12 Dec 2013 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
An Egyptian appeals court on Saturday revoked harsh 11-year jail sentences handed down in November to 14 girls and women for staging a protest in Alexandria demanding the reinstatement of toppled President Mohamed Morsi. The 14 defendants were given suspended sentences of one year in prison each after the earlier verdicts provoked a public outcry and drew fierce criticism from local and international rights groups.
Seven minors — aged 15 and 16 — who had also taken part in the Alexandria 31 October protest were acquitted by the court but are to remain on probation for the next three months.The young defendants who were released on Saturday after a month in custody, had previously been ordered detained in a juvenile centre until they turned 18 . The girls are members of the so-called “7am movement” that had recurrently held early morning “anti coup” protests outside a school in the Mediterranean port city.
All 21 defendants had been charged with ” thuggery, vandalism , illegal assembly and use of weapons” — charges that rights groups insist were “politically motivated”. In a statement condemning the November verdicts, Amnesty International described the girls as “prisoners of conscience” and said their detention reflects the Egyptian authorities determination to punish dissent. Human Rights Watch , HRW, meanwhile said “the court had violated the right to free trial as witnesses were barred from testifying in the girls’ defence.” Little evidence was provided for the charges the girls faced”, HRW added.
Egyptian rights groups also expressed concern over the jail terms and agreed that the defendants faced “trumped up charges”
“Such verdicts raise doubts about the independence of the judiciary in Egypt and signal a return to the Mubarak era when the courts were often used as a political tool against the opposition,”the Cairo-based Arab Network for Human Rights Information, ANHRI, said in a statement released after the verdicts were announced by a Misdemeanour Court. In a statement issued on the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website Ikhwanweb , the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Islamist group also denounced “the unjust “verdicts sentencing the girls to long jail terms for what the FJP said were “peaceful protests”.
Images of the young defendants clad in white prison garments and headscarves were widely circulated on social media networks, fuelling the anger of Egyptian activists–including many who participated in the June 30 uprising demanding that President Morsi step down. In a message posted on Twitter on 27 November (the day the verdicts were announced), blogger Zeinobia stated “Today Egypt jailed 14 girls for holding balloons at a protest!”.
Other activists expressed their dismay saying they believe the convictions are “part of a nationwide crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters and efforts by the interim government to silence dissent.” They drew comparisons between police officers accused of killing protesters escaping justice while the girls were convicted for exercising their right to protest peacefully. In a Twitter post, rights lawyer and Head of the AHRNI Gamal Eid wrote ” the same judiciary that released Wael El-Komi, an Alexandria police officer accused of killing no fewer than 37 protesters, has sentenced 14 girls to 11 years in prison.”
“The state where there is respect for rule of law welcomes you!” he sarcastically added .
Egyptian authorities insists they are “waging a war against terrorists seeking to destabilize the country”. Thousands of Islamists have been detained since Morsi’s overthrow by military supported protests on 3 July and hundreds of pro-Morsi protesters were killed when security forces dispersed two Cairo sit-ins in mid-August, in what rights advocates have described as “the worst massacre in modern Egyptian history.”
In recent weeks the military-backed government has widened its crackdown, detaining dozens of secular pro-democracy activists who have helped the military consolidate its power by participating in the June 30 uprising against the previous Islamist government. Prominent political activists Alaa Abdel Fattah, Ahmed Maher and Ahmed Douma were among protesters detained two weeks ago for violating a new law regulating protests. They face investigations and have been referred to military courts on charges of allegedly “inciting protests, thuggery and resisting security forces”.
The excessive use of force by security forces in dispersing the recent protests and the harsh verdicts for the Alexandria girls signal a return of rights violations reminiscent of the Mubarak era, serving as a warning message that the authorities will stop at nothing to silence dissent.
This article was posted on 12 Dec 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
11 Dec 2013 | Romania
See statement from Romanian civil society groups:
Attacks on freedom of expression: Insult and libel recriminalized
The signatory organizations condemn the anti-democratic practices adopted and exercised by the current parliamentary majority and publicly ask the Romanian President not to promulgate the law through which, surreptitiously, the offenses of libel and insult were reintroduced in the Criminal Code.
In 2006, the Parliament decided to repeal the offenses of insult and libel. In 2007, the Constitutional Court ruled that the offenses of libel and insult are not repealed, then, in 2010, the High Court of Cassation and Justice has ruled that the offenses of insult and libel are abolished, and in 2013 the Constitutional Court ruled again that the offenses of libel and insult are not repealed.
OSCE congratulated Romania after insult and libel were decriminalized. This decriminalization also increased the rating of the country in relevant international rankings, such as those of Reporters Without Borders.
An old bill 2011 (Pl-x 680/2011) proposed the repeal of a single article of the Criminal Code, namely Article 74/1. Under very suspicious circumstances, this bill was radically changed the night before being adopted by the Chamber of Deputies during the plenum of 10 December 2013 (“The International Human Rights Day”) by introducing, among other provisions, the offenses of libel and insult.
This decision, taken without any public consultation made useless ten years of efforts made by the society for the decriminalization of insult and libel. It eliminates Romania from the democracies who reject the idea that a man can be imprisoned for his words.
We remind politicians that the decisions of the Constitutional Court quoted as a pretext for introducing the offenses of insult and libel in the Criminal Code must comply with the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the ECHR – which have the force of law in Romania. Imposing an obligation on defamation to be criminally sanctioned is not supported by any article of the European Convention on Human Rights and of any judgment by the European Court of Human Rights.
On the other hand, due to the haste with which the amendments to the Criminal Code were adopted, another obsolete article was passed, namely Article 207 – burden of proof. This article is in manifest contradiction with ECHR jurisprudence, demanding those who make a statement to prove the absolute truth of the facts narrated, proof impossible in many situations, especially when it comes to journalistic investigations in complex cases. According to the jurisprudence of the ECHR (see case Dalban v. Romania, for example), those who make a statement, even false / exaggerated, cannot be penalized in any way if they prove the existence of a reasonable factual basis for their statement.
It is imperative that Articles 205-207, which recriminalize insult and libel be removed from the Criminal Code. The current form of the law is a serious assault on press freedom and freedom of expression in general.
The signatory organizations ask the Romanian President not to promulgate this law through which, clandestinely, the offenses of libel and insult were reintroduced in the Criminal Code.
Association for the Defense of Human Rights in Romania – the Helsinki Committee
ActiveWatch
Association for Technology and Internet
Center for Independent Journalism
11 Dec 2013 | News and features, United Kingdom, Volume 42.04 Winter 2013
Girton College in the 1890s, England’s first residential college for women. (Photo: Wikipedia)
Time was when UK universities didn’t even allow women in; then they did, but they had to be in separate colleges. Rather shockingly, it was not until 1948 that women were given full membership of the University of Cambridge.
So in the 21st century why does it feel like it is all swinging back in the wrong direction? Universities UK, an official body representing universities and giving them advice on the law and best practises, decided it is fine for universities to give in to a speaker who asks for the audience to be segregated by gender, if the speaker is from an orthodox religious background.
Funny thing about religions but it is never the men that get the raw deal. They are never the ones that are not allowed to sit at the front, or speak, or take part in the service. Since we live in a society where we believe men and women, boys and girls, should have equal chances in life, including the right to speak at a debate or sit at the front if they want to, then a genuinely strong society should not consider rolling over to a religious speaker who asks for the audience to be segregated.
Let’s put it like this, if a speaker asked for the audience at a debate to be divided by religious group (let all the Jews sit at the back), or by colour, would any university consider it as a reasonable request? The answer is clearly no.
Hard-fought freedoms should not be given up so easily, and quickly, especially in the heart of institutions where we expect to see vigorous debate, ideas challenged and the freedom of speech defended.
So Universities UK need to worry less about religious offence, and more about offending the rest of society by rolling over and giving up freedoms that we have spent hundreds of years achieving.
If any speaker is unwilling to be part of a panel where the audience is a genuine mix of people then that is their choice. They don’t not have the right to demand that the audience is put into boxes that conforms with their beliefs.
In the upcoming issue of Index on Censorship we consider where liberal societies are too eager to give way on religious “offence” rather than defending the foundations of a democractic society as free and fair to everyone. There are those who believe that their religious customs should be imposed on others, rather than offering others the freedom to choose. They may believe that their choices should not be questioned, and there are some “liberals” who worry too much about offending others, and so indulge in self censorship, rather than speaking up for what is right.
In centuries past in the UK there were those that were thrown in jail or ostracised for their religious beliefs, we live in a society today where we defend people’s right to choose a religion. The quid pro quo is that we also defend everyone’s right to debate religions and their practises. Religions are big and strong enough to be able to accept debate and questioning in this society.
The next issue of Index on Censorship magazine includes a special report on religious freedom, censorship and religious offence.
This article was posted on 11 Dec 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
11 Dec 2013 | France, News and features
(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)
The French senate has voted through a controversial new law which gives huge government agencies huge powers to snoop on citizens communications.
The Defence Bill 2014-2019 was passed yesterday in a tight 164-146 vote. According to French digital freedom activists Le Quadrature Du Net, Article 13 of the act allows government agencies to:
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Authorise live capturing of data and documents (“that on request may be captured and transmitted in real time by operators and agents mentioned”) by hosting services and service providers.
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Allow the harvesting and capturing of “data and documents treated or stored by their networks or services” and not solely the connection data.
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Extend the list of public offices that may request surveillance, to include, for instance, the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
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Extend the reasons for which surveillance may be requested to include information related to “the scientific and economic potential of France” and the prevention of “organised crime and delinquency”
(all Quadrature’s translations).
It is still possible that courts may find the new powers unconstitutional. But it’s a grim fact that France and other European governments, even while we still debate the Guardian’s revelations on NSA surveillance, are determined to push through stronger snooping laws.
The European project was envisaged as a democratic bulwark against the authoritarianism of the Soviet Union. But even as Kiev protesters brave the cold and the riot police to call for a realignment towards Europe and away from the increasingly authoritarian Kremlin, our governments are rushing ahead to grant themselves greater surveillance powers. The UK government will almost certainly attempt to sneak their failed Communications Data Bill (aka the Snooper’s Charter) back on to the agenda.
This week, Index on Censorship is launching a report reminding EU countries of their duty to protect free speech and freedom of communication without interference. It’s a little depressing that we should have to.
