Confused! I am to. From a story that was published this morning, which effectively said something on the lines of ‘we can’t report something that we can’t talk about, because we don’t know anything about it, even though we think it is strange that we can’t report what we know without mention things that *they* don’t want us to talk about, which we can’t now talk about. thanks’

In piecing things together, the Guardian was gagged under a super-injunctions against reporting in any way (including saying it is under an injunction) about Trafigura dumping toxic waste in Ivory Coast. Now wikileaks reports that this was what Trafigura were trying to stop this parliamentary question from being reported. Which can also be found on this official Parliament site (can’t imagine this gets a lot of traffic, snooze)

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) – To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

So as everyone in the blogger sphere, journalist, legal experts, politicians I hope are all asking themselves what is state of affairs in the UK regarding the Freedom of the press and where it leaves the 1688 Bill of Rights? Luckily in this instance, Twitter users picked this story up and activity has been so fierce around this topic that within hours the Trafigura legal representation no doubt advised by Tanfigura removed the injunction for fear of a PR meltdown.

New currently is less focussed on the actual question that was raised in parliament than on this whole freedom of speech debate. Obviously it brings into question how many other things the UK population is not told about. I’m pleased for one about the power of twitter and blogs to circulate this news. Long live social media, backed up by good old fashioned journalism.

Be interesting to see how this plays out and to find out more about the alleged toxic waste dumping.

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• Freedom Of The Press? UK’s The Guardian Barred From Reporting On Parliament (techdirt.com)
• Carter-Ruck abandons attempt to gag Guardian on Trafigura question (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Firm wants to settle Ivory Coast waste case (cnn.com)
• Trafigura offers victims £1,000 each (guardian.co.uk)
• New Evidence Links Oil Company To Toxic Waste Dumping In The Ivory Coast? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Trafigura tops list of Twitter trending topics (telegraph.co.uk)