RSS news import
News related to press and media freedom coming from selected and reliable sources. News items are gathered and listed via an RSS feed
Tobias Raab
With decision of 25 November 2015, the High Court of England dismissed an action by Tim Yeo, former Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, against Times Newspapers (Case HQ14D01146).
Yeo based his claim on several articles which had been published by the Sunday Times in the summer of 2013. The publication of the articles followed an undercover investigation by the Times' 'Insight' team. Two journalists of the Sunday Times had met with Yeo, pretending to be members of a fictitious consultancy firm who wanted to employ him on behalf of a leading…
Source:
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Ass. iur. Gianna Iacino
On 20 November 2015, in the case Weller and Ors v. Associated Newspaper Ltd ([2015] EWCA Civ 1179 – Case No.: A2/2014/2190) the England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) held that children have a reasonable expectation of privacy when they are on a family shopping trip.
The British musician Paul Weller went shopping with his three children in Los Angeles (California, USA). Seven photographs were taken of his children, without his consent. At the time, the oldest child was 16 years old and the younger twins were 10 month old. The pictures were published on…
Source:
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Eugen Cojocariu
On 7 October 2015, the Senate (upper Chamber of the Romanian Parliament) adopted the Act on Social Defamation, initiated by the Member of Parliament Liviu Dragnea, President of the Social Democratic Party, PSD, former main ruling party in Romania. The Act has to be discussed and voted by the lower Chamber of the Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. Acording to art. 1 d of the Act, social defamation is an act or an allegation that puts a person in a position of inferiority on the grounds of belonging to a particular social group.
According to art. 17 of the…
Source:
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Borce Manevski
In October 2015, the Law on the Prohibition of Owning, Editing, Publishing and the Usage of Materials, which come from Illegal Communications' Surveillance (Zakon za zabrana za poseduvanje, obrabotka, objavuvanje i raspolaganje so materijali koi proizleguvaat od nezakonsko sledenje na komunikaciite) – was proposed by two Members of the Parliament from the ruling majority and aims to prevent the media from publishing wiretapped conversations of highest politicians, which reveal their heavy criminal activities.
The country is in the middle of the deepest political crisis since its independence in 1991. For months, the political opposition has been revealing wiretapped phone…
Source:
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Ieva Andersone, LL.M
Within the last year, in Latvia there have been numerous debates on the rights of local governments to publish their newsletters with editorial content and paid advertisements. The local governments are referring to their duty to provide information to their municipalities, but journalists and media are worried about the potential impact to free competition and media independence. The response from public and legal authorities so far has been contradictory.
According to the Law on Local Governments, the municipalities have a general duty to inform the inhabitants of the respective municipality on the decisions and binding regulations adopted.…
Source:
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
LL.D Anette Alén-Savikko
A Working Group for assessing the Finnish media market was set up by the Minister of Transport and Communications, Anne Berner, in the beginning of August 2015. The Working Group was led by professor Anssi Vanjoki, a former Nokia director, while other members included executive Mikael Jungner, a former director of the Finnish Public Service Broadcaster (PSB), Yleisradio (Yle), writer Kalle Isokallio, a former Nokia executive, and journalist Reetta Meriläinen, a former editor in chief of a major Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. In early December, the Working Group presented its report (2/2015) whereby it generates ideas and…
Source:
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Tobias Raab
On the 2nd of December 2015, the German Press Council had to deal with complaints about the coverage of the refugee crisis in German media. Nineteen of these complaints were addressed against several newspapers who had shown pictures of a drowned boy in their print and online articles, whose dead body had been found at a beach in Bodrum (Turkey).
The Council found all of the complaints to be unfounded as the pictures had not been inadequately sensational or degrading and showed a document of contemporary history. The 4-year-old boy drowned fleeing over the Mediterranean Sea together with his…
Source:
European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
Ass. jur. Gianna Iacino
On 1 December 2015, in the case Cengiz and Others v Turkey (appl. no. 4822610 and 14027/11), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held, that the blocking of access to YouTube is a violation of the right to freedom of expression according to article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECtHR).
The Ankara Criminal Court of First Instance ordered Internet Access Providers to block the access to the website YouTube pursuant to a Turkish Law regulating Internet publications and combatting Internet offences (no. 5651), because it found ten videos on the website YouTube to…
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European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)
The draft Investigatory Powers Bill received considerable attention when it was published in late 2015. In this blog, Professor Andrew Murray from LSE’s Law Department, introduces a series of new LSE policy briefs, which aim to shed light on four key aspects of the draft Bill. As I noted in my previous post, the UK Parliament is currently in the […]
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Media Policy Project
Following the publication of the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill in November 2015, the Investigatory Powers Research Group – which comprises academics and practitioners specialising in privacy, surveillance and freedom of expression issues – met at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies to discuss the detail and the main issues. The Group’s response is reproduced below. Fairly quickly it was […]
Source:
Media Policy Project
