Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Category: Elsewhere (Page 22 of 28)

Articles that were published somewhere else first.

Quoted in the Daily Mail, discussing Libel Reform

12 April 2013 / / 1 Comment

As well as quotes in the the Guardian and the Telegraph, I am also quoted in the Daily Mail today, discussing the same issue of libel law and corporations.

Libel lawyer and Tory MP Sir Edward Garnier has put down amendments to the Government’s Defamation Bill that would remove key sections designed to boost freedom of speech. … Robert Sharp, of English PEN, another group calling for change to protect freedom of speech, said both subclauses were essential ‘to stop the inequality of arms that corporations use’.

 

Quotes in the Guardian and Telegraph

12 April 2013 / / 1 Comment

I’ve been quoted in newspapers twice this week.
Yesterday, the Libel Reform Campaign learnt that Sir Edward Garnier MP was seeking to remove essential provisions from the Defamation Bill. The Guardian asked me to comment:

Robert Sharp, head of campaigns and communications for English PEN, said both subclauses were essential “to stop the inequality of arms that corporations use. They use the libel law for PR.”
Sharp pointed out that Garnier does not have the full support of his party, with Tory peer Lord Mawhinney having given his support to the companies’ clause saying the fact they could sue anyone without any prima facie proof of financial damage was “a form of bullying”.

The quote from Lord Mawhinney was during a House of Lords debate on the Defamation Bill, which I attended.
I was also quoted in the Sunday Telegraph last weekend, in a piece by Andrew Gilligan about the Royal Charter and Hacked Off. I am less pleased about that one, though – it is a story about process, not policy.

Interviewed on Free Expression in Vietnam

25 January 2013 / / 0 Comments

The General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party Nguyễn Phú Trọng was in the UK this week, so English PEN wrote a letter to David Cameron, asking him to raise our free expression concerns during their meeting.
I was interviewed about the visit by Voice of America’s Vietnamese Service.
http://youtu.be/BHfd_SRhKWc?t=50s
There is an accompanying article.  This is the key quote:

Thủ tướng Anh nên quan tâm đến việc các doanh nghiệp Anh có nên đầu tư vào một nước như Việt Nam hay không khi mà nạn vi phạm nhân quyền, vi phạm quyền tự do bày tỏ quan điểm đã trở nên quá rõ ràng đến mức như vậy.

Essentially: When writers are being locked up, how can you trust what is reported from within Vietnam?  Why should British buinesses invest in a country where information about the economy and corruption may be suppressed?
Those of you who don’t speak Vietnamese may appreciate a Google Translate version of the page.
 

Scientology and Libel Reform

15 January 2013 / / 0 Comments

Here’s a perfect example of the libel laws preventing literature and public interest debate: Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear will not be published in the UK.  His British publiser Transworld have said that some of the content was “not robust enough for the UK market.”
This is not a euphemism for saying the book is fabricated.  It means that although the author is confident of what he has written, neither he nor his publishers can afford the time or the money to defend the claims against the (famously litigious) Church of Scientology. Continue reading

Discussing Free Speech in Turkey in The Guardian

11 January 2013 / / 0 Comments

PEN Turkey at the Istanbul Prosecutor's Office

PEN Turkey at the Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office


I’m quoted in The Guardian today, discussing censorship in Turkey.

“This and other cases highlight the fact that Turkey has a free expression problem,” said English PEN spokesperson Robert Sharp. “When ill-advised laws are put in place, then those with an ideological agenda will seek to use them to censor words or writing they do not like. This is why we campaign against ‘insult laws’ all over the world – including the UK. Censorship does not begin with the state instantly imprisoning authors and burning books. It begins with individuals using bad laws as weapons against each other.”

I was commenting on the ridiculous news that the board members of PEN Turkey were hauled into the Istanbul Prosecutors Office, to be questioned as to whether they had “insulted Turkishness” by they called Turkey’s censorship laws ‘fascist’.  Thought-crime, essentially.  It is a huge irony that a complaint at ‘fascist developments’ should be met by the sinster act of summoning all the board members for questioning… an irony apparently lost on the authorities.

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