Silence!

Greetings from London.

I'm here ahead of the G20 conference scheduled for April 12th. The Finance Ministers are here for the weekend for a warm up event. I, of course, am looking for any kind of G20 swag, but so far, nothing. Not even a t-shirt sighting that says, "My Finance Minister went to the G20 conference in London and all he came away with was this lousy t-shirt."

Speaking of London...

Disturbing piece in the IHT this morning by Christopher Walker who is the Director of Studies at Freedom House.

It's a scary piece and you should read the whole thing. But you're busy, and clicking on the link is a lot of work, so here are the first four graphs to get you started.

How are a few extraordinarily wealthy individuals from the most senior ranks of the world's most brutally repressive societies succeeding in muzzling free speech on major international issues? The unlikely answer is, simply, by "visiting" London.

In a dangerous twist of globalization, these litigants are taking the illiberal standards of environments hostile to free expression and projecting them into those countries that permit free and open inquiry. And more disturbing is that the preferred tool they are using to stifle the work of investigative journalists, researchers and publishers is English law.

An increasing number of well-heeled litigants - libel tourists - are using England's plaintiff-friendly libel laws to silence critics. Unlike American law, which sets a high bar for libel lawsuits, English common law puts the burden of proof on the defendant, who can be hit with enormous damages and legal costs.

To make matters worse, English courts have demonstrated a tendency to accept jurisdiction in these cases even when the plaintiff's connection to England appears wafer-thin. As a result, London has earned the dubious distinction of "libel capital of the world."

See? I told you it was scary. Now go read the rest of it. Please.

And while I am on the subject of censorship or just about spreading information in general that might not be to someone's liking....here is another piece in the IHT, that should make you shake your head.

Parwez Kambakhsh, a student journalist in Afghanistan was sentenced to 20 years in prison for "blasphemy after accusations that he wrote and distributed an article about the role of women in Islam."

Hey, he got off easy. The first time they sentenced him to death! 20 years was the result after they appealed the death sentence to the Supreme Court!

And he says that he didn't write the piece, he just downloaded it from the Internet. That damn pesky Internet.

But wait...there's more. More? Yes. Tuesday night, Javed Ahmad, a journalist in Afghanistan for Canadian television was gunned down.

So is there a point to this dreary post? Yup. Journalism is a tough gig. Getting the truth out is getting harder every day. In London they silence you with wigs and lawyers, in the wilds of Afghanistan they use a Kalashnikov. Different approaches, same result.

What...? So, sue me.