Daphne Caruana Galizia: a small step towards justice

A change of plea to guilty in a Maltese court this week by a man accused of being one of three hitmen who murdered investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 has brought hopes that her family may be one step closer to getting both answers about her assassination and justice. Read more here.

Lebanon's journalists face Hezbollah threat

Hezbollah fighters at a ceremony. Photo: Al Khamenei/CC BY 4.0

On 4 February, the Lebanese activist, political commentator and publisher Lokman Slim was shot dead in his car. Before his murder, Slim already suspected that his days were numbered and told family members that should anything happen to him, the Shia militant group Hezbollah – of which he had been an outspoken critic – would likely be behind it, writes Benjamin Lynch.

Speech should be free but not of consequences

Building on the UK government’s plans to create a new designation of unacceptable language for our online conversations in the Online Safety Bill – legal but harmful – we have seen yet more headlines outlining the latest initiative from a well-intentioned quasi-government body seeking legislation to regulate speech in order to protect us from extremists.

The Centre for Countering Extremism is calling for a new legal framework to tackle extremism – or rather extremist language which is creating an environment conducive to building new extremist groups. In principle, this is something that is difficult to knock and I have huge admiration for many of the people involved, but this is a slippery slope, says Ruth Smeeth.