The Libel Tourist - UPDATED

***UPDATE: On March 31, 2008, the New York State Legislature unanimously passed the Libel Terrorism Protection Act ("Rachel's Law") to protect New York-based authors and publishers in print and on the Internet from the enforcement of foreign libel judgments. Mahfouz lived to witness the failure of his lawfare, inadvertently leading Americans to better protect their free speech rights. He died in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 16, 2009. Following in New York's footsteps, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Tennessee and Utah passed similar laws. A national version of "Rachel's Law" was introduced in the U.S. Congress on April 16, 2008. The bill underwent different incarnations and, in a rare show of bi-partisanship, the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act (SPEECH Act), H.R. 2765 (as amended by the Leahy-Sessions Speech Act) was passed unanimously by the 111th Congress on July 27, 2010 and signed into law by President Barack Obama on August 10, 2010.***

This documentary short film, produced by the Moving Picture Institute, shows how Saudi billionaire Khalid Bin Mafhouz exploits the British legal system and sues for libel whenever he is the subject of a terrorism accusation.

Directed by MPI fellow Jared Lapidus, the film explains how Mahfouz filed a libel suit against Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed -- and How to Stop It. The suit was not filed in the United States, where the book was published and sold, but instead in London, where Mahfouz associates ordered 23 copies online. The judge ordered all copies of the book pulped, and ordered Ehrenfeld to pay the legal fees and damages, despite the fact that nothing in her book about Saudi funding of terrorism was ever disproved.

Ehrenfeld, however, is fighting back. In The Libel Tourist she speaks about her shocking experience of modern-day book burning by British courts, and the First Amendment lawsuit she filed against Mahfouz. Unfortunately, on December 20, 2007, NY State Court of Appeals sidestepped the First Amendment rights and protections.

Learn more about the case at www.LibelTouristMovie.com and at www.acdemocracy.org, Learn more about MPI at www.thempi.org.

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Film & Animation

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