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So I notice that Muslins usually refer to Muhammad in both prayers and casual conversation in the present tense. I.E. “Muhammad is…” not “Muhammade was…” Surely that suggests that only Muhammad himself could be the plantiff in any such filings…

Since libel cases are decided by juries in Britain, I think the descendants of Mohammed can look forward to a considerable charge of legal expenses. The defence will be allowed a number of challenges to ensure there are no Muslims on the jury, and, as for the rest of us, I’ve been buying a lot more Danish butter and cheese since this affair blew up, and I am far from being unusual in that respect.

I’ll be interested to see what the specific factual claims are that are alleged to be defamatory. Most of the cartoons are difficult to interpret as making any factual claim.

Bill Poser,

I understand that is a requirement under US law but is that also the case in the UK? I was under the impression that merely putting someone in a bad light without being able to prove actual truthfulness along with public relevance was sufficient.

Britain is fast becoming the libel joke of the world.

Cartoons are meant to be taken literally now, as statements of fact? The Acme Corporation is gonna win big, I tell ya.

Soronel Haetir,

That’s a good point. As I understand English libel law (which seems rather murky), it is true that expressions of “opinion” are actionable as well as expressions of fact, with the difference that the defense of “fair comment” is available in the case of “opinion” but not in the case of “fact”. Public relevance is one of the necessary factors for the success of the defense of “fair comment”. However, as I understand it, the distinction between fact and opinion is not the same as in American law, and statements of pure opinion, with no factual implication, are not actionable. For example, the statement: “Marks and Spencer is an awful store” is a pure statement of opinion, no more actionable in English law than in the US. To be actionable, there must be some factual content. How this line is drawn in English law is unclear to me.

If Britain had a meaningful “loser pays” law, frivolous suits like this would…

Oh wait, it does.

In the U.S., dead people can’t sue for defamation. Is it different in the UK?

Well, this is tangential to the topic, but if you want to participate in the everyone draw mohammed protest movement, you can do that, here: http://everyonedrawmohammed.blogspot.com/

And there are lots of places to do that, if you don’t like mine.

But Britian seriously needs to fix its libel laws. the worst example is the david irving trial. some american professor called him a holocaust denier. as i understand it, he is not a british subject, but he sued in Britain, saying pretty much, “that is libel. the holocaust didn’t happen.”

Now if i was the judge i would have found that he just confessed that the supposedly defamatory statement was true. i mean even if the holocaust didn’t happen (and i mean big if), he doesn’t stop being a denier. he is just suddenly correct. I mean we are now in the twilight zone of hypotheticals, but you see my point.

But the court for some reason decided it should determine as a matter of law that the holocaust did indeed happen, egged on by the defendants, and so that happened. that entire silly excercise happened. months of a case to determine a fact so well established that i would have been tempted to take judicial notice of it, and irrelevant to the real question–whether or not he has denied it occurred. so this whole thing happened, at the taxpayers expense, which if i was the judge it would have been killed on whatever is the british equivalent of a motion to dismiss or demurrer.