UK Press Censor News

Campaigners fear a new government censorship policy could see comedians who make jokes about transgender issues hauled in front of a judge.

A barrister warned telling jokes about trans people, like Ricky Gervais in his most recent show, could be criminalised if a new Home Office plan is put in place.

The new censorship plan is due to be published shortly, with a Home Office minister saying it will set out steps to increase the reporting of all forms of hate crime -- including hate crimes targeting sexual orientation or transgender identity. They will see people accused of non crime hate incidents [NCHIs], which are recorded on police systems.

It comes after the Court of Appeal ruled that College of Policing guidance telling forces to record incidents believed to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice against a person as NCHIs violates the European Convention on Human Rights

Sarah Phillimore, a barrister from Fair Cop, a group describing itself as a gender critical organisation of lawyers, police officers and writers, said:

It is astonishing that legislators are planning to expand the discredited and unlawful practice of recording non-crime hate incidents [NCHIs].

A Home Office spokesperson responded:

These claims are completely wrong - there are no plans to expand recording of non-crime hate incidents, nor will we criminalise comedians or introduce a complaint scheme. Free speech is a fundamental right and we will always protect it. [clearly not true when the government is introducing its Online Censorship Bill]

Up until now, the UK government has always indicated that newspaper websites would not be caught up in the new internet censorship regime proposed in the Government's Online Harms white paper.

However it now seems that the government has backtracked lest every websites claims to be a news service.

The Daily Mail reports that Julian Knight, chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, has written to Culture Minister John Whittingdale over the proposed laws, after Home Office lawyers claimed that granting a publishers exemption' would create loopholes. One source close to the ministerial arguments over the proposed laws said:

Government lawyers are arguing that the publishers exemption would allow just anyone to claim it, so for instance you would have The Isis Times being able to distribute beheading videos.

The Tory MP Julian Knight told Whittingdale that Ministers in both DCMS and the Home Office should resolve the impasse by allowing an exemption for authenticated and reliable news sources.

The Government has yet to respond, amid concerns that any action may be delayed by wrangling over legislation to stop harmful online material and fears that antagonising powerful American-owned online platforms might jeopardise post-Brexit trade talks with the US.

pupils lining up for class

What, you wonder, do they teach them in police college these days? Gangs, cyber crime, forensics, public safety, drugs --there's doubtless a lot to learn. But I would like to suggest a new and compulsory course, let's call it The Basics Of Free Speech.

Lesson number 1. The police do not tell newspaper editors what to write.

You think this is too basic? That in 21st Century Britain no police officer would dream of telling a newspaper editor not to publish information and meekly to hand back any leaked documents to their rightful owners?

If you think that, then you haven't been paying attention. You evidently missed Friday's statement from one of the most senior officers [Neil Basu] in the , advising owners, editors, publishers -- along with anyone on social media -- exactly what they shouldn't publish.

See article from dailymail.co.uk by Alan Rusbridger

 

Offsite Comment: We must protect the free British press from state bullies

21st July 2019. See article from dailymail.co.uk by David Davis

 Press freedom is the most vital freedom because it underpins all the others. When governments allow that freedom to be corroded they undermine the very foundations of our democracy.

For that reason we need a new Official Secrets Act, and a general protection for press freedom against the rapidly developing intrusive powers of the modern State.

The events of the past few weeks have demonstrated only too clearly why this is necessary.

...Read the full article from dailymail.co.uk

See also How the country's most powerful civil servant and the Met Police plotted an extraordinary attack on press freedom from dailymail.co.uk