UAE Facebook Libel Case Heard

Image by Fati.m.a Maria via Flickr

It was inevitable that we'd see such a case one day. Dubai's Misdemeanours Court yesterday heard the case of a Syrian who had posted photographs tagged with 'libellous comments' on his FaceBook page, according to Gulf News today.

The National, incidentally, didn't seem to get the story - there's a pattern emerging here where GN is stronger on the Dubai-led official stuff and The National on the Abu Dhabi/Federal beat.

No judgement has yet been passed in the case, although the defendent did say, according to GN, "I'm guilty and I did defame him because he provoked me." This could well avoid any wrinkles in the case that would test the ability of the judiciary to sit in judgement of complex cases involving online behaviours and technologies - I hope it doesn't stop the judge from exploring the legal issues the case opens up.

However, the critically important precedent in this is that the case was brought to court at all. In fact, Dubai Police's E-Crime section received a complaint from the allegedly defamed party and presumably brought the case.

The judge's summing up on this one has the potential to be important for many of us - we have already seen both cases and judgements in the UK and US that start to set precedents for how online media are being treated with regard to issues such as anonymity (the British High Court, for instance, judging that blogging is 'an activity carried out in public' and therefore a blogger does not have a right to have his or her anonymity preserved or protected) and online libel (we have now seen cases involving FaceBook, MySpace and Twitter).

The GN story is worth a read, BTW - the 'libel' that GN reports seems pretty mild as they go and appears to refer to a dispute that is itself ongoing in Dubai courts between the plaintiffs, according to the defendant and so wouldn't necessarily appear to be as clear-cut as the defendant's 'mea culpa' statement seems to make it.

Camels

I drive through the desert by Khawaneej early every morning, just as the sun is lighting the sand up, the burnt orange light casting great shadows across the dunes. The cooling weather means that I can wind down the windows and enjoy the fresh early morning air. The area is home to hundreds of camel farms and this morning the warm, grassy smell of camels was unmistakeable on the breeze, a little later joined by a whiff of woodsmoke. It was one of those ‘life is good’ moments, accompanied rather spectacularly by Mr David Grohl and his Fighters of Foo.

The Muezzin Cried

People were scared. The first call to prayer, the fajr, was wrong.

Abdelkader the muezzin came with his wife in tow. He was a thin, wiry Sudani with hair like a pan scourer. Nobody could work out why they’d sent a Sudani. Some opposed it; the children stood in the streets and stared at the black man when he came.

His azan silenced the critics in an instant. Ringing out with lilting cadences, its sweet sound made you want to give thanks to God in itself.

This morning something was broken. His voice started waveringly, uncertainly. It cracked. Twice he stopped. People started to gather in the dark streets, astonished, as the word went round. The muezzin is crying.

They stood in clusters and listened to him cry into the microphone and out of the loudspeakers. Families gathered outside their houses, mothers holding their children.

He finished, the last broken line of the azan echoing. Then there was silence.

He started to talk, in a halting voice at first but then something, somewhere gave him strength and everyone heard him.

‘My wife is dead, people. My wife is killed, people. They have taken her from me to God but I cannot rejoice for God, because he has my light and my companion and I am jealous of him, please forgive me God, but I am jealous. Why should they have been the instruments that took her to God, people? Why should I have her taken away from me, be forced to give her up, when her skin was still young and her eyes still filled with life and her laughter echoed around my house like the sound of a stream in the springtime?’

The men became angry and started to walk towards the mosque, but the doors were barred and so everyone gathered outside. Soon the whole village was there and the light was starting to show above the hilltops.

As the muezzin fell silent, his grief taking away his power to speak, the men grew heated and made each other angrier. They started to talk about taking action, about revenge.

It was Selim’s father in law to be who was most vocal. He was a large, brutish man. ‘We will revenge you,’ he cried out to the minaret and the tiny figure hunched up on high. Abdelkader was silent, save for the occasional sound of deep breaths, like sobs. The men stood, talking and threatening the direst things, but against whom? Who had done this to the muezzin? Who had taken his wife from him like this?

