controversial show Jerry Springer – The Opera.

A time scale for the publication of the judgement has not yet been provided

Replying to questions on a BBC TV programme, Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has publicly agreed with the Christian think-tank Ekklesia that it is time for Britain's archaic blasphemy law to be abolished.

Lord Carey, who is an outspoken conservative evangelical within the Church of England, was responding to comments by Ekklesia co-director Jonathan Bartley on a discussion about blasphemy on BBC1's Sunday morning current affairs and religion programme, The Big Questions.

The ex-Archbishop protested against what he said was an increase in "offensive" material about Christianity in the public domain, including Jerry Springer - The Opera. But Lord Carey said that Christ told his followers to put away their swords and did not seek to defend faith by force.

Bartley said that a blasphemy law was itself blasphemous from a theological viewpoint, because it suggested that the transcendent God somehow needed human laws for protection.