Presseurop |

Poland | Protest against internet crackdown law

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:36:42 +0100

“Internet users on alert: government wants censorship”: Polish daily Rzeczpospolita reports on protests sparked by an amended media law, to be debated by the senate on 16 March. The bill provides for the filtering of public website content and obligatory registration with the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) for internet audiovisual services. According to internet users who have launched a Facebook campaign and are collecting signatures for an eventual motion to contest the bill before the Constitutional Court, this is an attempt at censorship. The conservative daily argues that the newly amended law imposes “absurd bureaucratic obligations” and creates a serious threat to freedom of speech”. If it is adopted in the current form, many amateur artists will cease posting their films and other visual materials on the web. The amended bill may still be changed by the Senate, and ultimately it can be vetoed by the President.” For the sake of economic and creative liberty and for the sake of freedom of expression this new bill has to be stopped”, pleads the Warsaw daily.

(News in brief)

Eastern Europe | The scourge of Ceausescu (Jurnalul Naţional, Bucharest)

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:06:06 +0100

For people living in the Eastern Bloc during the communist era, Radio Free Europe was one of the few alternative sources for news from the rest of the world. On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 revolution, Romania prepares to pay homage to the station that vehemently criticised the Ceausescu regime. (Article)

Censorship | Berlusconi: Controversial Belgian Poster-Boy

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:08:08 +0100

An Italian national living in Louvain, Belgium, is being pressured to remove an anti-Silvio Berlusconi collage from a window of his home, says Le Soir. At the end of August, Giuseppe Caprioli put up a selection of photos and headline stories about the Italian Prime Minister, and his initiative has now attracted attention from Italian diplomats and the local media. In addition to enumerating the ten embarrassing questions that the "Repubblica" newspaper adresses to Berlusconi everyday, the collage also bears the caption "Citizens of the world, please forgive us." A few days after a senator from Berlusconi's party visited the town, Caprioli received a flurry of letters and phone calls encouraging him to take down his presentation. "From what I was told, the Italian Embassy in Belgium was contacted, then the Brussels' consul, and finally the honorary consul in Louvain" says Caprioli, who resides in the same building as the local consul. The honorary consul has now threatened to move out unless the collage is removed.

(News in brief)

Germany | Two Chinas, all the fun at the book fair

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:53:50 +0100

“This bids fair to be a fun book fair,” says the German press sardonically on the eve of the 14 October opening of this year’s Frankfurt Buchmesse, the most important book fair in the world. China, this year’s guest of honour, has already caused the organisers plenty of aggravation: they are accused of giving in to pressure from the censors in Beijing.

So on the one hand, as the Frankfurter Rundschau views it, there will be the “regime-faithful scribblers” like Tie Ning, president of the Chinese Writers Association, who lords it over 8,920 writers, denies there is censorship of any kind in his country (where 600-odd books are banned annually), and will spearhead a delegation of a hundred authors and a thousand officials and editors. On the other hand, there will be dissident authors like Bei Ling, who has succeeded in dodging prison and was only invited under pressure from the German media. Their presence should make for the “best possible debating panel” – comprising “those in charge of censorship and representatives of the Chinese government, as well as their fiercest critics. And the world will get a chance to hear them and judge for itself.”

(News in brief)

Dennmark | Gagging Private Rathsack

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:14:23 +0100

Denmark is buzzing with excitement over a new book the government wants to ban. In Jaeger, i Krig med Eliten, (Special Forces Hunter at War), a former soldier, Thomas Rathsack gives a personal account of his experience of Danish commando operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. For more than a week, the Danish Ministry of Defence has been attempting to block the release of the book, which it wants definitively banned. It has further demanded that publisher Peoples Press provide it with a list of people to whom it has been sent, and written to the editors of national newspapers warning them not to publicize it, reports Danish daily Politiken. The ministry believes that the book gives too many details on the commandos methods of operation, and could prove useful to Denmark's enemies. On the the day before a court hearing on the request to ban the memoir, the newspaper has opted to publish extracts from the book. In its editorial, the daily justifies its decision, claiming that "members of the public have a right to follow the news – even when we are at war, and even when the authorities think they should be kept in the dark.” All of of today's edition of Politiken sold out this morning.

(News in brief)

Iranian Elections | Nokia-Siemens accused in censorship row

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:13:31 +0100

Now that Iran has activated its digital arsenal to prevent the free circulation of news, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) finds itself at the centre of a controversy, reports the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This joint venture between the Finnish cell phone giant and German electronics colossus is accused of having furnished Tehran with the technology to analyse and censor information on the Internet. The software in question only enables the user to “record domestic telephone calls”, pleads the company in its defence, adding that Iran is not under any embargo. All the same, says the FAZ, “Nokia-Siemens has set up an – albeit rather inconspicuous – forum on its website in which the subject is being hotly debated. One blogger says the blood of Neda (Iranian woman whose death was filmed and posted on the Web) is on Nokia’s hands, others are calling for a boycott against the company.

(News in brief)

Media | This is Radio Free Iran (Die Welt, Berlin)

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:22:26 +0100

While the regime in Teheran cracks down on national media, Iranians broadcasting from abroad become increasingly important. In Prague, Radio Farda is reporting on events in Iran on a daily basis despite attempts to silence it. (Article)