UK Gags Guardian, but Twitter Airs Suppressed Story
Social media site explodes with toxic waste scandal
(Newser) – The Guardian has been slapped with an unprecedented gag order forbidding it from reporting on a question in the British parliament, as well as who asked the question and why it’s being gagged. The paper says constitutional rights are being infringed upon and it’s already suing—but meanwhile, the suppressed story is already the talk of Twitter. Three of this morning’s top trending topics relate to the energy company Trafigura allegedly dumping toxic waste in Africa, which the Guardian revealed last month.
The Guardian, in what its editor called a “Kafkaesque” situation, was only allowed to report that the case involved a famous law firm specializing in suing the media. That was enough for social media users to dig up the story and link to a censored report hosted on Wikileaks detailing Trafigura’s attempted cover-up of the dumping scandal. “Combating this sort of bullying,” observes a writer at the Spectator, “is one thing the blogosphere is good at.”
Jason Farago
Guardian gagged from reporting parliament
The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.
Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.
The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.
The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.
The Guardian has vowed urgently to go to court to overturn the gag on its reporting. The editor, Alan Rusbridger, said: “The media laws in this country increasingly place newspapers in a Kafkaesque world in which we cannot tell the public anything about information which is being suppressed, nor the proceedings which suppress it. It is doubly menacing when those restraints include the reporting of parliament itself.”
The media lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC said Lord Denning ruled in the 1970s that “whatever comments are made in parliament” can be reported in newspapers without fear of contempt.
He said: “Four rebel MPs asked questions giving the identity of ‘Colonel B’, granted anonymity by a judge on grounds of ‘national security’. The DPP threatened the press might be prosecuted for contempt, but most published.”
The right to report parliament was the subject of many struggles in the 18th century, with the MP and journalist John Wilkes fighting every authority – up to the king – over the right to keep the public informed. After Wilkes’s battle, wrote the historian Robert Hargreaves, “it gradually became accepted that the public had a constitutional right to know what their elected representatives were up to”.
From Chicken Yoghurt:
Trafigura
‘London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations,’ have gagged the Guardian from reporting parliamentary proceedings. That’s the parliamentary proceedings that you and I are completely free to read by simply going to the online version of Hansard.
So why have lawyers stopped a newspaper publishing quotations from the record of our democracy? It’s all to do with a company called Trafigura and what it may or may not have got up to in Africa.
It seems the Guardian has been prevented from publishing this written parliamentary question tabled by Paul Farelly MP…
61 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
You can download your own copy of the Minton report from Wikileaks.
It appears that some or all of these slops were disposed of at waste sites in and around Abidjan, Ivory Coast approximately in August 2006. This is alleged to have caused, or in part contributed to, a high incidence of health problems being reported, including nausea, breathing difficulties, vomiting, diarrhea.
Read section 3 in particular – ‘Health and Environmental impacts’ – all kinds of horrible stuff were involved.
Nick Barlow has more, as do many others. There’s also much being said on Twitter (if you want to Twitter about this, use the #Trafigura hashtag – it’s currently trending on Twitter’s front page). You might also be tempted to blog about Trafigura.
This is what Trafigura doesn’t want you to know. Now you do. If they hadn’t gone running to their lawyers, it’s very possible you wouldn’t. The Streisand is well and truly out of the bag.
More background:
Independent: Call for murder charges to be brought over toxic dumping
The settlement of the High Court case, expected to be finalised within weeks, concerns claims by victims who suffered short-term illnesses. But it does not apply to allegations, which will now not be tested in the British courts, that the dumped waste caused more serious problems, including deaths, miscarriages and birth defects.
Video: Newsnight – Dirty tricks and toxic waste in Ivory Coast
George Monbiot (on September 17): Trafigura’s attempts to gag the media prove that libel laws should be repealed
In Britain, libel (or defamation) is used as the rich man’s sedition law, stifling criticism and exposure of all kinds of malpractice. Dating back to the 13th century, it was reframed during the past 200 years specifically to protect wealthy people from criticism, based on the presumption that any derogatory remark made about a gentleman must be false. The law of defamation is the only British instrument which places the burden of proof on the defendant. Given the inordinate costs involved, it’s not surprising that it discourages people from investigating abuses of power.
Guardian: How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster
The UN human rights special rapporteur, Professor Okechukwu Ibeanu, criticised Trafigura for potentially “stifling independent reporting and public criticism” in a report the oil trader tried and failed to prevent being published in Geneva this week.
He wrote: “According to official estimates, there were 15 deaths, 69 persons hospitalised and more than 108,000 medical consultations … there seems to be strong prima facie evidence that the reported deaths and adverse health consequences are related to the dumping.”
Ministry of Truth: TRAFIGURA AND THE MINTON REPORT
The concentrated sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) is one, as anyone coming into contact with it on the waste dump would be likely to suffer severe chemical burns to the skin or lungs, from vapour inhalation, and as, I’m afraid to say, scavenging from waste dumps is not that uncommon a practice in the developing world… Do I really need to spell out the rest?
Greenpeace: Trafigura background
On July 2, 2006, the Probo Koala (chartered by Trafigura) attempted to unload waste in Amsterdam. Noting the strong-smelling nature of the waste and probable toxic nature, harbour authorities told the ship that the waste would be more expensive to dispose of. The ship refused to pay extra treatment costs and left Amsterdam…
Econsultancy: Social media turns toxic avenger for The Guardian (#trafigura)
This tidal wave of tweets makes for particularly bad PR, given the banning order against the newspaper. It’s a bit like an artist achieving a Radio 1 ban, which can result in chart success. What you seek to suppress only generates further interest.
Update @ 13.00: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has just posted this to Twitter:
Victory! #CarterRuck caves-in. No #Guardian court hearing. Media can now report Paul Farrelly’s PQ about #Trafigura. More soon on Guardian…
Wikileaks: Ivory Coast toxic dumping report behind secret Guardian gag
Statements made in parliament, including those of Paul Farrelly MP, traditionally enjoy an absolute exemption from molestation by the regular judiciary. Parliament does not, insomuch as it believes itself to be an expression of the national will, subordinate itself to any other court.
Knowing this, lawyers for Trafigura, Carter-Ruck, obtained a second, secret media injuction to prevent reporting of Paul Farrely MP’s questions. That this alleged order was granted is a bold and dangerous move by the High Court towards the total privatization of censorship. Is a multi-billion pound commodities trader a truer expression of the national will than the House of Commons? The question is no longer rhetorical.
Wikileaks: The Independent: Toxic Shame: Thousands injured in African city, 17 Sep 2009
The PDF presents a copy of an article originally published in UK newspaper The Independent, but censored from the Independent’s website.
