Mc Libel Duo told by EU that the UK breached their rights.

international | crime and justice | other press Tuesday February 15, 2005 13:23 by an admiring mac

Helen Steel and David Moris went through Hell, and inspired millions. Well done! ole! Basta!

the Mc Libel duo are two of the most significant activists in the development of a movement which grew from a little cupboard office to a global assault on the politics and economics of trans-national malnutrition, exploitation, disregard for the environment, labour abuses, greed and corporate negligence and deceit which was best represented in the 1980s by the Mc Donalds food corp amongst others.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that two vegetarian activists convicted of defaming fast-food giant McDonald’s Corp., did not receive a fair trial in Britain.
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The Strasbourg, France-based court ruled that David Morris and Helen Steel should have received legal aid from the British government. It awarded them US$25,934 and US$19,450.5, respectively.
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Morris and Steel were found guilty of libeling McDonald’s in 1997 and were ordered to pay damages of 40,000 British pounds (US$71,000) and 36,000 British pounds (US$64,000), respectively, for handing out leaflets attacking the company’s working practices and policies.
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The much-publicized trial, widely known as the ’McLibel’ case, lasted 313 court days and was the longest in English history.
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At a hearing at the European Court in September, lawyers for the pair argued that their clients due process rights had been violated because English courts did not make legal help available, and that the entire proceedings infringed on their right to freedom of expression.
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During the original trial, the two Londoners were unemployed or in low-wage jobs, and at the time, English courts did not provide government lawyers for defendants in libel cases.
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Their lawyers also claimed the pair’s human rights were violated because English law put the burden of proof upon them to justify every word of the allegations against McDonald’s in leaflets they distributed but did not write.
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The trial judge ruled in 1997 that the two had slandered U.S.-based McDonald’s by distributing leaflets entitled ‘‘What’s wrong with McDonald’s? Everything they don’t want you to know.’’
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The judge found that some claims in the pamphlet — including that the company was to blame for starvation in the Third World or that its food caused cancer — were untrue. But he also found McDonald’s ‘‘culpably responsible’’ for animal cruelty and for exploiting children through its advertising.
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An appeals court upheld much of the original judgment in 1999 but reduced the amount of damages awarded.
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The activists brought their case to the European court, arguing that their human rights had been violated by England’s legal system.

see links-

http://www.thelawyer.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=114084&d=122&h=24&f=46
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200502/s1303598.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,1415031,00.html
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4134861
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4266741.stm
http://212.2.162.45/news/story.asp?j=133709340&p=y337yxx46&n=133710100
http://www.keralanext.com/news/indexread.asp?id=116299
http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0215/mcdonalds.html

A new generation have grown up to watch "Super size me" (see search engine to left of your screen) and thousands have taken on Mc donalds in varying acts of protest ranging in effectiveness, but no-one deserves as much praise for their bravery and consistency and courage in taking on not only the food corp, but its lawyers and henchmen, its stockholders, the legal systems of both the USA and UK and all that entails since the printing and distribution of their 1984 pamphlet.

It was 21 years ago.
it was a key to the door.