12 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost, News
Facebook has agreed to work with the German government on a code of conduct aimed at privacy protection. The code, agreed at a meeting on Wednesday between German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and Facebook’s director of policy in Europe, Richard Allen, will cover issues such as media literacy and data transmission in accordance with German law. The agreement follows discussions around Facebook’s adherence to German data protection laws. Last month, Thilo Weichert, a data protection commissioner in Northern Germany, claimed Facebook’s “Like” button violated German data protection laws.
12 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
The editor of the Cameroon-based Génération Libre, François Fogno Fotso, has been detained since 5 September, and is being pressed to reveal sources for a story written about the alleged corruption of a tax official. Fotso was pushed to reveal the whereabouts of Boris Nembop, who wrote the August 2010 story, which accused public tax collector Célestin Tabouli of transferring government funds to his personal accounts, based on documents given to the paper. Fotso has not complied to the demands of military police, and has been summoned at least four times since October 2010 on the account of the article.
12 Sep 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Medardo Flores, a Honduran radio journalist who supported former President Manuel Zelaya, was gunned down on the night of 8 September, joining the long list of journalists who have been killed since Zelaya’s forced exile from the country in a June 2009 coup. Regional finance manager of the pro-Zelaya Broad Front for Popular Resistance (FARP), Flores was shot just two days after another leading FARP figure, Emo Sadloo, was assassinated. Flores’ death brings the number of Honduran journalists killed in the past 18 months to 15.
12 Sep 2011 | Uncategorized
A German TV show depicting a marriage between two men is being prevented from being screened by Italian state broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). The ARD series “Um Himmels Willen” (literally “For Heaven’s Sake”) has been shown in Italy since 2004, yet episode 125, entitled “Romeo and Romeo” and due to screen on RAI Uno on Tuesday, will be left out of the 10-part season in order to “avoid controversy”, according to the broadcaster.
Gay marriage being if not universally accepted then at least legal in Germany, the TV show itself concerns the struggle of two men to see their marriage and sexuality accepted by the society around them. Ironically given the normally religious basis of anti-homosexual activity in Italy, this particular episode sees the couple seeking advice from regular “Um Himmels Willen” character, Sister Hanna, a nun.
Anna Paola Concia, Italian parliamentary lobbyist for the opposition Democratic Party and the only openly gay person in her profession, was quick to underline the hypocrisy of RAI’s decision. “RAI have pushed for censorship of reality itself here,” she said “especially when you consider that there have been several films showing homosexual relationships on TV here.” Concia told Tagesschau, the news-channel from the ARD network (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, since you asked), that reactions to her marriage to her wife in the German town of Frankfurt am Main proved that RAI is working on the false assumption that the Italian public will be angered by seeing a gay relationship on TV. “We received thousands of letters from ‘normal’ Italian people; Catholic, non-Catholic, heterosexual, in order to congratulate us and wish us well,” she said. “There is an enormous gap between the beliefs of the government and the people in this country, and it’s getting wider.”
Italy, with its prime minister Silvio Berlusconi known for his promotion of traditional values, also recently banned an IKEA advert depicting two men shopping in the store with the strapline “we are open for all families.” State secretary for families, Carlo Giovanardi, stated in response: “While homosexual marriage is legal in maybe three or four countries worldwide, here it remains unconstitutional.”
Um Himmels Willen also screens in Hungary, which explicitly banned gay marriage in its new constitution of April 2011.
Ruth Michaelson is a freelance writer based in Berlin, Germany
