Answer of Diethelm Pascal to judith.watt@protocolman.net via art_5.3@lists.fctc.org regarding Clive Bates
Dear All,
It
seems to me a be displaced that this forum should become a court of
justice. It feels a bit odd that it should be used to investigate a
potential criminal offense charge against our colleague Manfred.
What
is he accused of? If I understand, he has stated that “Briefe von Gerry
Stimson and Clive Bates an Gesundheitsminister in der EU sind
konzertierte Aktionen, hinter denen massive Geschäftsinteressen stehen,”
which deepl.com translates to “Letters from Gerry Stimson and Clive
Bates to EU health ministers are concerted actions, backed by massive
business interests”. I read this statement as saying that the action
taken by Stimson and Bates is backed by massive business interests, i.e.
that massive business interests are at stake in the issue (which is
true) and form a background against which to interpret their action.
Is
this defamatory? In Austria, from where the statement has been made,
most likely not: this would fall within the realm of freedom of
expression. In Austria, saying that some action is “backed by the
tobacco industry” is not considered defamatory (and I doubt it would be
in the UK either) – I personally wished this would be the case, and it
would indeed be a formidable development if a court ruled that saying
that someone is “backed by the tobacco industry” is defamatory. However,
the industry would immediately appeal, arguing that it is a legal
business, and that there is nothing wrong being backed by a legal
business.
Finally,
I disagree with the proposed rule that FCA be open to debate on harm
reduction coming from “all sides of the issue” – given that the harm
reduction debate has been largely hijacked by the tobacco industry,
notably its fake FSFW, such rule would wide open the gates to the
industry Trojan horse, and for my part, I would apply 5.3 and stop
participating in the FCA debates. And sorry, but I’m far from convinced
about the rigorous aspect on Clive Bate’s blog. I don’t think that name
calling, invectives, WHO hatred, and constant attempts to saw the seeds
of division in the tobacco control movement qualify as rigorous science.
Best,
Pascal