A Canadian who is suing the Washington Post is causing an online stir.

52 media organizations were represented in the Ontario Supreme Court this week.

In 1997 The Washington Post published a story about a former UN official accused of improprieties on the job in West Africa.

Cheickh Bangoura, a Ghanya native, moved from Kenya to Ontario in 1999.

In 2000 he filed a 9 million dollar suit against the Washington Post because the story is in the paper’s online archives.

Seven Ontarians are paid subscribers and only one accessed the Bangoura story.

Despite that, Bangoura’s suit argues that material posted on a website that is viewable in Canada should be seen as having been published in Canada.

An Ontario judge ruled last year that the province’s court system had jurisdiction to hear the case, sending shock waves through media companies around the world.

CNN, the New York Times, Google, Yahoo, the London Times, the CBC and dozens of other publishers and broadcasters are challenging the judge’s decision.

They warn that freedom of expression and the public interest might suffer if people could shop for a country with favourable libel laws anywhere in the world and file suit there to avenge themselves over stories they don’t like.

It is harder to win a libel case in the United States, where the Washington Post is published, because it has stronger freedom of expression protections for media companies.

If Bangoura’s lawsuit is allowed to proceed, websites would be reluctant to post any controversial story for fear of being forced out of business by a large libel settlement, media lawyers said.