16.03.2000

Whose freedom of speech?

Are there any circumstances in which a ban or restriction on freedom of speech represents a step towards socialism? Are those who defend the right of freedom of speech sliding into rank libertarianism? These are questions which have been thrown into sharp relief recently - a fact which communists welcome.

This week has presented us with another dramatic case. The monthly journal of the defunct Revolutionary Communist Party, LM (formerly Living Marxism), has been dragged through the high courts by the mighty ITN network and two of its reporters, Penny Marshall and Ian Williams. LM was sued over an article headlined, 'The picture that fooled the world', which questioned the ITN's credibility over its 1992 report on Serb-run detention camps in war-torn Bosnia.

LM claimed that the ITN reporters had deliberately misrepresented the image of an emaciated Bosnian muslim, Fikert Alic, as being behind barbed wire at the Trnopolje camp. That is, the barbed wire was not around the actual camp itself - the ITN news team themselves were filming from an enclosure and then deliberately 'spun' the video images to give it a 'Nazi concentration feel'.

On Tuesday the court awarded £150,000 to each of the ITN journalists - while the ITN network received £75,000. LM itself faces costs estimated at more than £300,000. This means the journal faces immediate bankruptcy - the end of the road. If ITN can close down LM - then who is next? Weekly Worker? Socialist Worker?

In a celebratory joint statement, the ITN reporters said: "There is absolutely no doubt that freedom of speech is essential ... But the freedom to print lies masquerading as the truth, as LM did, is not." Karl Marx fought against such regulations. He commented how the Napoleonic Code in France also guaranteed freedom of speech ... but only for those printing the truth and not 'lies'. What they - the bureaucracy - decreed was the truth, that is.

Communists defend freedom of speech for all, not just those who have the power of the state or big money behind them.