A twitter leak and heated blog posts killed legal attempt to keep UK’s Guardian news organisation from reporting on questions asked by MP Paul Farrelly in Parliamentary proceedings regarding allegations of illegal waste dumping by the oil company¬† Trafigura (Netherlands-registered) in the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan. the Guardian was bound by an injunction to not report on the questions, but did include in the article that it was kept from doing so by a legal ruling. Bloggers and twitterers had a different take on the injunction, rightfully determining that it meant more people should really be putting that information out there.

The Associated Press reported that the “case involving lawmaker Paul Farrelly had threatened the rights of journalists to report anything debated in Parliament. British law allows the media to report any comments made in Parliament without fear of running afoul of Britain’s often draconian privacy and libel laws.”

Enter the inherent anarchy and chaos of the web to the rescue. Endless tweets and roughly 490 blog posts later and the gag order instigated by solicitors Carter-Ruck had been beaten to a pulp.

“The Trafigura business should make us feel good today. A not inconsiderable blow was struck for free speech, and it couldn‚Äôt have happened without the internet, or more precisely without social media networking.” ‚Äî THE PEOPLE‚ÄôS REPUBLIC OF MORTIMER

The Blog Chickyog.net published the following, along with many other blogs:

“It seems the Guardian has been prevented from publishing this written parliamentary question tabled by Paul Farelly MP‚Ķ”

61 N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

“You can download your own copy of the Minton report from Wikileaks.”

It appears that some or all of these slops were disposed of at waste sites in and around Abidjan, Ivory Coast approximately in August 2006. This is alleged to have caused, or in part contributed to, a high incidence of health problems being reported, including nausea, breathing difficulties, vomiting, diarrhea.

“Read section 3 in particular ‚Äì ‚ÄòHealth and Environmental impacts‚Äô ‚Äì all kinds of horrible stuff were involved.”

The Trafigura oil company had become one of the most blogged about items yesterday thanks to the attempted censorship, putting the issue where it belongs, in the public domain. The gag order was subsequently lifted, allowing the likes of the BBC, Guardian, etc. to report what had been released online.