The arrival of the Israeli drone was a Godsend, the women agreed. Some of the men had already gone home to get their guns. They usually ignored the drones but this day brought them a culprit and guns ready in their hands. It was Selim’s father in law to be who hit it and brought it down.

The men ran, as one man, to the wreckage of the drone and stood around the small pile of crumpled white fibreglass and wire. They exulted and fired bullets in the air and shouted revenge.

This was to be how Selim became a billionaire.

Fraud

I seem to be posting everywhere except on my own blog these days. I posted today on the Spot On PR Blog, a piece about communications when you're the challenger.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Be My Guest

Image by Robb North via Flickr

As you may know, I have a number of friends dotted around the globe who are writers. Most of us are supplicants, although as I mentioned before a couple are revolutionary collectivists and suchlike. However, I have watched with delight as one of our number has been picked up by Australian publisher Hachette and slapped with a two book deal.

Phillipa Fioretti, for it is she, is having her first book published next year. The Book of Love is to be followed by a sequel which she is currently working on.

In a remarkable lapse of taste, she lent her blog to me today and I have repayed her hospitality by making a mess and confessing to a number of particularly bloody murders.

You can read the guest post here. On any other day, Pip's blog is a mixture of insightful and though-provoking stuff on art and writing and it's a great read and I do heartily recommend popping it on your reader.

SNAFU

It was all too good to be true. There was far too much sense being spoken about identity cards. No more than a few hours after I had coffee with a pal in the security business who had told me that he had no intention of getting an identity card (he doesn't trust the security being applied to protect all that sensitive data and biometric information) WAM issues a statement that the Ministry of the Interior is insisting on the presentation of a National ID card for any transaction after November 22nd, by nationals and expats alike.

If you haven't got a card yet, this means big trouble. The Ministry of Interior handles police and civil defence, so we're looking at stuff like needing a card to pay a traffic fine, register a car, file a complaint etc etc.

Except the announcement goes on to say that expats living in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah are exempted until 'a later date'.

So here we go again, another round of senseless announcements about this blasted card - can we expect each Ministry to now stipulate what dates it will offer what services to what category of person now?

At least I've got one of the things... just in case any of 'em are even half serious...

Win a Cow's Aorta! Now Extended!

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The Roads and Traffic Authority of Dubai has extended the deadline for entries to the Dubai Sustainable Transport Award. It would appear that not enough people want to win a silver-plated segment from a cow's aorta.

Perhaps interestingly, snuck in the very bottom of the press release issued by the RTA announcing the extension, there are two subsidiary awards this year, as well as the four key awards (I'm not going to list them, if you're interested more info is here).

The second subsidiary award is for 'Best Media Coverage'. According to the RTA, the award "relates to the media coverage of events, activities and news of the Award. This Award is designed for the government, semi-government and private media organizations."

So you get an award for covering the awards. Neat. I can't wait to see which journalist will step up to receive an award for the most slavish, extensive, praise-laden and blindly approving piece of witless, saccharine hagiography.

Oh, sorry. I meant 'most incisive and independent evaluation of the awards, their objectives and success in meeting those targets'.

It just came out wrong.

Touched and Humbled

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I’m touched and humbled by the number of people around the world that care about me and have me in mind. There are literally thousands of them, and many get in touch every day.

There are the people that want to help me improve my love life and also the many people who want to make me thicker (although I am already quite stupid); the people who want to give me money in any number of ways – I am always particularly touched by the Nigerian ladies repatriating money who want to share it with me, but also the former members of US forces in Iraq – war heroes who still have time to spare me a thought in their plans to exfiltrate gold. Then there are the people who want to help me to get cheap meds, I never seem to find the time to thank them but point out that I’m not actually ill right now – it’s nice of them to think of me though.

A lot of people want to make me harder, but I’m too old to start kickboxing lessons. As for those that want to make me stronger and longer, I feel like thanking them but pointing out that I’m quite pleased with my current shape, although I could do with losing a few pounds if I’m totally honest. Sadly, I don’t want a Rolex, although lots of people seem to think it would set me off really nicely. As for the many offers I get that will help me make women moan, I find that forgetting to call my mum works fine, as does keeping a paper tissue in my trousers when I pop them into the wash.

