Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world.  It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments  in the field.

This week, CGFoE is at Oxford University. Our Associate Director Dr. Hawley Johnson and Senior Legal Researcher Lautaro Furfaro are visiting the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights to judge the international rounds of the 18th Annual Price Media Law Moot Court Competition and support future leaders in international law.

On Tuesday, Dr. Johnson and Lautaro Furfaro held a joint session on Protecting Freedom of Expression through Comparative Case Law. They reviewed recent developments in global freedom of expression jurisprudence and presented the updated Special Collection Paper on Content Moderation, along with CGFoE’s forthcoming book chapter on Global Standards on Chilling Effect. Both Dr. Johnson and Lautaro Furfaro are also part of this year’s star selection of judges, presiding over preliminary rounds.

We have more exciting news. The Forum for Humor & the Law (ForHum) and CGFoE just launched the largest survey ever conducted on political cartoonists’ online experiences. Are you a political cartoonist? ForHum and CGFoE welcome your input. Do you know a political cartoonist? Please spread the word.

100% anonymous and secure, the survey – available in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic – consists of generic, close-ended questions that do not require detailed descriptions. The results will form the basis of an upcoming report by Cartooning for Peace, Cartoonists Rights, and their partners on the prevalence of issues such as censorship, abuse, and security threats faced by political cartoonists globally. The report will serve as a credible advocacy tool, offering evidence-based recommendations to social media platforms, lawmakers, and other stakeholders.

One of the cases we are featuring this week concerns Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and pro-Palestinian activist. On April 11, the LaSalle Immigration Court of Louisiana ruled to affirm his removal from the US, accepting that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination – delivered in a two-page memorandum and arguing Khalil’s presence had “adverse foreign policy consequences” – met the legal standard. However, Khalil’s legal battle continues: within the immigration court and on First Amendment grounds within the federal district court in New Jersey.

Mohsen Mahdawi, another Columbia student, was detained last week during his visit to an immigration office in Vermont. In a habeas corpus petition, Mahdawi’s lawyers argue his case constitutes the government’s retaliation against his constitutionally protected speech. The petition mentions the same determinations on foreign policy that the Secretary of State presented in Khalil’s case.

Earlier this month, a group of 27 American Jewish organizations filed an amicus brief in the case of Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, detained in Massachusetts last month and currently held in an immigration facility in Louisiana. Her case is linked to the op-ed she co-authored, criticizing he university’s response to the student senate resolutions on Gaza, for The Tufts Daily.

“Our foreign policy is not so fragile that an op-ed in a student newspaper could so easily compromise it,” the brief states, “and our constitutional guarantees are not so feeble that they may be so easily discarded.”

This week, CGFoE’s Associate Director Dr. Hawley Johnson and Senior Legal Researcher Lautaro Furfaro are visiting the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford University for the international rounds of the Price Media Law Moot Court Competition – the world’s largest competition in the field of international media law and related human rights.

“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier,” reads the plaque of the Eleanor Roosevelt statue in Mansfield College. “We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.”

United States
In the Matter of: Mahmoud Khalil
Decision Date: April 11, 2025
The LaSalle Immigration Court of Louisiana ruled to affirm the removal of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist, from the United States. The US Department of Homeland Security detained Khalil after his involvement in campus protests at his alma mater, which the Secretary of State claimed created adverse foreign policy consequences. The Court accepted that the Secretary’s determination – delivered in a two-page memorandum – despite its general nature, met the legal standard and that the Court had no jurisdiction to question the Secretary’s foreign policy judgment. As a result, Khalil was deemed removable, though his deportation remains barred by a separate federal court order while his constitutional and procedural challenges continue.

SEAT v. Ken Paxton
Decision Date: February 7, 2025
A US District Court granted a preliminary injunction against key provisions of a State law enacted to “protect children from harmful digital services.” The Act’s constitutionality was challenged by various plaintiffs, and the Court found that the law’s exemption of digital service providers that provide access to news, sports, and commerce meant that the law’s restrictions were “content-based” and therefore subject to the highest form of constitutional scrutiny in determining whether they infringed the First Amendment. It also found that certain provisions were overbroad, overly restrictive and underinclusive and that terms used in the law’s provisions were vague, and ordered an injunction on the implementation of those provisions. The Court dismissed the injunctive relief in respect of the provisions for which the Court found that the plaintiffs had failed to prove the likelihood of success.

India
Kamala v. State
Decision Date: August 9, 2024
An Indian High Court quashed the detention order passed against the founder of the Savukku Media YouTube Channel, under the Tamil Nadu Goondas Act, 1982, holding that the detention order was passed maliciously to prevent the founder from criticizing the government. Achimuthu Shankar, alias Savukku Shankar, was detained based on allegations of circulating false documents and inciting a protest at a bus terminus in Tamil Nadu – thereby disturbing “public order.” The detention order also referred to two other complaints, including one filed nearly six years after the alleged incident. The Court questioned the suspicious timing of the complaints and found that the protest occurred before Shankar’s video, weakening the State’s claim. It also observed that “mere publication[s] of false information” or “mere speeches aimed at the Government” cannot be punished under the Tamil Nadu Goondas Act, 1982, unless “an apprehension of disturbance to public order” is established. The Court emphasized that dissenting political or ideological views cannot be viewed as causing public disorder. It highlighted too that excessive use of preventive detention laws restricted the right to free speech and deterred citizens from criticizing the government, “fracturing the spine of democracy.”

