The German version of the worldwide encyclopaedia Wikipedia was offline for three days, after a legal complaint filed by the parents of a hacker who's real name was mentioned online.

Tron was a German hacker and phreaker who found a controversial death in 1998. Amongst other things, Tron broke the security of the German phonecard by producing working clones. He was also known for his diploma thesis where he created the Cryptophon, which was one of the first public implementations of a telephone with built-in voice encryption.

The Berlin court issued a preliminary interdiction on 17 January against access to the German domain www.wikipedia.de, as a redirect to the German Wikipedia version.

The preliminary interdiction did forbid the redirect as long as the family name was online in the article at de.wikipedia.org. However, the public

The Civil Society in Macedonia is very much concerned about the quality of the proposed draft Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character as it does not meet international standards on access to information. Today (18.01.2006), it is expected that the Macedonian Parliament will adopt the Law.

Nongovernmental organizations Article 19, Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia, Pro Media-Skopje and Transparency-Macedonia sent an open letter to the President of the Republic of Macedonia, President of the Parliament and the President of the Government stating their concerns regarding the weaknesses in the latest Draft Law on Free Access to Information. They also complain about the lack of real progress towards its adoption.

The letter that was signed by 126 Macedonian civil society organizations

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," .

After the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held in Tunis between 16 and 19 November 2005, a large number of attending civil society organisations decided to write another letter to Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations. During the WSIS the Tunisian government committed serious attacks on human rights and the right to freedom of expression. These attacks included harassment of delegates, assaults on Tunisian and international journalists and human rights defenders, denial of entry to the country, the blocking of websites, the censorship of documents and speeches, and the prevention and disruption of meetings. See also the report on the disturbance of a panel on freedom of expression, in EDRI-gram 3.23.

In the letter they ask him to investigate the attacks on human rights experienced by the participants during the Summit. "We believe it is essential that lessons are learnt from what has taken place here this week and we therefore call upon you, the Secretary General of the United Nations, to launch a full investigation into the attacks on human rights and freedom of expression that we have witnessed in Tunisia both in the run-up to and during the World Summit on the Information Society. We ask you to closely monitor the follow-up period in Tunisia."

In the UNESCO high-level round table 'Shaping the Future through Knowledge' on Thursday 18 November 2005 director-general Koïchiro Matsuura presented the four main pillars of knowledge societies: respect for human rights, especially for freedom of speech, universal access to information, respect for cultural and linguistic diversity and quality education for all. Those pillars have been described in detail in the recently launched UNESCO report 'Towards knowledge societies'. The report was prepared in three earlier conferences organised by Unesco in 2005, described in EDRI-gram 3.3 and 3.10.

The panel members were asked to reflect on the 4 mission goals. Improving universal access to education turned out to be the most prominent concern of the panel. Also the attempts to safeguard indigenous knowledge and the

Together with the internet blogging project Global Voices online, the Dutch NGO Hivos organised a two day program on 17 and 18 November on freedom of expression. On the first day two panels and two lectures were scheduled, the second day was devoted to a workshop on secure communication tools for NGOs. It was only thanks to the Dutch embassy that the event could actually take place. The event was the subject of immense and incredible pressure from Tunisian authorities. They pulled every trick to cancel the event, including the presence of 20 grey-clothed unidentified representatives from some law enforcement services in the back of the room. They threatened to close the doors halfway during the event, if the announced coffee break was to be held, to make sure nobody could get back in.

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

APC, the association for progressive communication, reports on the civil society press conference on 18 November. Civil society representatives from all continents lined up on a panel to deliver a stark closing statement. The civil society statement was not finalised, but four points are addressed: internet governance, human rights, financing and development, and follow-up. The press conference essentially driven by questions of the audience, revolved around issues of development through ICTs.

Renate Bloem of the Civil Society Bureau kicked off the conference by saluting some language used in the official Tunis Commitment such as multistakeholderism. She held up that civil society has become a force to be reckoned with. "We have moved to become a partner in negotiations," she