apparently this judge thinks its ok to prevent free speech;

A Mississippi judge ordered a local newspaper to take down an editorial criticizing its mayor and city council Tuesday, in a move that has alarmed free-speech advocates across the country and aggravated a years-long feud between the paper and the city’s mayor.

The city of Clarksdale, Mississippi, filed a defamation lawsuit against the Clarksdale Press Register following the publication of a Feb. 8 editorial that criticized the city’s Democratic mayor, Chuck Espy, and the city council for holding a meeting about a proposed tax on marijuana, alcohol and tobacco products without alerting the media.

In their complaint, city leaders said they were “chilled and hindered” in their efforts to lobby for the tax in the state capital “due to libelous assertions and statements” made in the article.

Judge Crystal Wise Martin of the Chancery Court of Hinds County granted the city’s request for a temporary restraining order Tuesday, ordering the editorial be removed.

“The injury in this case is defamation against public figures through actual malice in reckless disregard of the truth and interferes with their legitimate function to advocate for legislation they believe would help their municipality during this current legislative cycle,” Martin wrote.

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“It’s kind of bizarre,” said Wyatt Emmerich, president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns the Press Register.

According to Emmerich, Clarksdale’s mayor and the publisher of the Press Register, Floyd Ingram, have been at odds for years, after Ingram broke a 2021 story about city leaders giving themselves and other city employees substantial pay raises. Anger over the pay bumps — which made Espy one of Mississippi’s highest-paid mayors — fell largely along racial lines in Clarksdale, a majority-Black city in the Delta, with White residents voicing greater opposition to the decision, the Clarion Ledger reported........more......