News › Activism, Anonymous, California, Fair Game policy, free speech, Free Zone, John Travolta, protest, Santa Barbara, Tom Cruise, United States of America
Published on Thursday 14th February 2008
Sunday, members and associates of Anonymous came out from behind their computers and instead hid their faces behind masks on State Street and around the world in protest. An announcement of the Santa Barbara protest encouraged participants to remain anonymous when in public because of “Scientology’s heavy-handed tactics when dealing with protesters and critics,” and many followed the recommendation.
Editorials › Activism, Andrew Morton, Anonymous, Canada, celebrity, courts, free speech, Great Britain, London, New York, protest, South Park, Tom Cruise, TV, Xenu
Published on Sunday 10th February 2008
The pay-off line to a 2005 episode of South Park said it all. The show was a satire on Scientology in which a cartoon Cruise was exposed to near-continuous ridicule. In the final scene, he cries: ‘I’m going to sue you… in England!’
The real Cruise can’t sue the makers in the US, where freedom of speech is protected but, like his cartoon counterpart, he could be confident our judges would gladly shelter him under our authoritarian libel laws if he found an excuse to come here. The same thought struck TV executives and the Scientology episode of South Park has never been shown by a British station. Even though you can see it on the web, lawyers would turn pale if I suggested repeating South Park’s running gag at Cruise’s expense in a British paper.
