Bråttom!!!

Vidarebefodrat från Birgitta Forsman av Ingrid Atlestam:

Dear Friends
Can we ask for your help?
You know we joined up with free speech organisations to form the Libel Reform Coalition* in December and that we have been working hard with many of you to highlight the impact of England's libel laws from my own and Peter Wilmshurst's cases to the chilling effect on medical journals and science blogs and other writing. This has begun to focus political and legal minds on the problem but we now have very little time to go before election manifestos are published. We need a commitment in those manifestos. Many of the politicians we've met don't dispute that the libel laws are unfair and against the public interest, but they won't commit to changing them.
There is a new joint petition calling for action at http://www.libelreform.org/, separate to the Keep Libel Laws out of Science petition, and where you can also send a letter urging your MP to support libel law reform.
There were a few teething problems at the launch of this site but progress has been made in fixing these. If you haven't already signed this petition please do it now, and please do sign even if you don't live in the UK. Get your organisation, friends, colleagues and clubs to sign up and email their members; if you haven't written, blogged and Tweeted, could you?
We need your help to get 100,000 signatures before manifestos are published. It will help us to get a strong show of support before members of the coalition meet Jack Straw on Thursday 28th January.
BestSimon and Síle
P.S. Do you have any clever suggestions about how to advance the campaign to stop the libel laws being the tools of rich bullies? How do we get 100,000 signatures? Email me or give me a call, Síle
*The Coalition for Libel Reform is made up of the registered charities English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science, with a wide and growing group of affiliated NGOs, professional and community organizations. See the list of affiliate organizations here: www.libelreform.org/who-supports-us and lots more are considering it. If your organisation should be among them let Síle know at slane@senseaboutscience.org