Sasakawa Libel Case In France

[Mulboyne]

Back in June, the Franco-Japanese Sasakawa Foundation sued a French academic for libel. Karoline Postel-Vinay had started a petition urging a boycott of a conference sponsored by the foundation, "citing the wartime past of its founder, Ryoichi Sasakawa". The Foundation argued that Sasakawa was never formally convicted as a war criminal so anyone calling him that would be guilty of libel. The court was due to rule last week and I assumed the result might make the news but it seems to have slipped under the radar. I can only find French language sources but a verdict was announced. In short, the foundation lost and the academic was exonerated. It's a little more nuanced than that. Le Monde writes:

Dans son jugement, le tribunal rappelle qu'il ne lui "appartient nullement de trancher une controverse de nature historique". Toutefois, soulignent les magistrats de la 17e chambre civile du TGI de Paris, Mme Postel-Vinay "avait suffisamment d'éléments" pour tenir de tels propos. Mercredi, le tribunal a considéré que certains des propos poursuivis étaient bien diffamatoires. Toutefois, considérant que la chercheuse en relations internationales avait "légitimement usé de sa liberté d'expression", il lui a octroyé le bénéfice de la bonne foi.

"In its ruling, the court said that it was not looking to settle a historical controversy but the judges thought Ms. Postel-Vinay had sufficient evidence to make her statements. The court did hold that certain remarks could be considered defamatory but the researcher used her right to free speech legitimately and could be considered to have acted in good faith."

The Foundation has been ordered to pay her costs. Other French language reports here and here.

[Coligny]

The court was due to rule last week and I assumed the result might make the news but it seems to have slipped under the radar

Unfortunately, if you want to make the news aboot revisionism, it should only be aboot the showa... It's this kind of voluntary blindness that allow to expel gitans without feeling bad...

Hitler was all aboot the Jouze... if you omit the gay and the gitans... you can still have fun against them...

Beside... the country is on the edge of civil war against the governement, so it's not some intellectual wanking that will help to sell a newspaper... /le tired...

Remember, for an imbecile like Sarkozy to have been elected, more than 50% of the population must have casted a vote for him, few of them did it for the muney... most of them because they are fracking morons dumber than the rain...

What we just need now is a French Obama... a guy that promise the moon... and come back with a poster of the milky way...

Time to go to the Elysee to burn the old farts...

[Mulboyne]

The French press did a reasonable job covering the verdict. It's hardly a major story but it was reported promptly as you would expect for a domestic issue.

I'm a bit more surprised the English language press didn't follow up. They reported the start of the trial and, in the case of AFP, even noted the day the verdict was due, but I haven't seen any mention of the result nearly a week later.