I actually feel a little guilty that so many people care and get in touch to share their thoughts, but I am really bad at getting back to them and saying thanks. Outlook puts many of them in a special folder so I can reply to them all, but I keep deleting it by mistake.

The people I really, really appreciate getting in touch, however, are those lovely chaps and chapesses at Telco Extraordinaire Etisalat. I love when they think of me and offer me things over my telephone. Especially when I get up and cross the room to see who has sent me an urgent message and am delighted, instead, to get a picture message telling me to get an iPhone or call Lanzarote between 4 and 6am for half price every Monday for the next cycle of the moon.

So many people to thank. I only wish I could do it in person...

Gormenghast and the Future of Publishing

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Longer-suffering readers of this silly little blog will know about Harper Collins’ authonomy website and my opinion of it. For those that weren’t around, this post pretty much explains things. The post was something of a bombshell in its time, BTW.

Authonomy was Harper Collins’ attempt to harness the process of change that the Internet is undoubtedly going to bring to publishing in a similar fashion to the change it is bringing the music industry. Although the company scrupulously avoided outlining any strategy, it is my opinion that the overall gameplan was to create a website that would attract authors and encourage them to put their books online (Authonomy), a website for readers (Book Army) and then allow the authors to ‘self publish’ for the readers by using a POD (print on demand) supplier. Today’s POD systems can create high quality single books at near-market prices.

The Authonomy deal was this: if you made it to the top five books each month on Authonomy, a Harper Collins editor would read and critique your manuscript, or MS. Getting an MS in front of a Harper Collins editor is a bit like getting ten minutes with Warren Buffet to chat about your new business proposal – and just as difficult. So it’s no wonder that the site soon attracted something in the region of 6,000 writers. You’d be surprised how many carvers there are living around Castle Gormenghast.

My ‘generation’ on Authonomy (before anyone starts squealing ‘sour grapes’, I made it to the top five and got a ‘gold star’ as well as a crit from an HC editor. You’ll have to read the ‘backstory’ linked above to see what I thought of it) was pretty much the first ‘wave’ of writers to discover the site and consisted of a heck of a lot of really talented people. With all the energy of a group of kids in a huge playground, we invested a huge amount of time and effort on the site, vying to get to the top and using fair means and foul to do so. At the core of it, though, was a sincere belief in quality – the majority of users adhered to a principle that they’d only ‘back’ books that they would genuinely buy in a bookshop. Although there was a huge element of popularity and ‘plugging’ of books, we reasoned that if you could market yourself on Authonomy, it just proved you could market yourself in the real world too, so was fair game as part of the mix that makes a book.

It looked very much as if HC had created a site that was intended to do what the Internet does best – improve access and disintermediate the gatekeepers, in this case the agenting system that means that only books with obvious mass market commercial potential get through to publishers. Now it looked as if readers could actually vote for the type of book they’d like to see in bookshops – and if HC was to add authonomy winners to its lists, there’d be a new and wonderful outbreak of crowdsourced work to choose from. I can honestly say, BTW, that I read more work that I would buy on Authonomy than I have seen in bookshops all year. Really.

Of course, it was not to be. The POD plan lurked and I ‘outed’ HC when they sent a private email to some of us offering us beta list status. I accused the company of being insincere, in offering a clear ‘get published’ carrot when in fact it only ever intended to create a POD site to hedge against the tide of innovation. It is still my humble opinion that this was the case.

But something else has happened as a result of authonomy, something rather wonderful. In fact several things.

One thing is that I have stayed in touch with a relatively close-knit group of writers I admire and respect, and we’re just as much in touch a year after we all wandered away from Authonomy muttering darkly (A huge number of people have left the site, disaffected with the whole game and the way HC has chosen to play it).

A much more important thing is that the disaffection and annoyance at the ‘traditional’ publishing industry and the way it treats writers has resulted in two groups of writers from authonomy creating real, truly important (IMHO) initiatives that I believe are much more about the true future of publishing than Authonomy.