● APRIL 29: Press Freedom and Regulation in a Digital Era: A Comparative Study. The British Association of Comparative Law will host a virtual discussion of Dr. Irini Katsirea’s recently published book Press Freedom and Regulation in a Digital Era: A Comparative Study. What are the challenges for press freedom “in the nascent digital news ecosystem”? Katsirea draws from the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the EU’s Court of Justice, as well as courts in Germany, the UK, and the US. April 29, 2025. 7:30-9:00 AM New York Time / 12:30-2:00 PM London Time. Via Zoom. Register here.

● APRIL 29: Guidance on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) Defence in Southern Africa. International Senior Lawyers Project, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, and ROLE UK are organizing a webinar to launch their joint publication Guidance on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) Defence in Southern Africa. The resource aims to support lawyers, journalists, and other stakeholders in the region concerning SLAPP litigation and other related legal questions. April 29, 2025. 9:00 AM New York Time / 2:00 PM London Time / 3:00 PM Johannesburg Time. Via Zoom. Reserve your spot here.

● When In-Jokes Go Viral: Looking Back at the Funniest (and Most Worrying) Fake News about Trump’s Assassination Attempt, by Jacopo Menghini. In this post for the Forum for Humor & the Law, Jacopo Menghini, University of Bologna, analyzes the aftermath of a humorous tweet that went viral, published in the minutes following the assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump last summer and picked up by some media as official news. With this example, Menghini highlights a troubling context: If compared to public figures, ordinary people can be more vulnerable to rapidly spreading online misinformation. Citing Handyside v. United Kingdom, however, Menghini invites caution and underscores a shift in the regulation of online humor, now largely subjected to social media platforms. Menghini asks, “Who decides when humor is fair?”

● Greece: Investigative Media Win Latest Victory in Spyware SLAPP Ruling. The International Press Institute (IPI) welcomes the recent decision of a court in Athens in favor of journalists from investigative media Reporters United and newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton (EfSyn). The court ruled that their reporting on Grigoris Dimitriadis – the Greek Prime Minister’s nephew and former general secretary of the Prime Minister’s office – and his links to a hacking scandal had been accurate. However, with regard to one headline, the court held that EfSyn committed a simple defamation and had to pay a fine. EfSyn is appealing. IPI urges the Greek authorities to implement the EU’s Anti-SLAPP Directive and “ensure its provisions to protect journalists against vexatious lawsuits also apply to domestic cases.”

● South Africa: RSF Contributes to Major Advancement Towards the Right to Reliable Information as Competition Commission Hones in on Unregulated AI. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) supports the South African Competition Commission’s efforts to develop a regulatory framework curbing Google and Meta’s anti-competitive practices toward journalistic content – the Commission has published a preliminary report focusing on the assessment of the companies’ practices. RSF expresses concern that Google and Meta might “weaken the legislation” and calls on the Commission to turn to the ten recommendations on media freedom and the right to information: “Oblige platforms to increase the visibility of reliable information sources” and “Promote outlets certified by the JTI [Journalism Trust Initiative]” are among those.

This section of the newsletter features teaching materials focused on global freedom of expression which are newly uploaded on Freedom of Expression Without Frontiers

“We’ll All Be Arrested Soon”: Abusive Prosecutions under Vietnam’s ‘Infringing of State Interests’ Law. This report, published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), interrogates the scale of the Vietnamese government’s abuse of Article 331 of the penal code, which criminalizes infringements “upon the interests of the state,” to persecute critics. Used “not only to silence prominent activists and whistleblowers, but to retaliate against ordinary people who complain about poor services or police abuse, Article 331 is the government’s handy tool to infringe upon the basic rights of Vietnamese citizens,” said Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia Director at HRW. The report identified at least 124 people sentenced to years in prison under the article between 2018 and February 2025.

AI Update: Regulation in US and Canada, New AI Institute in Academia, by Vlada Gurvich. In this article published by Grip, Vlada Gurvich, a legal professional and Senior Reporter at Global Relay, reviews the recent developments in AI policy and practice in the US – Virginia, Colorado, and Texas – and Canada. Gurvich reports that through the newly launched Institute for Applied Artificial Intelligence, American University seeks to integrate AI into curricula and research. “[The] University’s approach is striking not only for its boldness in higher education,” Gurvich argues, “but for how well it aligns with evolving views on responsible innovation in government and finance.”

This newsletter is reproduced with the permission of Global Freedom of Expression.  For an archive of previous newsletters, see here.