A far-left German politician has been forced to withdraw an injunction against online encyclopedia Wikipedia after it revealed details of his Stasi past.

Former secret service bodyguard Lutz Heilmann faced a storm of criticism and ridicule after taking legal action forcing the website to remove the information

Donations to the German Wikipedia soared five fold to around 16,000 euros a day, fuelled by angry users. The response has been overwhelming, said Mathias Schindler, a spokesman for Wikimedia, a non-profit group that supports Wikipedia's German-language version. It's reassuring that an attempt at censorship triggers such a huge reaction from the public.

Heilmann was reportedly upset that Wikipedia stated he had not finished his university degree, had worked for an pornography company and had been a bodyguard for the Stasi secret police until it was disbanded after the communist regime's collapse in 1989.

While the first two claims were untrue, the third was a case of hairsplitting, Schindler said.  Heilmann quit the Stasi several days before it was disbanded, he said.

These details have been changed but it was the heavy handedness of Heilmann's response that sparked anger.

The www.wikipedia.de portal – the doorway to German-language Wikipedia entries – resumed service at lunchtime yesterday after Heilmann dropped his injunction and offered his sincere regret. In no way did I intend censorship, he said.

He is reportedly pursuing legal action against three individuals who he claims contributed to the entry.

THE notorious Famine Song sung by Rangers fans was condemned on the floor of the European Parliament last night.

Irish MEP Eoin Ryan described the chant aimed at Celtic supporters as despicable, and has written to all Scotland's MEP's, seeking their support to end the sectarian behaviour.

The Famine Song

I often wonder where they would have been
If we hadn't have taken them in
Fed them and washed them
Thousands in Glasgow alone
From Ireland they came
Brought us nothing but trouble and shame
Well the famine is over
Why don't they go home?
Now Athenry Mike was a thief
And Large John he was fully briefed
And that wee traitor from Castlemilk
Turned his back on his own
They've all their Papists in Rome
They have U2 and Bono
Well the famine is over
Why don't they go home?
Now they raped and fondled their kids
That's what those perverts from the dark side did
And they swept it under the carpet
And Large John he hid
Their evils seeds have been sown
Cause they're not of our own
Well the famine is over
Why don't you go home?
Now Timmy don't take it from me
Cause if you know your history
You've persecuted thousands of people
In Ireland alone
You turned on the lights
Fuelled U boats by night
That's how you repay us
It's time to go home.

Facebook has removed several pages from its site said to have been used by Italian neo-Nazis to incite violence after European politicians accused the Internet social networking site of allowing a platform to racists.

Seven different group pages had been created on the site with titles advocating violence against gypsies.

The existence of these groups is repulsive, said Martin Schulz, Socialist leader in the European Parliament which lodged a complaint with the California-based company.

Facebook said it had removed the pages because they violated its terms of use: Facebook supports the free flow of information, and groups provide a forum for discussing important issues. However, Facebook will remove any groups which are violent or threatening.

Italy's Roma, or gypsy, communities have been subjected to several attacks in recent months while Italy's media has focused attention on violent crimes committed by gypsies. The government has dismantled illegal shantytowns where many Roma live.

The unmasking this week of an animal sex network by the Stockholm newspaper Expressen has  highlighted the issue of bestiality.

Members of parliament are urging a tightening of the laws (bestiality was decriminalised along with homosexuality in 1944) but the government is resisting the pressure.

Should a human be allowed to affectionately stroke the teats of a female dog? asked Eskil Erlandsson, the Agriculture minister, explaining the complexities of an anti-bestiality law: or does that count as the sexual abuse of an animal? The minister, famed for his outspoken manner, later left many Swedes aghast when he gave an even more explicit example.

One, the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency, registered 115 cases of bestiality between 2000 and 2005. This is regarded however as the tip of the iceberg and some published projections suggest that between 200 and 300 dogs and cats a year are being sexually assaulted.

The Expressen story has stoked up the debate even more. It infiltrated a reporters into a group run by the organiser of a flourishing internet animal sex forum. He owns a farm with dogs and horses and told the newspaper that he had regular sex with his female dog but claimed the animal initiated the act. This is a sufficient defence under current Swedish laws to prevent prosecution under charges of animal cruelty.

The network of around 30 people, mainly men, organise regular rendezvous with different farmyard animals and dogs. The events are often filmed for later use in pornographic films.

Governments across Europe must do more to safeguard freedom of speech for Muslim reformers who face threats from extremists, a think tank has warned.

The UK-based Centre for Social Cohesion highlighted the cases of 27 writers, including Sir Salman Rushdie, activists, politicians and artists.

The centre said they had suffered violence and intimidation for criticising Islam or seeking reform.

It said governments had a duty to ensure free speech for all citizens.

The report - Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech within Europe's Muslim Communities - said official failure to offer victims the protection they needed had left "significant numbers" of Muslims unable to express themselves.

It said this also created the impression that more Muslims were opposed to free speech than was actually the case.

The centre called for European governments to promote greater religious and social harmony by demonstrating that they see Muslims and those of Muslim background as complete citizens, neither restricted in their freedoms nor unduly permitted to issue threats against others.

Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion and co-author of the report, said Muslims found it increasingly difficult to criticise elements of their faith or culture without fear of reprisal.

In a free society, no belief or set of values should remain beyond open criticism. To grant a belief system amnesty from discussion concedes that intimidation and violence can succeed.

