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Deutsch: Einspruch von Azeri Bloggern vom Höchstgericht abgewiesen

The Azerbaijani Supreme Court took a disturbing decision on 19 August 2010 rejecting the appeal by bloggers and activists Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade thus upholding the previous decisions taken by the lower courts in 2009 that convicted the two bloggers under false accusations of hooliganism.

The two bloggers were arrested on 8 July 2009 after having appealed to the police as victims of an assault in a restaurant and, on 11 November 2009, Baku's Sabail district court sentenced them to 2 and 2,5 years of imprisonment respectively, on charge of hooliganism.

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Deutsch: Europäische ISPs sollen Zugang zu Glücksspiel-Seiten sperren

As a result of a case introduced by Arjel (the new French online gambling regulating authority) against Gibraltar-based site stanjames.com which had not responded to the authority's formal request to stop its services to French users, on 6 August 2010, the Paris High Court ordered ISPs to block access to the gambling site, which had no licence from the French authorities.

The court also ordered the ISPs to screen certain messages to prevent users from circumventing the blocking measures which ISPs consider as a wrong measure.

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Deutsch: Italien: Neuer Gesetzesentwurf gefährdet Meinungsfreiheit von Blogger...

A group of Italian bloggers and journalists have made an appeal "No Legge Bavaglio alla rete" (No Gag Law to the Net) to support the campaign against a draft law that will add new barriers to freedom of expression on the Internet. The draft law, called Wiretapping Bill which is going to be discussed by the Italian Parliament on 29 July 2010, has raised many concerns from magistrates and journalists as well.

The present appeal refers to Article 1, paragraph 29 of the bill which extends the rectification obligation of the written press to all online publishers, including bloggers.

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Deutsch: Zunehmende Internetzensur in Weißrussland

The Belarus government has adopted new measures increasing the control of the Internet and restrictions on online freedom of expression.

Following Decree no.60 (On measures for improving use of the national Internet network) issued on 1 February 2010 by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Belarus Council of Ministers adopted five resolutions with new Internet regulations introducing the compulsory registration of all web sites and the collection of personal data of Internet cafe users.

The decree will enter fully into force on 1 September but the police has already started interrogations and equipment seizures in a campaign mea

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Deutsch: Europäisches Parlament macht Google zum Kindermädchen

The Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection of the European Parliament has found another use for Google. From now on, Google should read what we are searching for and, if the search implies any risky behaviour, Google should tell us to be careful. Of course, it would not be just Google but any "search engine" and nobody felt to that it was necessary define what exactly a "search engine" would be in this context.

The first such "risky" behaviour would be looking for information about medication.

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Deutsch: Island: Erste Schritte zu einem neuen Medienhafen

Iceland's Parliament has recently accepted a proposal by Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (IMMI) asking the Icelandic Government to find "ways to strengthen freedoms of expression and information freedom in Iceland, (and provide) strong protections for sources and whistleblowers."

The proposal from IMMI came after secret dealings by a few banks in Iceland in 2009 leading to enormous debts and the lack of regulation and control, almost bankrupted the entire country.

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Deutsch: Netzsperren: Zunehmender Druck auf die Türkei

As Turkey continues its ban on Google's YouTube and other services, it attracts more and more criticism. After Turkey's President Abdullah Gul himself has taken position against its own government in this matter, it is now OSCE turn to react.

On 22 June 2010, Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, asked the Turkish authorities to restore access to Google's YouTube and other services and change the much-criticized Law No. 5651 (so-called Internet Law) in order to be in line with international standards on free expression.

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Deutsch: Abgeordnete diskutieren Menschenrechte für Internetuser

On 2 June 2010, the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament (DROI) hosted a parliamentary hearing on the human rights implications of new information technologies and communications networks.

Finnish Green MEP Heidi Hautala, the Chair of the Human Rights sub-committee, said that European companies should be encouraged to join the "Global network initiative" and promised to identify possible problems.

Andrew Puddephatt from Global Partners and Associates who presented a study on human rights and the new technologies at the request of the MEPs, said the Internet was an "evolving transnational ecos