The EconomistDecember 14th 2019 Asia 452 year. In another case, Bauer Media, a maga-
zine publisher, was told to pay A$4.7m to
the actor Rebel Wilson, after a judge found
she had lost work because a series of arti-
cles had portrayed her as a liar. The sum
was later slashed by an appeals court.
Lawyers note that workers who lose
limbs on building sites are not compensat-
ed nearly as handsomely. Huge payouts
tempt Aussies to sue when they are slight-
ed, argues Matthew Collins, a barrister who
represented Ms Wilson. The courts are
packed with petty claims over insults post-
ed on the internet. Sydney is the “defama-
tion capital” of the world, says Mark Speak-
man, the attorney-general of New South
Wales, the state of which Sydney is the cap-
ital. Relative to its population, its superior
courts considered ten times more defama-
tion lawsuits between 2014 and 2018 than
those in London, says Mr Collins.
Australia has no bill of rights nor any
other constitutional protection for free
speech. Media companies complain that
this stacks the odds against them. Powerful
people “use threats of legal action to shut
down legitimate inquiry”, says Peter
Greste, an Australian journalist who was
imprisoned in Egypt.
Even the government, which is not al-
ways seen as a friend to whistle-blowers or
to investigative journalists, seems to agree.
In late November all Australia’s states and
territories agreed to approve draft amend-
ments to the libel laws which are supposed
to help the media do their job properly. The
hope is to pass these amendments into law
in 2020.
The changes would provide several new
protections for journalists. Reporters
would be able to defend themselves on the
ground of “responsible communication in
the public interest”. Plaintiffs would have
to prove that “serious harm” was caused in
order to prevail in court. New caps would
be imposed on exorbitant damages. The
laws would also shrink the window during
which a publisher can be sued for allega-
tions made online.
Some say the reforms need further clar-
ification. The legislation leaves courts to
decide what counts as “responsible jour-
nalism”, notes Arthur Moses, president of
the Law Council of Australia. In the past
they have disagreed with reporters on that
definition. Australian law assumes that
any disputed statements are false unless
the publisher can prove otherwise. Show-
ing beyond doubt that, say, a politician ha-
rassed his colleague can be hard. Critics ar-
gue that this has prevented victims of
sexual assault from speaking out.
America and many European countries,
notes Mr Collins, put the burden of proof
on plaintiffs, who must prove that allega-
tions made about them are false. The same
presumption should be introduced in Aus-
tralia, he says. 7
I
t is justa practice match, but the
footballers are wearing their full kit
anyway. As the shadows stretch across
the pitch in inner-city Hanoi, the words
emblazoned on their bright yellow jer-
seys catch the eye. “No-u fc” is not so
much a name as a cri de coeur. u refers to
the u-shaped “nine-dash line”, a curve on
a map delimiting China’s sweeping
claims to the South China Sea. These
include a wide area that international
law recognises as belonging to Vietnam.
Depending on whom you ask, fc either
stands for what you would expect or for
“Fuck China”. This is not your average
football club.
Though all the players agree that the
game is beautiful, it is China, not beauty,
that has brought them together every
Sunday for the past nine years. No-u fc
was formed in 2011 to protest against
Chinese incursions into what Vietnam
calls the East Sea. China has occupied
islands and atolls claimed by Vietnam
and incorporated them into a new ad-
ministrative district. Chinese vessels
have attacked and killed Vietnamese
fishermen plying the contested waters.
The belief that China is encroaching
on Vietnam’s maritime space has in-
spired a number of demonstrations by
fledgling civil-society groups. In 2018
thousands protested against a law on
special economic zones that was viewed
“as selling out the country to the Chi-
nese”, says Tuong Vu of the University of
Oregon. Most demonstrations were
swiftly shut down by nervous authori-
ties. But one group of activists came up
with a way to make their point without
being arrested. “Vietnamese people arevery fond of playing football,” Anh Chí, a
member of the team, recalls thinking
back in 2011. And so No-u fcwas born.
The police were not deceived for long.
Officers have disrupted matches, in-
structed managers of pitches to bar the
group from playing, and beaten and
jailed members. After being branded an
“enemy of the people”, Mr Anh claims he
was hounded out of his job by his boss, at
the behest of the police. Undaunted, the
team continues to play every Sunday.
The authorities’ harsh treatment of
No-u fc is surprising, considering it was
founded to express pro-Vietnamese
sentiments. But there are two reasons for
the reaction. First, the club may be too
patriotic for the regime’s taste. Though
the government objects to China’s claims
and actions in the South China Sea, in
practice its response has often been
meek. Mr Tuong, the academic, argues
that a conservative faction within the
ruling Communist Party does not wish to
offend its Chinese counterpart.
Second, a connection is growing
between the club and democratic activ-
ism. Because of the government’s cau-
tion in the contested waters, many activ-
ists think the party is feeble in defence of
Vietnam’s sovereignty. Some have “con-
cluded that, in order to save the Vietnam-
ese nation, the political system must be
replaced with a robust democracy,”
writes Ben Kerkvliet in “Speaking Out in
Vietnam”, a study of political activism.
When he is not playing football, Mr Anh,
now a democracy activist, produces a
vlog in which he tells his followers that
the people are the referees of the govern-
ment—not the other way round.Red card
Dissent in VietnamHANOI
The football club that defies China