Satire = Libel? 2 interesting articles.

Texas court to rule: Can fiction be libel?
By John C. Ryan | Contributor to the Christian Science Monitor
Shortly after a Texas county judge had 13-year-old Christopher Beamon jailed for five days for writing a Halloween essay about the shooting of a teacher, the Dallas Observer parodied the news item with a fictional account of its own.

In a satirical piece, the same judge, Darlene Whitten, was portrayed jailing a 6-year-old girl for writing a book report on Maurice Sendak's children's classic "Where The Wild Things Are," said to contain "cannibalism, fanaticism, and disorderly conduct."

"We just thought the whole notion of jailing a student for doing his 'scary story' homework assignment was absurd, and thought satire was a good way to make our point," says Patrick Williams, the Observer's managing editor.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1201/p11s02-usju.htm



China releases Internet satirist after year in jail
December 1, 2003
BY RICHARD SPENCER

BEIJING -- China has released the best-known of its new breed of Internet dissidents, a student who posted satirical comments on the Web under the pen name "Stainless Steel Mouse."

The release of Liu Di, a 23-year-old psychology student at Beijing Normal University, may herald greater respect for law in China.

Liu Di had never campaigned or been a public figure but came to attention after posting a series of sarcastic jokes on the Internet. In one she suggested that everyone follow the letter of Marxist law and preach Communism on the streets, to see if anyone in modern neo-capitalist China knew what they were talking about. In another she suggested seeing if it was possible to survive 24 hours in China without telling a lie.

http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi