A former United Nations official who believes the Washington Post and other major media companies libeled him in Web articles accusing him of sexual and financial misconduct awaits a ruling in a suit against the paper and the companies, and the Post—with major support from CNN, the London Times, and others—is not taking it without a fight.
The oddity of the case is that it rests upon whether, if you think you were done wrong on a Website by a foreign publication, you can take them to task in a court where you might live in the future.
The former UN official, Cheickh Bangoura, won an earlier court verdict saying he could sue the Post in Ontario province—even though he didn't live in Canada, never mind in Ontario, until three years after the articles in question were published in the first place.
"It seems a bit unfair to say that a publication should be thinking about the defamation laws in any jurisdiction where the subject may move to in the future," said Toronto telecommunications attorney Bruce McWilliam to reporters.
Judge Romain Pitts, in his original ruling letting Bangoura sue the Post, said the case indicates that media organizations must consider "the impact" of their work. "The Washington Post is a major newspaper in the capital of the most powerful country in a world now made figuratively smaller by ... the Internet," Pitts wrote. "Frankly the defendants should have reasonably foreseen that the story would follow the plaintiff wherever he resided."
The Post's appeal of the Pitts ruling was heard last week and three judges on the Ontario Court of Appeal are now considering a decision. Press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, for one, hopes the Post prevails.
"We are concerned that this case will have important consequences for press freedom and online freedom of expression that will extend far beyond Canada's borders," said the group in a letter to Canada's government. "If upheld on appeal, this ruling could dissuade very many journalists from publishing their articles online."
A Reporters Without Borders attorney, Brian Rogers, told the appellate court at the hearing that Web archives compared to "the great libraries of Babylon" but could end up severely restricted if Bangoura's lawsuit isn't thrown out. But one of the three judges, Justice Robert Armstrong, said at that hearing that the Net could also be "a tremendous force for destroying a person's reputation."
Others have said letting Bangoura's suit go forward would force media organizations to hire attorneys in just about every country in the world with access to the Internet—if not having to contend with possible blockages from some newspaper content.
Bangoura is suing for $6.5 million in damages against the Post, whose original articles he claimed wrecked his reputation while he tried making his life in Canada.
