13/09/2008

SNP Councillor threatens the law on Labour blogger

A couple of days ago Labour blogger Kezia Dugdale published the text of a letter sent by the daughter of an SNP councillor to First Minister Alex Salmond. It wasn't a very nice letter, it contained some very nasty allegations. Apparently the councillor Jahangir Hanif is going through an acrimonious divorce, and the letter from his daughter Noor appeared to be related to that family dispute.

It is rarely wise for outsiders to take sides in a divorce. For members of a political party to use accusations made in a family dispute to attack a member of another party is particularly unwise. However Noor had put her letter in the public domain, it has been quoted in newspapers and was mentioned in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday, so wise or not, it would appear that Kezia had the right to publish the text if she wished.

However, the blog post which contained the letter is no longer on line having being removed following legal proceedings bought by Cllr Hanif. I can sympathise with Cllr Hanif, to a certain extent, nobody wants their dirty linen shown in public. But an SNP councillor suing a Labour blogger for mentioning something that was already in the public domain is going to do more harm to the councillor and his party than ignoring it would have done. I hope that Alex Salmond has the sense to publicly distance the party from the individual actions of the councillor, otherwise the SNP will be open to attack for using the law to silence its critics.

UPDATE
Kezia's response to the legal action

8 comments:

  1. This party attacks that over the price of eggs, that one attacks a third one on legovers - sigh.

    Meanwhile we all go down the gurgler.

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  2. I learnt the other day that this is now called the 'Streisand Effect'; in trying to silence critics etc you simply give them more airspace. Something karmic about it...

    Imagine what it would be like if everyone uploaded all their relationship laundry. Some things are still private. (Unless, of course, you're the poll tax guy wanting to inspect people's bedrooms for evidence of live-in lovers...)

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  3. Thanks for the link.

    I hadn't heard. Will take a look.

    Matt

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  4. There are a lot of different aspects to this, but I'll be posting today or tomorrow.

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  5. I don't mind posting a protest, but one question: when you say that Noor had put her letter in the public domain - is there a full copy besides the one posted by Kezia Dugdale? A link will be appreciated.

    If there isn't one, it looks more complicated. In case where newspapers and other bloggers published only quotes unrelated to dirty laundry, it will be a bit difficult to defend Kezia's decision to publish it all.

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  6. >I don't mind posting a protest, but one question: when you say that Noor had put her letter in the public domain - is there a full copy besides the one posted by Kezia Dugdale? A link will be appreciated.

    I'll send you the text if you email mattwardman AT gmail.com.

    I think "put in the public domain" probably means "sent to the newspapers" - and they have not published the personalised child-custody battle bits, imo for a good reason.

    That doesn't take away from Kezia's right not to be closed down so summarily.

    I'll be commenting in detail when I've written it.

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  7. I'm lost really with what's going on here. But just to say now I understand why visitors are turning up on my blog having searching for 'debacle' and 'dugdale'. Are they gathering 'evidence' or something?

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