Posts
Where free speech is at stake, the boat must be rocked
by Scott Gilbreath ~ November 25th, 2008
Saudi billionaire and banker to the Saudi royal family Khalid bin Mahfouz took a serious dislike to Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld’s book Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop It. Even though Dr Ehrenfeldt is American and her book was published by an American firm, he decided to sue her for libel in Great Britain in order to take advantage of Britain’s more favourable libel laws.
Mr Mahfouz had previously won dozens of similarly dubious libel lawsuits, but Rachel Ehrenfeld wasn’t going to be his next patsy.
I was determined to prevent the Brits from robbing me of my free speech rights in America. After all, these rights were the result of the successful American fight against British oppression three centuries ago.
Many thought Ehrenfeld was tilting at windmills in fighting back against a powerful Saudi billionaire, but she persevered and won.
Almost five difficult years later, my efforts to defend my free speech rights led to groundbreaking new statutes: New York’s Libel Terrorism Protection Act, dubbed by the media as “Rachel’s Law”; a similar law in Illinois; and the Free Speech Protection Act 2008, now pending before Congress.
Why did she fight? To defend freedom of speech.
Where free speech is at stake, the boat must be rocked, if not toppled over altogether.
[…]
I doubt Mahfouz expected a lone American woman to take him on and rock the free speech boat. The Saudi billionaire known as Britain’s ultimate “Libel Tourist” surely did not expect the frequent mention of his name and activities in the international media when he sued me in London.Nor did he anticipate that his efforts to repress my free speech would spawn new laws to better protect Americans in precisely the “uninhibited, robust and wide-open” manner that the First Amendment was designed to protect and as the Free Speech Protection Act 2008 will reinforce, as soon as Congress passes it.
Dr Ehrenfeld is director of the American Center for Democracy.
h/t: EuropeNews
Print This Post
November 26th, 2008 at 07:36 PM
[...] WHERE FREE SPEECH is at stake, the boat must be rocked …. [...]