CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A judge has fined a dozen Australian media companies for breaching a gag order on Cardinal George Pell’s since-overturned convictions for child sexual abuse. Publication of the accusations against Pell was banned in Australia until February 2019 and he has since had his convictions overturned and returned to work at the Vatican. Suppression orders are common in Australia, but the enormous international interest in Pell’s trial highlighted the difficulty in enforcing such orders in the digital age. No Australian media company published a straight news report of Pell’s convictions, but some directed their audiences to international reports. No foreign news organization has been charged with breaching the suppression order.
