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This is weak sauce - yes he broke the law, but journalists should never go to prison even if they break the law, says journalist organization.

In recent times journalists have constantly put people in danger by making misleading or downright false claims and engaging in what can only be called "doxxing", then evading responsibility by abusing "freedom of the press" arguments. I hope we get to see many, many more journalists going to prison in the future!

I don't have a dog in this fight, but it's pretty revealing that RSF's concerns seem to be limited to the jailing itself and they implicitly accept that he's guilty of a serious offense and deserving of some level of punishment ("alternative measures considered in lieu of his prison sentence").

Even if one shares the RSF's concerns, and I would count myself in that group, that's a far cry from the implication that OP's article is making that the whole case is a sham.

You don't think it's funny that he escaped legal liability because the court came to the conclusion that what he wrote was so mis-representative that it couldn't be considered an actual breach? I personally thinks that both funny, and indicative that the judge is being balanced, rather than disproportionate.

As for Jonathon Cook - the double standard he claims doesn't exist in the judgement.

He's being jailed for 8 months for his writing. Hardly escaping legal liability. I don't find that funny, no.

As for Jonathan Cook's piece, the double standard he writes about is the fact that those who claim they learned of the identities of the individuals claim they did so not from Craig Murray's writing but from other reporters. That's been completely ignored by this ruling. Do you think we'll see a court case targeting BBC reporters or the writer Dani Garavelli, cited by most respondants as the main source? Isn't it a double standard if they escape jail but Murray doesn't? Certainly looks to me like someone's got an axe to grind when they fixate on the ways Murray may have let readers learn about identities but gives other reporters a pass - especially when public surveys reveal those other reporters to be even more culpable than Murray.

It’s illegal to publish information identifying the accusers it’s not illegal to figure out who the accusers were. There is no double standard. Again, reading from the judgement, the other journalists follow a code of conduct that even Murray acknowledged he had no intention of following. Meanwhile the attempt to go out and try and find people who figured out the identity through other means is entirely immaterial to the case. It’s just not relevant because that’s not what the law is about.

It has never been a defence in law that “oh well other people did it too”

> It’s illegal to publish information identifying the accusers it’s not illegal to figure out who the accusers were.

This whole case has supposedly been about protecting the identities of people involved in the Salmond case by preventing "jigsaw identification".

The court document you posted has this:

"Jigsaw identification can occur through the combination of separate pieces of information or details about inter alia the victims, nature and timing of the offences and locations. ...Seemingly innocuous facts published can still pose the risk of jigsaw identification when viewed within the existing matrix of information..."

> Meanwhile the attempt to go out and try and find people who figured out the identity through other means is entirely immaterial to the case. It’s just not relevant because that’s not what the law is about.

Why is it immaterial? They're claiming Murray did something exceptional. But when you ask (via a standard public poll, not "finding people who figured out the identity through other means" as you claim), those who were able to identify the people involved nearly all point to other media, not Murray, as their source.

You can claim that's immaterial and the court has no reason to look at how other reporters revealed identities via jigsaw identification, but I don't think that's very convincing to the general public. And when you take into account Murray's history (as Jonathan Cook does in his article), it looks to many people like he's being singled out and punished for being a thorn in their side for too long.

Not to mention that no one has been jailed for jigsaw identification ever before.

They’re absolutely not claiming Murray did something exceptional- that has nothing to do with whether he broke the law.

Also let’s drop this stuff about jigsaw identification- the judgement literally says some information was so unique as to singularly identify a person. No jigsaw identification necessary at all - he posted the accusers job and the time she held it, which uniquely identifies her.

> They’re absolutely not claiming Murray did something exceptional - that has nothing to do with whether he broke the law.

Fine, but don't expect people to take you or your law seriously if out of a bunch of people who break the law in a similar way, you choose to punish and make an example of only one of them. The one who's had the least impact in identifying the people you claim to want to protect, and the one who's been a thorn in your side for many years.

> No jigsaw identification necessary at all

This makes no sense. First you claim they're "absolutely not claiming Murray did something exceptional", and in the next line you write he did something so unique that no jigsaw identification was necessary at all. So then why is he being charged with jigsaw identification? The first person ever to be jailed for it.

>The one who's had the least impact in identifying the people you claim to want to protect, and the one who's been a thorn in your side for many years.

Ah no, see this isn't the same thing at all. The standard for the law is whether people can tell from your reporting who the person is. Sure, more people may have identified the person from some other reporting, but that's highly likely to be becuase the other reporting is in national newspapers and the like, not the 150 people who visit Murray's website. It doesn't matter if more people actually identify the accusers from another source, it matters what the reporting is - and Murray reporting details that were literally uniquely identifying an individual (and actually kept up comments in response to his blog that literally identified them).

>First you claim they're "absolutely not claiming Murray did something exceptional", and in the next line you write he did something so unique that no jigsaw identification was necessary at all. So then why is he being charged with jigsaw identification?

He wasn't. This comes down to the fact you're listening to disingenous talking points. He's not charged with "jigsaw identification". The uniquely prosecutable thing he did was he identified the acccusers after the court order saying their identity should be protected. The whole "jigsaw identification" thing is gish galloping. His supporters have made up a nonsense talking point to defend him.

> The whole "jigsaw identification" thing is gish galloping. His supporters have made up a nonsense talking point to defend him.

I'm not going to continue this as it's not going anywhere. But as you're so adamant that he wasn't charged with jigsaw identification, and that it's only something his supporters claim (even though it's literally in the document you posted), you might want to take it upon yourself to reach out to the following publications and ask them to correct the record:

* The Guardian: "Ex-diplomat found in contempt of court over ‘jigsaw identification’" [1]

* BBC: "the retired diplomat breached the order and published pieces of information on his blog which, if pieced together like a jigsaw, could lead readers to establish the identities of the women" [2]

* The Independent: "Former diplomat hands himself in at police station to begin sentence over ‘jigsaw ID’ of Salmond accusers" [3]

* Daily Mail: "Lady Dorrian said Murray deliberately risked what is known as 'jigsaw identification'." [4]

* Scottish Legal News: "He published information on his blog which enabled jigsaw identification of the women in the case." [5]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/01/alex-salmon...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-58018127

[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/craig-murray...

[4] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9849607/Britains-ex...

[5] https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/craig-murray-to-be-jai...

Jigsaw identification literally isn't a charge in law, he was in conempt of court. It's not that jigsaw identification isn't a term that exists, it's that, as with all gish galloping you've taken some random item and gone off on a weird tangent. The judgement says he posted the accuser's job and the time she held it which was uniquely identifiable information "tantamount to naming the accuser". That doesn't sound like a very complex jigsaw to me. You also don't need to peice things together because his readers also posted the names of the accusers in the comments section of the article. Making it pretty difficult to argue he didn't know he was identifying the accusers. What also makes it pretty difficult to argue he didn't know he was identifying the women is that he said he wanted to identify the women without breaking the court order - which is literally impossible, because that's what the court order said.

So all this "Oh this is a unique situation never happened before since..." is completely irrelevant - which is why it's gish galloping- throwing up irrelevant rubbish to try and distract from the really quite simple facts of the case.