News in brief

24/06 -

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement issued the day Robert Ménard announced he was leaving the Doha Centre with his team that it was "dismayed by the attitude of the Qatari authorities, who have not really played the game, preventing the Centre from becoming independent." The statement ended: "For Reporters Without Borders, which was behind the project, the game is over."

21/06 - Iran

At least 20 journalists had already been arrested since the 12 June presidential élection, according to Reporters without Borders. The crackdown has been intensified yet again following Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s endorsement of the result election and the opposition’s decision to call another demonstration on June 20. "The Islamic Republic of Iran now ranks alongside China as the world’s biggest prison for journalists" concludes Reporters without Borders.

19/06 - United States

The House of Representatives Human Rights Commission heard testimony on Thursay from groups calling on Congress and President Barack Obama to resurrect the stalled Global Online Freedom Act. The legislation, which would punish US firms for aiding Internet censorship in blacklisted countries, has been languishing in Congress since 2007. One version of the proposed law would require US firms to report blacklisted country’s requests for information on customers, and allow the US government to block that request. In China and in some countries of the Gulf région US firms are providing filtering software that blocks websites disliked by the local government.

18/06 - Palestinian Territories

Palestinian Authority security officials erased Al Jazeera video footage on 15 June on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Hebron. The correspondent and the cameraman were preparing a report on the death of a detainee at the Palestinian Authority detention centre in Hebron. After interviewing the deceased detainee’s family and filming the body, they were detained by Palestinian Authority security forces at a checkpoint and the video footage they had just recorded was erased.

12/06 - France

France’s top legislative court, the Constitutional Council, has decreed that a crucial element of the Creation and Internet piracy law passed on May 13 - the power to cut off Internet access to people caught downloading content illegally as part of a three strikes measure - is contrary to the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The council said only a judge, as opposed to an independent committee, should be allowed to eliminate a violator’s Internet rights.