During 6 January - 6 February 2006, e-belarus.org conducted a survey of Belarusian online media by selecting 10 very different websites of various types, as well as with different political attitudes. The selection was made on the basis of the average number of visitors per day.

The analysis of the 10 selected online news resources revealed that 58% of the total number of news is taken from national online and offline resources and 37% from foreign sources. 5% of the total number of news is presented without mentioning its sources. National press agencies cover 34% of the news, 38% news comes from foreign sources (out of which 27% from Russia), 8% of news is taken from each other and only 5% of the total number of news is original content.

The major sources for Belarusian online media are national press agencies

A High Level Seminar on Racism and the Internet - the 4th Session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action took place in Geneva, during 16-17 January 2006.

Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, director and founder of Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties prepared a background report for the seminar with the title "Stocktaking on efforts to combat racism on the Internet".

The report makes an attempt to evaluate the possibilities and challenges an Internet user faces in propagating and countering material with a racist content. It tries to provide an overview of the issues under debate, focusing on self-regulation and co-regulation initiatives to combat racism on the Internet.

The report finds that the States have yet to reach a political agreement on

During the Oxford Media Convention on 19 January 2006, Hon.Tessa Jowell, the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport expressed the opinion that a European Union plan to introduce Internet regulation was unwelcome, arguing that new media were best left to govern themselves.

The statement comes at a time when the European Union is trying to overhaul the 1989 Television Without Frontiers directive, which sets out a baseline for broadcast regulation across Europe. On 13 December 2005 the Commission presented its draft directive amending the Television without Frontiers Directive (TWF). The proposed changes include amendments that refer to the transmission of the audio-visual content using mobile and internet services.

Ms. Tessa Jowel described the current text of the European Commission

Freedom of speech won in a battle that lasted for a decade between Karin Spaink, a Dutch writer and XS4ALL, her Internet service provider, on one side, and the Church of Scientology, on the other side, which was claiming copyright infringement.

It all began in 1995 when the Church of Scientology attempted to seize the servers of the Internet service provider, XS4ALL, for having hosted a web site where some of the Scientology religious documents were published, claiming the infringement of the copyright.

Hearing of the dispute, Spaink posted the same documents to her own site hosted by Xs4all. Later on she stated: "I got into this because I thought it was important to define how copyright issues are settled online and how ISPs should or should not be held accountable," .

In a tight decision (6-5) ruled on 12 January 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Yahoo's case of sale of Nazi-related books and memorabilia on its French auction site.

The majority stated that "First Amendment harm may not exist at all" and that it's "extremely unlikely" that any penalty could be assessed against Yahoo's U.S. operations. "Unless and until Yahoo changes its policy again, and thereby more clearly violates the French court's orders, it is unclear how much is now actually in dispute,"

The minority considered that "criminal statutes of most nations do not comport with the U.S. Constitution. That does not give judges in this country the unfettered authority to pass critical judgment on their validity,"

The case came as a result of a French court decision against Yahoo by La

On 17 November 2005 Reporters without Borders (RSF) released a new report during the WSIS on the 15 enemies of the Internet, and 15 countries to watch. RSF writes: "The 15 'enemies' are the countries that crack down hardest on the Internet, censoring independent news sites and opposition publications, monitoring the Web to stifle dissident voices, and harassing, intimidating and sometimes imprisoning Internet users and bloggers who deviate from the regime’s official line." Amongst those enemies Tunisia is prominently mentioned, next to predictable countries such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The report says about Tunisia: "President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, whose family has a monopoly on Internet access inside the country, has installed a very effective system of censoring the Internet. All opposition

In response to the article about the Norwegian Supreme Court decision on hyperlinks in the previous EDRI-gram, subscriber Matthias Spielkamp from Germany pointed to an article he wrote about recent jurisprudence in Germany. Contrasting the Norwegian decision that a hyperlink can not be considered unlawful in a copyright context, irrespective of the legal or illegal nature of the content offered, the appeal court of Munich decided to uphold a ruling that the e-zine Heise had to remove a link to the website Slysoft.com. At the site software was offered to make copies of copy-protected CDs and DVDs.

Spielkamp writes: By providing a link to the company's homepage, the court said, Heise intentionally provided "assistance in the fulfilment of unlawful acts" and is therefore liable as "an aider and abettor". The case

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus (White Russia) apparently wasn't amused by some satirical animated cartoons about him. The Minsk office of the Public Prosecutor started criminal proceedings against 3 activists from the organisation Third Way 'for insulting the President'. Such behaviour can be punished with a maximum of 5 years prison sentence under article 367 of the Belarussian Criminal Code.

The secret police carried out raids on three apartments in Minsk and Grodno. The KGB confiscated at least 12 computers and material used to produce the cartoons. The website administrators were interrogated for 5 hours and the person suspected of creating the Flash animations was arrested, but later released.

The news source E-belarus reports about an interview given by one of the