The European Court of Human Rights has decided to take on two cases from Iceland in which journalists were found guilty of libel. This has been confirmed by the Icelandic Association of Journalists.
The cases centre on articles written by Bjork Eidsdottir for Vikan magazine and Erla Hlynsdottir in the DV newspaper.
In both cases, Icelandic courts found the writers guilty of libel against strip club owners over their choice of language.
The European court has given the Icelandic state until the 16th February to bring any comments and observations to the table.
runestone, yes the Grapevine article comes lot earlier.
My criticism is that this IceNews article did not give background to under stand context of story — there are earlier articles that are better than current on — which is not how it should be.
( Of course it is one of the great strengths of IceNews that they do take and publish critical comments like my ones that I do make from the time to time unlike for example Alda did at Icelandic Weather report . )
” a former employee contended that prostitution is conducted at the establishment. The club’s owner denied the allegation, and sued the magazine for slander. ”
Here is earlier article about it :
http://www.visir.is/article/20071212/FRETTIR01/71212071/-1/FRONTPAGE
and criticla analysis about the Icelandic Supreme Court decision :
http://www.smugan.is/fra-ritstjorn/asgeir-h-ingolfsson/nr/1367
Our cases do go up to European Court of Human Rights because we are in the Council of Europe since 1950 and like those in there do sign up to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
http://www.humanrights.is/english/laws/icelandic-law/
So what I want to know is — why is this writers of the articles found guilty of slander and has to pay the owner and not the ex- employee that was quoted ?
It is perhaps because of the changing of their words into some thing simply false and misleading ? Why are the three supreme court judges wrong in this case.
Why should this be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights ?
Fisy:
The Grapevine article you cite is a good article. But to say “As usual better articles about this are in ther places than IceNews” is a little bit harsh considering these are not the same story. One is about the Icelandic judgement, the other is about the fact that the case will now go to Europe.
:-)
” >In both cases, Icelandic courts found the writers guilty of libel against strip club owners over their choice of language. ”
Don’t they mean photographers. DV doesn’t have journliasts. It has photographers.
As usual better articles about this are in ther places than IceNews see eample :
http://www.grapevine.is/News/ReadArticle/Serious-Judgement-for-Journalists
As to background to all this banning lap dance nonsense you can read here :
http://theweek.com/article/index/201336/Icelands_strip_club_ban_A_feminist_victory
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/04/14/majority-want-to-ban-striptease/#comment-72451
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/06/11/iceland-parliament-votes-for-gay-marriage/#comment-190968