The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its regional group the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) today joined their affiliate, the NUJ UK and Ireland, in welcoming the ruling yesterday by the High Court in London, following a three-day judicial review, against Greater Manchester Police in their attempt to secure an order forcing NUJ member Shiv Malik to reveal his sources.

The ruling was made in an appeal by Malik, supported by the NUJ and Times Newspapers, to stop a bid by Greater Manchester Police to obtain a wider-ranging court order.

"It is a great relief that the fishing nature of the police action was recognised by the High Court," said IFJ President Jim Boumelha. "The judicial review exposed that the Police's main objective here was to attempt to gather unspecified intelligence, hoping that a general order would dredge up something of use. If left unchallenged, this case would have seriously undermined investigative journalism."

The original order was made by Manchester Crown Court last March under the 2000 Terrorism Act, requiring Shiv Malik to produce source materials relating to a book -Leaving al Qaeda: Inside The Mind Of A British Jihadist - he is writing about the activities of Hassan Butt, a man who has admitted to involvement with terrorist organisations in the past but has since renounced his views.

Butt had already agreed to meet with the authorities but the police went ahead and applied for a broad production order, failing to recognise the wider importance of journalists protecting confidential source material.

The EFJ, IFJ and their affiliate believe that if such wide orders were to become the norm, they would discourage whistleblowers and other sources from cooperating with journalists.  

Having ruled that that the original order was too wide, Lord Justice John Dyson set 26 June as the date for a further hearing on the scope of the order.

For more information contact the EFJ at +32 2 235 2200

The EFJ represents over 250,000 journalists in 34 countries worldwide