Murray's jailing is latest move in a battle to snuff out independent journalism
jonathan-cook.net
jonathan-cook.net
He also literally states in his own testimony to the court that he intended to attempt to reveal the identities without being in contempt of court.
The whole thing is just pretty funny - he's basically saying "Oh well I didn't say their names" and the court is saying "Yeah that's not the standard of the court order, you made it easy to identify them". I mean honestly, he literally told people what on the accusers job was, and when she did that job, meaning that there was only 1 possible person he could've been talking about.
[1]https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-genera...
> The whole thing is just pretty funny
Glad you can laught it off. Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders have expressed grave concerns: "Craig Murray's prison sentence on charges related to his blogging is disproportionate and highly concerning. RSF emphasises that journalistic activity should not lead to prison sentences anywhere; imprisonment in connection with any journalistic activity should only ever be a measure of absolute last resort - if at all. It is certainly not what we would expect in a country committed to protecting media freedom and the safety of journalists." - https://rsf.org/en/news/uk-blogger-craig-murray-jailed-eight...
As for Jonathon Cook - the double standard he claims doesn't exist in the judgement.
As for Jonathan Cook's piece, the double standard he writes about is the fact that those who claim they learned of the identities of the individuals claim they did so not from Craig Murray's writing but from other reporters. That's been completely ignored by this ruling. Do you think we'll see a court case targeting BBC reporters or the writer Dani Garavelli, cited by most respondants as the main source? Isn't it a double standard if they escape jail but Murray doesn't? Certainly looks to me like someone's got an axe to grind when they fixate on the ways Murray may have let readers learn about identities but gives other reporters a pass - especially when public surveys reveal those other reporters to be even more culpable than Murray.
It has never been a defence in law that “oh well other people did it too”
This whole case has supposedly been about protecting the identities of people involved in the Salmond case by preventing "jigsaw identification".
The court document you posted has this:
"Jigsaw identification can occur through the combination of separate pieces of information or details about inter alia the victims, nature and timing of the offences and locations. ...Seemingly innocuous facts published can still pose the risk of jigsaw identification when viewed within the existing matrix of information..."
> Meanwhile the attempt to go out and try and find people who figured out the identity through other means is entirely immaterial to the case. It’s just not relevant because that’s not what the law is about.
Why is it immaterial? They're claiming Murray did something exceptional. But when you ask (via a standard public poll, not "finding people who figured out the identity through other means" as you claim), those who were able to identify the people involved nearly all point to other media, not Murray, as their source.
You can claim that's immaterial and the court has no reason to look at how other reporters revealed identities via jigsaw identification, but I don't think that's very convincing to the general public. And when you take into account Murray's history (as Jonathan Cook does in his article), it looks to many people like he's being singled out and punished for being a thorn in their side for too long.
Not to mention that no one has been jailed for jigsaw identification ever before.
Also let’s drop this stuff about jigsaw identification- the judgement literally says some information was so unique as to singularly identify a person. No jigsaw identification necessary at all - he posted the accusers job and the time she held it, which uniquely identifies her.
Fine, but don't expect people to take you or your law seriously if out of a bunch of people who break the law in a similar way, you choose to punish and make an example of only one of them. The one who's had the least impact in identifying the people you claim to want to protect, and the one who's been a thorn in your side for many years.
> No jigsaw identification necessary at all
This makes no sense. First you claim they're "absolutely not claiming Murray did something exceptional", and in the next line you write he did something so unique that no jigsaw identification was necessary at all. So then why is he being charged with jigsaw identification? The first person ever to be jailed for it.
Ah no, see this isn't the same thing at all. The standard for the law is whether people can tell from your reporting who the person is. Sure, more people may have identified the person from some other reporting, but that's highly likely to be becuase the other reporting is in national newspapers and the like, not the 150 people who visit Murray's website. It doesn't matter if more people actually identify the accusers from another source, it matters what the reporting is - and Murray reporting details that were literally uniquely identifying an individual (and actually kept up comments in response to his blog that literally identified them).
