A victory for free speech and historical memory was declared last month when charges were dropped against Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who had dared to invoke the World War I genocide of the Armenians, as well as more recent persecution of the Kurds. But, as we noted at the time, the real victory would not be until the law he was prosecuted under, Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, was overturned. Now, once again, it seems the victory was a Phyrric one as five more writers face charges under the same law. From the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists:

This is cute. Just as the cartoon controversy is being portrayed as evidence of Western values of "free speech" versus inherent Islamic intolerance, comes the conviction of Shiekh Abu Hamza al-Masri in Britain—on charges of, basically, expressing his opinions publicly. That he holds some pretty awful opinions is beside the point. The jihad fan club in the blogosphere will have a field day revelling in this irresistibly ironic display of Western hypocrisy, as Jihad Unspun does in the below blurb. Note that the Sheikh was acquitted of the charges which actually sound vaguely legitimate, "solicitation to murder" and "threatening behavior."

Brian Tokar reports for February's Z Magazine on the recently-concluded Montreal talks on global climate change, aimed at implementing the Kyoto agreement. What's really dangerous is that this agreement—which the Bush administration is refusing to join, of course—was already essentially gutted by pressure from the more insidious Clinton administration, which pushed through a program of free-market pseudo-solutions. So while Bush stands strong against Kyoto as an assault on American capitalism, what was largely discussed in Montreal was establishing guidelines for buying and selling the right to pollute...

In a big boost to the sclerotic campaign to divest from companies that do business with Israel's occupation of the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, the Church of England reversed earlier expectations, voting to divest from the Caterpillar corporation:

A round-up on the Feb. 7 BBC shows how the crisis over the anti-Islam cartoons published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten (and since reprinted in Norway and other European countries) is spinning out of control. The protests sweeping the Muslim world have now claimed at least six lives: five were killed in Afghanistan when protesters turned on the US airbase at Bagram, while a teenage boy was killed when protesters clashed with police in Somalia. In Tehran, hundreds hurled stones and fire-bombs and were forced back by police with tear gas, as Iran announced it is cutting all trade with Denmark. Protesters also attacked the Danish and Austrian embassies in Tehran, breaking windows and starting fires. Denmark is holding Iran's government responisible

As we noted in November, Noam Chomsky appears to have utterly lost his moral compass in his advancing years, jumping on the Bosnia revisionism bandwagon and, in one unsavory incident, engaging in blatanly censorious behavior towards a writer who dared to challenge him. His legions of supporters seem incapable of grasping the irony of this recent episode: On Oct. 31, The Guardian ran an interview ("The Greatest Intellectual?") in which writer Emma Brockes called him out over a letter he signed in defense of Diana Johnstone, whose claims in the Swedish left-wing journal Ordfront that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated had sparked a storm of (well-deserved) protest. Defending Johnstone on free speech grounds (that is, defending her right to publish) would be legitimate, even if an ill-chosen battle. But in the interview, Chomsky went further, praising her disingenuous and distorted claims as "very careful and outstanding work."

From there, the story only gets worse—much worse.

The ongoing White House attempt to politicize science makes the front page of the New York Times. Now let's get this straight: Bush wants to go to Mars, but is so beholden to the anti-science religious right that he wants NASA to hedge on the Big Bang, always refering to it as a "theory." This contradiction could hold the seeds of the current administration's undoing. Corporate America may want to suppress science that indicates their fossil fuel products are destabilizing the Earth's climate, but they know they are going to need the very brightest and the best if they are going to realize their hubristic plans to exploit minerals on Mars. Meanwhile, big ups to Michael D. Griffin for bucking the administration's pressure. Maybe the revolt of the bureaucracy has begun...

From our correspondent Sarah Ferguson:

The irony couldn't be more clear. New York City police and their union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, are suing the NYPD for spying on them at rallies and demonstrations held during their contract dispute with the city in the summer of 2004.