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GLOBAL JOURNALIST Winter 2008
As requested by the Lees, the
court made a ruling without the
case having gone to trial. Singapore’s
high court agreed with the
applicant that the defense arguments
were baseless, according
to the newspaper Straits Times.
Damages are to be assessed at a
later date.
The case concerned an August
2006 article about opposition
leader Chee Soon Juan entitled
“Singapore’s Martyr” The Straits
Times says the article was “calculated
to disparage both leaders by
suggesting they were corrupt and
unfit for office.”
The editor Restall told Reuters
he was disappointed in the court
decision, and he added that the
magazine is considering making
an appeal. “It is notable that the
court has determined that the
public interest privilege that is
available in the United Kingdom
and other Commonwealth countries,
is not applicable in Singapore,”
Restall said.
The U.S.-based business publisher
Dow Jones & Company
owns Far Eastern Economic
Review.
World Watch
Two arrested covering Basque protest
A five-month prison sentence
was requested Nov. 3 for two
journalists who covered a demonstration
by a radical Basque
nationalist group in Pamplona, in
the northern region of Navarre, Reporters
Without Borders reports.
Reporter Asier Velez de Mendizábal
of the daily Gara and photographer
Lánder Fernández de Arroyabe
of the Argazki Press agency
were arrested and Arroyabe’s
cameras were confiscated June 17
during a demonstration outside the
Pamplona city hall. Basque Nationalist
Action staged the demonstration
in protest against the closure
of some city hall offices because
of its alleged links with the armed
separatist group ETA.
Six demonstrators were charged
with disturbing public order and
disobeying authorities. The journalists
were charged with “complicity
in disturbing public order.”
“The prosecutor’s position is
incomprehensible,” Reporters
Without Borders attested. “Firstly,
because in his account of the
events, he accepted that the two
journalists were not part of the
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