>First you claim they're "absolutely not claiming Murray did something exceptional", and in the next line you write he did something so unique that no jigsaw identification was necessary at all. So then why is he being charged with jigsaw identification?
He wasn't. This comes down to the fact you're listening to disingenous talking points. He's not charged with "jigsaw identification". The uniquely prosecutable thing he did was he identified the acccusers after the court order saying their identity should be protected. The whole "jigsaw identification" thing is gish galloping. His supporters have made up a nonsense talking point to defend him.
I'm not going to continue this as it's not going anywhere. But as you're so adamant that he wasn't charged with jigsaw identification, and that it's only something his supporters claim (even though it's literally in the document you posted), you might want to take it upon yourself to reach out to the following publications and ask them to correct the record:
* The Guardian: "Ex-diplomat found in contempt of court over ‘jigsaw identification’" [1]
* BBC: "the retired diplomat breached the order and published pieces of information on his blog which, if pieced together like a jigsaw, could lead readers to establish the identities of the women" [2]
* The Independent: "Former diplomat hands himself in at police station to begin sentence over ‘jigsaw ID’ of Salmond accusers" [3]
* Daily Mail: "Lady Dorrian said Murray deliberately risked what is known as 'jigsaw identification'." [4]
* Scottish Legal News: "He published information on his blog which enabled jigsaw identification of the women in the case." [5]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/01/alex-salmon...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-58018127
[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/craig-murray...
[4] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9849607/Britains-ex...
[5] https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/craig-murray-to-be-jai...
So all this "Oh this is a unique situation never happened before since..." is completely irrelevant - which is why it's gish galloping- throwing up irrelevant rubbish to try and distract from the really quite simple facts of the case.
Even if one shares the RSF's concerns, and I would count myself in that group, that's a far cry from the implication that OP's article is making that the whole case is a sham.
In recent times journalists have constantly put people in danger by making misleading or downright false claims and engaging in what can only be called "doxxing", then evading responsibility by abusing "freedom of the press" arguments. I hope we get to see many, many more journalists going to prison in the future!
I don't like Salmon, but a smear is a smear even if no one goes to prison...
You surely didn't read that claim or any related claim in the comment you're replying to.
Salmond had already made himself totally irrelevant. He was lobbing grenades from the sidelines through Cherry and McAskill but he wasn't very effective (Salmond had electoral success but was personally never popular, with women in particular).
And all this ignores the fact that the person who put Salmond in jeopardy was Salmond by acting like a massive creep.
What happened in the case was largely a function of total incompetence by the Scottish Civil Service/govt. If you are familiar with Scotland, that is standard. Several people from the Civil Service should have resigned, they didn't. Sturgeon's testimony was obviously inconsistent at several points. This isn't the same thing as a "political attack" (again, be totally clear, Salmond has no political role...he isn't a politician, he is someone who used to be a politician).
Also, there is no "big government machine" in Scotland, and it most certainly does not control the courts if it did exists. That just isn't how the law works in Scotland or the UK (if you needed evidence of this, both govts have had run ins with the courts...if this was true then why was Salmond found innocent).
That is not true.
Looks like Murray has been categorized as not a journalist and gets a prison sentence.
Murray deliberately published information to doxx the sexual assault complainers. He doubled down after being warned multiple times he has breaching the court order
> Looks like Murray has been categorized as not a journalist
Whether Murray is a journalist or not is entirely irrelevant. The court order Murray broke applies to everybody.
It clearly doesn't as two surveys showed those who claim they were able to identify individuals from the reporting of the case, said they were able to do so from reports from the BBC and other corporate media. None of those reporters are facing jail.
Again, what Jonathan Cook is pointing out is exactly the opposite of what you claim. The court order does not apply to everybody: "Murray's writings appear to have had very little impact on the identification of any of the accusers. Among named individual journalists, Dani Garavelli, who wrote about the trial for Scotland on Sunday and the London Review of Books, was cited 15 times more often by respondents than Murray as helping them to identify Salmond's accusers."
But they're not being jailed. Craig Murray has been singled out. Nothing ethical about that.
That's a strong claim that i haven't seen before. Why do you believe it was deliberate?
