Tuesday 30 July 2013

Turkish domestic judges wear political glasses: Turkish ECtHR judge

EUROPE - Turkish judges wear political glasses: Euro court judge: "Turkish judges wear "ideological glasses," as a majority of them believe that protecting the state is their fundamental job, according to Işıl Karakaş, a Turkish judge working at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
“I don’t know any such examples in European countries. How could a judge’s job be protecting the state? A French judge and a Turkish judge understand the public order differently. Our judges see their job as protection of the state,” said Karakaş, explaining what "ideological glasses" means.
She stated that Turkish judges stopped punishing the word “Mr. Öcalan” only after the ECHR found Turkey guilty on several occasions for such decisions. Calling the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan as “Mr. Öcalan” was seen as a crime on the grounds that it was “praising the criminal,” in several cases in Turkey." 'via Blog this'

Monday 22 July 2013

Tulisa 'entrapped by Sun on Sunday' - letter to CMS Select Committee

Tulisa 'entrapped by Sun on Sunday' | Media | guardian.co.uk: "The manager of singer and TV celebrity Tulisa Contostavlos has written to the chairman of the culture and media select committee to complain about a Sun on Sunday sting operation on his client.
Jonathan Shalit's letter to Tory MP John Whittingdale expresses his "grave concern" about the article published on 2 June and the journalistic methods used to obtain it, arguing that it amounted to entrapment.
The front page story, headlined "Tulisa's cocaine deal shame", was billed as a "world exclusive" and written by the former News of the World investigations editor, Mazher Mahmood." 'via Blog this'

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Social Media Prosecution Guidelines updated

Social Media Prosecution Guidelines: "The final guidelines are broadly similar to those published for consultation, although changes made following feedback to the consultation include:
Greater detail about communications targeting specific individuals, particularly making it clear that this category relates to communications that constitute harassment or stalking
Clarification that where a communication might constitute a credible threat of violence or harassment or stalking, prosecutors should consider whether the offence is racially or religiously aggravated or whether there is aggravation related to disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity and pay particular regard to the increase in sentence provisions
In cases where communications might be considered grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false that meet the high threshold for prosecution, guidelines have been amended to make clear that prosecutors should particularly consider whether there is a hate crime element to the communication, when assessing impact on  victim
Clarification of the wording of the public interest factors to be considered for prosecution under S.1 Malicious Communications 1988 or S.127 Communications Act 2003" 'via Blog this'