On 8 July 2005 the German Senate (Bundesrat) is set to decide on a freedom of information law, granting formal access rights to governmental decisions. But the christian-democrat governments in many of the 16 states have threatened to block the law.

In July 2004 the German government announced the rapid introduction of the Federal Freedom of Information Act (Gesetz zur Regelung des Zugangs zu Informationen des Bundes) and on 3 June 2005 the Lower House adopted the text in second and third reading, after having considered strong objections from national health insurance companies and the parliamentary health committee. They were afraid individual medical records could be requested as well.

Though the Bundesrat officially only has a say on laws directly affecting the regional states, in this case their rejection could actually block the

The German administrative court of Düsseldorf has once more rejected complaints from internet access providers in the district of Nordrhein-Westfalen against the order to block access to 2 neo-nazi websites hosted in the US. The order was issued in 2002 against 80 different service providers in the region.

The providers already saw 8 legal attempts fail to lift the order. Only 1 attempt, on 31 October 2002 at the administrative court of Minden, was successful, in allowing suspension of execution of the order pending full proceedings. All courts have approved the blocking order within the framework of the federal conventions on media services and youth media protection. The Duesseldorf court rejected any problems with the effectivity of the blocking order and followed an approach similar to the French court (see article above).

A Paris court (Tribunal de grande instance) has ordered 10 French ISPs to block access to a website in the US with revisionist/anti-semitic content. They have until 23 June 2005 to make it impossible for their customers to visit the website. The case was instigated by eight anti-racist French organisations, after the US provider (ThePlanet.com) ignored an earlier French court order (from 20 April 2005) to take down the website. The US provider was supposed to accept French jurisdiction over his activities and pay a fine of 5.000 euro per day for not removing the site as well as a fine of 2.000 euro per day for not handing over identifying data about their customer to the French court.

Originally, the anti-racist organisations demanded filtering by the French ISPs of three websites, but were told by the judge to first complain directly at the producers of the content and hosting providers in the US. They convinced two hosting providers to voluntarily remove 2 websites, but couldn't convince the third one. On 30 May 2005 the court evaluated the effects of the take down order to this third US hosting provider. Obviously the judge came to the conclusion that ISP filtering was the only solution left.

On 12 and 13 May 2005 the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) organised a successful conference in London to make progress on a draft international treaty on Access to Knowledge (A2K). It was the third meeting of a very diverse expert group of academics, educators, representatives of libraries, consumer organisations and people from the open source movement. During the conference all the detailed provisions laid out in each of the sections of the draft treaty were debated in separate sessions. Thanks to strong pressure from the chairs, urging speakers to be pointed in their assessments and short in their speech, the analysis was completed on time and recorded in every detail.

This global coalition took shape in September 2004, when TACD organised a session in Geneva to discuss reform of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The meeting laid down a challenge to WIPO to reform rules relating to intellectual property (IP), such as copyright and patents. The joint goal is providing wider access to knowledge, especially for poorer consumers in developing countries and restoring a balance in IP-rules to uphold the traditional rights of users.

On 13 May 2005 the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers adopted a declaration on human rights and Internet that was prepared by a special committee of academic experts and government representatives. According to the press release, "the declaration is the first international attempt to draw up a framework on the issue and breaks ground by up-dating the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights for the cyber-age."

Indeed the declaration contains a very reassuring confirmation of the fact that "all rights enshrined in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) remain fully valid in the Information Age and should continue to be protected regardless of new technological developments" and a firm statement that "Both the content and traffic data of electronic communications fall under the scope of Article 8 of the ECHR and should not be submitted to restrictions other than those provided for in that provision."

From 17 to 19 May UNESCO organised a large conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, 'Between two phases of the World Summit on the Information Society'. The 450 participants from all over the world were invited to the luxurious Konstantinovsky Palace.

In her opening speech Françoise Rivière, the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, described the context of St. Petersburg conference and the special involvement of UNESCO Paris head quarters with a session on cultural diversity.

Opening speech by Françoise Rivière

This session was the 4th of a series of thematic meetings held in 2005 in the Information for All programme. In February Paris head quarters hosted a conference on freedom of expression (see EDRI-gram 3.3), early in May the capital of Mali (Bamako) hosted a conference on multi linguism in cyberspace and on 10 May Paris head quarters debated about the use of ICT for capacity building. The Bamako conference produced as main result a clear recognition that the debate about the level of IT development must be changed and in stead of just counting internet usage equal attention should be given to lesser used languages, education and literacy programs. The third meeting in Paris was dedicated to effective use of new methods for learning, focussing on groups such as refugees, the visually impaired, rural areas and the urban poor.

On 28 April 2005 6 EU countries sent an open letter to the European Commission and the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council asking for a European digital library. Inspired by the French president Jacques Chirac, the presidents or prime ministers of Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Hungary have signed the letter.

On 3 May 2005 the European Commission responded with an announcement that it will boost its policy of preserving and exploiting Europe's written and audiovisual heritage. The Commission plans to issue a communication by July outlining the stakes involved and identifying the obstacles to using written and audiovisual archives in the European Union. The communication will be accompanied by a proposal for a Recommendation aimed at enlisting all the public players concerned and facilitating public-private partnerships in the task of digitising the European heritage.

The international federation of journalists (IFJ) and the UK civil liberties group Statewatch have launched a new report on 3 May 2005, World Press Freedom Day. The report examines how democratic states sacrifice civil liberties and free expression in the name of security and concludes: "The war on terrorism amounts to a devastating challenge to the global culture of human rights and civil liberties established almost 60 years ago."

According to the press release the report also concludes:

-Media and independent journalism suffer in a 'pervasive atmosphere of paranoia' which is leading to dangerous levels of self-censorship
-Dissent inside and outside media is being restricted
-Fundamental rights to a fair trial are routinely violated
-Governments are covertly creating massive databanks for surveillance of their citizens