Posts Tagged ‘EU’
March 17th, 2011
The EU has announced its
intention to ensure that social networking sites such as Facebook routinely offer high standards of privacy. They will
recognise the existence of a “right to be forgotten online”. EU justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, has
said that she wants to “explicitly clarify that people shall have the right – and not only the possibility — to withdraw their consent to data processing.”
March 17th, 2011
Demonstrators gathered in Budapest on Tuesday to protest Hungary’s
controversial media
law, in what has been described as the biggest demonstration since the regime change in 1989. Chief organiser, Anna Vamos, said
amendments to the media law do not align with EU law. Protesters also condemned provisions allowing the imposition of arbitrary levy fines on media outlets.
October 26th, 2010
Guillermo Farinas has
won the 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union’s most prestigious human rights award. Farinas has spent much of the last 15 years in jail and has gone on hunger strike more than 20 times. His most recent hunger strike ended in July when the government
agreed to release 52 political prisoners. At the same time as the EU bestowed the accolade, Cuba authorised the
release of a further five prisoners, who were not among the originally specified 52. The released men are due to be transferred to Spain. 39 have already been released, but 13 have refused the deal and remain behind bars.
May 24th, 2010
Eritrea has held Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak without charge for eight years. The west must stand up to this brutal regime, says his brother Esayas Isaak
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March 31st, 2010
The Maltese Front Against Censorship
has asked the country’s MEPs to raise the country’s case in the European Parliament. The Front is concerned with recent infringements on freedom of expression, which include punishment of carnival revellers for dressing up as Christ, the ban of the play Stitching, the threat of a prison sentence to a newspaper editor for publishing an erotic story, and the suspended prison sentence to an artist for offending against the Catholic religion. In February,
protesters gathered in the capital Valetta, against escalating censorship by government agencies.
February 11th, 2010
Police have
seized a Polish cultural centre in the town of Ivyanets outside Minsk.
An activist who was travelling to the centre has also been detained. President Lukashenko claimed in 2005 the organisation responsible for the centre was trying to destabilise his regime and set up a government-approved alternative. Both the
EU and the
US have condemned the actions. There are around 400,000 Poles in Belarus. Belarus has also recently
detained 20 activists demonstrating in support of political prisoners.
February 11th, 2010
Moscow gay pride parade organisers have complained to the European Court of Human Rights about the ban on the 2009 parade. Moscow’s
Mayor Luzhkow has previously labelled the parade “satanic” and the case follows a number of unsuccessful appeals against the bans in the Russian court system. Moscow Pride are seeking €200,000 in damages from the Russian Federation. The Strasbourg court has given Russian authorities ten days to lay out their position on the ban.
January 11th, 2010
Murdered Bulgarian journalist Bobi Tsankove embraced life in the underworld. Beth Kampschror reports
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