Year Zero Writers

Dan Holloway is a lecturer by day and maverick by night. Actually, he’s probably pretty maverick by day, too, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

The author of the evocative and hauntingly beautiful Songs From the Other Side of the Wall, Dan founded the Year Zero Writers group as a collective designed to pool resources and talent in a way that would enable writers to reach out to audiences with their books. You can find out more about Year Zero here. Dan’s Year Zero projects include Free-e-day (see the BookBuzzr link below) and (to my knowledge) the first ‘FaceBook book’ (The Man Who Stole Agnieszka’s Shoes was written in weekly instalments on a FaceBook group, taking the input of readers to mould the plot). has seen Year Zero growing in popularity, attracting readers and participants and spawning a vibrant writers’ blog that is attracting readers in a most satisfactory manner.

Four books have been ‘published’ by Year Zero and more are planned - one compilation of short stories (Brief Objects of Beauty and Despair) and three novels. You can go to the Year Zero site, interact with the authors, find out more about their work (it is excellent) and then either download a PDF (free - in other formats here) or order a printed copy (paid for) of those books (the links are to Dan's 'Songs'). Although not the most active member of Year Zero, I am deeply proud to be associated with it.

Dragon International Independent Arts

Diiarts is a small independent imprint founded by writer Sarah Jane Heckscher-Marquis, which on November 14th will ‘conventionally’ publish four books that were hugely popular on authonomy and that represent, along with the three books that Year Zero has announced, some of the first books to have been published as a result of the authonomy project.
SJ has taken the highly unusual step of getting so frustrated at seeing great fiction (and I would personally, having read large amounts of all of them, commend them most highly to you, particularly Paul House’s stunning work, Harbour) mouldering on the slushpile and being overlooked by the Groans that she has put up her own money to publish some of her favourite work from the site. With the avowed intent of creating and maintaining her own small list of high quality fiction, she has had the pick of the best stuff on authonomy and has, I believe, chosen wisely.

As SJ says in the diiarts.com launch press release, “We believe there is a great deal of high quality, distinctive writing out there, which the larger publishers are just not picking up. Not only are readers missing out, but we’re losing something of the richness and diversity of the English language. We’re in danger of losing the spirit of innovation and thoughtfulness that’s been the hallmark of the English novel since we invented it. What we’ve seen is that more and more authors are expected to compromise on their vision, their voice and their artistic values, to cut their work down at whatever cost to fit supermarket display racks. We believe—passionately—that our authors should be in control of their own work. When they are, great books are the result.”

What has me chuckling evilly is the fact that both of these initiatives came about as a result of Authonomy. And, of course, I believe they both represent different facets of the change that will eventually lead to the flooding of Gormenghast - 'e-books' and small, independent publishers who are passionate about books, not shareholders, together will forge what I believe to be the future of publishing.

The Souk

We did something we haven't done for years over the weekend - went for a wander through the Bur Dubai souk, the 'Cosmos Alley' part of it.

I'd forgotten about it, to be honest. Sometimes you just get stuck in your routine and stop appreciating the things around you and this was most definitely our feeling as we wandered, entranced, through the swathes of brightly decorated cloth and windows packed with dummies, displays and stacks of samples. We flapped through entrances covered with thick plastic sheeting into shops filled with the pungent sweet floral smells of dhoop, dodged past people on the narrow pavements and managed to avoid the drips from the AC units lining the streets above us. The other danger is, of course, the pigeons that sit on them (and shit on you).

The only thing that has changed down there is the car parking (Dhs 10 for the 'private' car parks is a tad stiff). Everything else is timeless, immutable. This is the Dubai I first visited back in the '80s, the Dubai of traders and bustling streets, diversity and adventures down the sunny alleys where men push hand-carts stacked with boxes past groups of animated, henna'd women shouting to each other, the air ringing with the calls of shopkeepers trying to entice punters in to view their unparalleled collection of the world's finest cloths. This one from Japan, very good cotton. This one very beautiful, madam. This finest quality and my very best price.

We've got too used to joining in with the shuffling masses grazing the malls, dumbly wandering past those rows of generic, aseptic stores with their sparse piles of globalised brand name clothes and 'lifestyle choices'.

Now the weather's cooling, I think we'll be making an effort to put in more souk-time. It's remarkably good for the soul...