> The court order Murray broke applies to everybody.
What is your explanation for why the order has not been applied to any other journalists, when we know that other journalists contributed much more more to people learning the identities of the complainants?
“The courts warned him to take his blog down or face the consequences of identifying the women but he refused.”
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/called-scots-act...
> What is your explanation for why the order has not been applied to any other journalists
Actually, no, that's untrue. IIRC, the Spectator was warned or investigated for some material it published.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/01/my-trial-and...
> 5. The court order protecting identities did not come into being before 10 March 2020. Most of the Crown’s alleged examples are before this date. We absolutely deny my articles enable jigsaw identification, but even if they did they were not illegal at the time of publication.
together with:
> 6. Up until 10 March 2020, had I wished to publish identities I could have done so quite legally in the articles before that date which the Lord Advocate cites. Unlike England, there is no law in Scotland barring publication of witness identity absent a specific court order. The fact I did not do so in the year between my learning identities and the ban coming into force, in several articles on the case where I could legally have published the identities, make nonsense the Lord Advocate’s contention that I deliberately gave clues.
Much has been made of point 6, and I can understand not being convinced by it.
But is there not truth to point 5? I guess not, since he was found guilty. I'd be interested in reading why this was discounted.
Incidentally, the robots.txt file for one of Britain's less reputable papers (IIRC The Sun) used to have a specific list of story URLs not to crawl which I suspect were those they'd been ordered to take down after libel actions etc.
Original comment: Wait, when was he warned?
> specified the job held by her at the time in question. The specificity is such that to specify her as holding it when she did, and in the context which is given, is tantamount to naming her. This is a clear breach of the order.
It's like saying I haven't named told you I slept with Boris Johnson, but I have told you I've slept with the Prime Minister. It's what a stupid person would think is a way of skirting a court order not to name someone.
> In finding Murray guilty of so-called "jigsaw identification", Lady Dorrian did not make a distinction between what Murray wrote about the Salmond case and what approved, corporate journalists wrote.
> That is for good reason. Two surveys have shown that most of those following the Salmond trial who believe they identified one or more of his accusers did so from the coverage of the corporate media, especially the BBC. Murray's writings appear to have had very little impact on the identification of any of the accusers. Among named individual journalists, Dani Garavelli, who wrote about the trial for Scotland on Sunday and the London Review of Books, was cited 15 times more often by respondents than Murray as helping them to identify Salmond's accusers.
> Rather, Lady Dorrian’s distinction was between who gets protected when identification occurs. Write for the Times or the Guardian, or broadcast on the BBC, where the audience reach is enormous, and the courts will protect you from prosecution. Write about the same issues for a blog, and you risk being hounded into prison.
Even if they have no legal right to?
You can seek relief from other judges if you don’t like it. Anything else and you go to jail.
My experience doing tech support for them when I was young is that they are the most arrogant people imaginable.
If you don't think the order is within the legal bounds of the power, you can appeal it. (News organisations do this semi-regularly). What you shouldn't do is breach it and hope to get off at the contempt hearing.
applied to all but journalists?
> I want to touch on one other aspect of liberty in my own imprisonment that appears not understood, or perhaps simply neglected, because somehow the very notion of liberty is slipping from our political culture. One point that features plainly in the troll talking points to be used against me, recurring continually on social media, is that I was ordered to take down material from my blog and refused.
> There is an extremely important point here. I have always instantly complied with any order of a court to remove material. What I have not done is comply with instructions from the Crown or Procurator Fiscal to remove material. Because it is over 330 years since the Crown had the right of censorship in Scotland without the intervention of a judge.
...
> What is even more terrifying in my case is that the Court explicitly states that I should have followed the directions of the Crown Office in what I did and did not publish, and my failure to not publish as the Crown ordered is an aggravating factor in my sentencing.
> If the Crown thinks something I write is in contempt and I think it is not, the Crown and I should stand as equals in court and argue our cases. There should be no presumption I ought to have obeyed the Crown in the first place. That Scottish “justice” has lost sight of this is disastrous, though perhaps as much from stupidity as malice.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/08/keeping-free...