Miqdaad Versi v Mohamed Husain (aka Ed Husain)

In determining the meaning of a social-media publication, the court must identify the single natural and ordinary meaning conveyed to the hypothetical reasonable reader in the publication’s context and mode. Hyperlinked or embedded material forms part of the context only where the ordinary reader would reasonably have viewed it; material requiring extensive exploration of further links will ordinarily be excluded. Political speech receives no special rules of interpretation, although its conversational and fast-moving nature militates against over-analysis. A publication may combine factual imputations with an opinion about them. Views are defamatory where, taken cumulatively, they attribute conduct or beliefs contrary to common shared values and tending to have a substantially adverse effect on how right-thinking people generally treat the claimant.

The claimant brought a libel claim concerning a tweet in which the defendant republished part of the claimant’s earlier tweet and described him as, among other things, pro-Hamas, pro-Iran, pro-gender discrimination, pro-blasphemy laws, pro-sectarian and anti-Western, and as a representative of an Islamist outfit.

The court tried preliminary issues directed by Nicklin J under CPR 3.1(2)(i) and (j) and CPR PD 53B para 6: the tweet’s natural and ordinary meaning, whether it contained fact or opinion, and whether it was defamatory at common law. The central issues were the admissible social-media context, the distinction between fact and opinion, and the effect of political speech on the defamation analysis.

1. Context and meaning. The ordinary reasonable reader would click through the embedded hyperlink and read the claimant’s full underlying tweet and the immediately available thread, but would not be assumed to work through every linked message or older material. The additional material from the embedded tweets of Ms Sultana and the historical material from 2019 therefore did not form part of the relevant context.
2. The single natural and ordinary meaning was that the claimant had expressed views supportive of Iran’s repressive regime, gender discrimination, blasphemy laws and sectarianism, and anti-Western views; had expressed views supportive of Hamas, a militant Islamist group with known links to violence; and held extremist Islamist views so objectionable that he had no place participating in the public debate.
3. Fact and opinion. The allegations concerning the claimant’s expressed views and representative status were factual. In the context of a Twitter debate about Middle Eastern politics, the allegation that he held extremist Islamist views was an evaluative comment or opinion on his public statements.
4. Defamatory meaning. Political speech does not alter the ordinary legal tests. Although individual views in the list might not alone be defamatory, the tweet read cumulatively attributed support for Hamas and extremist views contrary to common or shared societal values. The imputation would lower the claimant in the estimation of right-thinking people generally and tend to have a substantially adverse effect on how people treated him.
5. The preliminary issues were determined in the claimant’s favour on meaning and defamatory tendency, subject to the factual and opinion classifications above.