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Nouritza Matossian remembers Armenian journalist and campaigner Hrant Dink, who was murdered one year ago today

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The parliamentary debate on ‘violent pornography’ is in danger of allowing personal tastes to overshadow compelling, factual arguments, writes Julian Petley

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The battle over the legacy of the Ukranian famine threatens to divide the country, writes Michael Foley

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A judge has ruled that parts of the trial of Wang Yam, who is charged with the murder of biographer Allan Chappelow, should be out of bounds to the press and public. Padraig Reidy reports

An Old Bailey court today ruled that evidence in the trial, due to begin next week of Wang Yam, 45, should be heard in camera.

Accepting the claim made by Mark Ellison QC, acting for prosecution, that there was a ‘serious possibility that the Crown may not proceed with the case’ should it take place in open court, Mr Justice Ousley said that the press and public would be excluded from parts of the trial.

Counsel for the defence, Geoffrey Robertson QC, had claimed that the defendant could not be assured of a fair trial if it were not all held in open court, saying that open reporting of his trial may, for example, ‘…lead to witnesses coming forward to provide information which will help to clear him of murder’.

Acting on behalf a group of media organisations including the BBC, the Guardian and the Times, Gavin Millar QC had argued that the press had a right to attend the full trial. However, Mr Justice Ousley said the need to protect national security outweighed this right.

Geoffrey Robertson QC said that he was ‘pretty certain’ that the defence would appeal the judge’s decision.

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The prosecution of a Foreign Office civil servant under the Official Secrets Act has been dropped. The UK government now has questions to answer. Jo Glanville reports

Derek Pasquill was charged last September with making damaging disclosures of Foreign Office documents concerning UK government policy on dialogue with Islamist groups and extraordinary rendition.

Today, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges as a result, it said, of material provided to the prosecution in December by the Foreign Office. The material indicated that discussion had taken place that undermined the charge that damage had been caused by the leaks. As a result, the case was dismissed – two years after Derek Pasquill was arrested and after a Special Branch investigation that lasted 20 months.

The leaks had in fact influenced a change in government policy on the question of dialogue with radical Islam following their publication in the Observer and the New Statesman. Critics of the decision to prosecute Pasquill (including Index on Censorship and the New Statesman) believed that the case would prove highly embarrassing for the government, since ministers had clearly acted on the information revealed by the disclosures.

Neil O’May, Derek Pasquill’s solicitor, said: ‘It was a scandalous prosecution, a case where the government shot the messenger. It’s clear that the Foreign Office took a view at an early stage that the disclosures were not damaging and in fact assisted in changing a dangerous government policy.

‘It’s a disgrace that this information was withheld for nearly two years while Derek Pasquill was persecuted by Special Branch investigators, arrested, charged and subjected to a criminal prosecution. He’s now been vindicated.

‘Questions now need to be asked as to why the Foreign Office withheld this information, why the decision was taken to prosecute him and what compensation he is going to receive.’

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Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris will tomorrow table an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill calling for the abolition of ‘blasphemous libel’. Here, Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society explains why such a crime has no place in a liberal society

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