Tom Morris

Blogger threatened with legal action over AK-47-wielding SNP member

I have been called out over my support for freedom of expression, even if it’s over something I know absolutely sod all about: Scottish politics. Here’s the story: there’s a man called Jahangir Hanif, who is an SNP councillor, who was caught on video in Pakistan firing an AK-47 and showing his children how to use it. Mr. Hanif’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Noor, sent a letter to SNP leader Alex Salmond calling for her own father to be sacked.

Then a Scottish Labour blogger called Kezia Dugdale blogged about this rather strange incident, and (I’m guessing here) used it as an opportunity to point out the craziness of Mr. Hanif and the SNP. Following this, Mr. Hanif used the threat of litigation to have the post removed - see this takedown post.

This seems slightly crazy. I’d like to know the actual reasons for this takedown. This guy expresses some scepticism about the whole thing, and suggesting some tactics that bloggers should probably adopt if and when they get threatened by lawyers over the political material they post.

Wembley, England

If you haven’t got a ticket for BarCampLondon5, you may want to go to the one-day BarCampLondon5 Spillover hosted by the British Computer Society and organised by Harry Metcalfe. I’ll be at the main BarCamp. You know what would be mega-awesome? Two-way streaming feeds going between the main event and the Spillover event. We need ways of making BarCamp scale better for big cities like London.

Wembley, England