Unless Muslims are allowed to discuss their religion without fear of attack there can be no chance of reform or genuine freedom of conscience within Islam.

Reporters Without Borders condemns a Brussels court ruling on 4 November ordering the weekly Humo to immediately withdraw all copies of its latest issue from sale on penalty of paying a fine of 250 euros for each copy left on sale.

The summary judgment was issued in response to an action brought by the federal police chief about a satirical photo-montage showing his head, and that of his secretary, super-imposed on naked bodies.

After the newspaper filed an appeal, the court put a ceiling of 25,000 euros on the fine.

We deplore the court’s ruling and the disproportionate nature of the legal procedure used,”Reporters Without Borders said: Satire is by definition an inalienable part of freedom of expression. Morality and good taste cannot under any circumstances justify media censorship in a country that belongs to the European Union.

The satirical section of Humo’s 4 November issue, called the Het Gat van de wereld (Backside of the world), had photomontages of federal police chief Fernand Koekelberg frolicking naked with his secretary, Sylvie Ricour, who had been suspended after several newspapers suggested there was something irregular about the way she got the job - only to be reinstated on the orders of the Council of State.

Humo put a new version of the issue on sale today with a black strip across the cover page and the words Humo censored. Page 175 with the photomontages was kept, only now the photos were covered with a black strip and the word Censored.

Google is awaiting confirmation that four employees will face charges in Italy for failing to stop the publishing of a video of a disabled teenager being bullied.

The employees will face charges of defamation and failure to exercise control over personal data, with court proceedings to start Feb. 3 in Milan.

Prosecutors appear concerned that the video also highlighted the boy's disability, which could run afoul of data protection rules, said Marco Pancini, Google's European public policy counsel.

The three-minute video in question depicts four youths harassing a boy with Down's Syndrome and eventually hitting him in the head with a pack of tissues.

It was posted in September 2006 on Google Video, one of the company's video upload sites. Google removed the video within a day after it received a complaint from the Italian Interior Ministry, which has a department that investigates Internet-related crime. By that time, the video garnered around 12,000 hits.

Google maintains charges against the employees are unwarranted, Pancini said. Europe's E-commerce Directive exempts service providers from prescreening content before it is publicly posted, he said. Also, the video was technically uploaded to a Google server in the US, not in Italy, Pancini said.

Finland has just rated the DVD release of the children's television series, Little House on the Prairie, as suitable only for adult viewing.

In an attempt to save money, the heads at Universal Pictures decided not to submit the series to the censors for inspection.

Turns out that Finnish authorities charge around $2.57 per minute to assess the age limit on films and television series.

The distributors who decide not to pay the fee can only sell their flicks with the sticker Banned for under-18s.

Matti Paloheimo, Director at the Finnish Board of Film Classification, said Long series can get quite expensive to check, and some use this exemption in the law to their advantage. Such unchecked material should not be shown to children publicly.

It appears we were a little hasty in celebrating the demise of the Dutch blasphemy laws.

Danish journalist Flemming Rose has contacted MWW, relating the concerns of a Dutch colleague about this supposed repeal. All is not as it seems.

The intention is to introduce the concept of indirect insult and expand an existing law which protects people on the basis of race, age, disability, and sexual orientation to include protection on the basis of religion or conviction. This means that remarks directed at Islam, Christianity, Buddism or - depending on your interpretation of conviction - even homeopathy and astrology, could be interpreted as indirect insults to people, and prosecuted as such.

According to a commenter on the original story, this law carries a maximum sentence of 12 months, whereas the original defunct blasphemy law carried a maximum 3 month sentence.

Writes Rose:

This spring the Dutch minister of justice Hirsch Ballin wrote a note to parliament asking them to consider stiffening blasphemy laws. In the aftermath of the scandal surrounding the arrest of Gregorius Nekschot parliament refused to go along, and this proposal is the compromise that the government came up with.

Hustler Europe has filed a constitutional complaint against a newly enacted section of German law that criminalizes sales and distribution of content depicting adult actors who show a youthful appearance.

The new law, section 184c of the German criminal code, went in effect November 5. It immediately affects the Barely Legal series produced by Larry Flynt Publications’ company in Europe.

In the complaint filed with the Federal Constitutional Court, Hustler Europe alleges the law violates constitutionally protected rights to freedoms of opinion, occupation and property. It is asking the court to suspend the provision until it reaches a final decision.

The Federal Constitutional Court will have to check whether §184c Criminal Code violates the constitutionally guaranteed freedom rights, Marko Dörre, Hustler Europe’s attorney, said. We demand clear regulations for more legal certainty.

Hustler Europe Managing Director Helen Clyne told XBIZ it was ultimately about more than the affect on Barely Legal, a popular series both in the U.S. and in Europe.

Until the court rules, Hustler Europe is barred from distributing Barely Legal, Not the Brady XXX series and This Ain’t the Munsters XXX.

Freedom of speech is being limited by the Irish Press Council and its Press Ombudsman.

Some editors are worried by a decision of the Press Council relating to Africa. They believe these decisions may make it harder for writers to say what they feel, or for the media to report on stories that matter to the public.

Columnist Kevin Myers has just been rapped across the knuckles by the Press Council for his offensive opinions on Africa. It has never been a crime simply to cause grave offence, nor can you sue if offended by someone's words unless you are actually libelled.

Kevin Myers is a controversialist who caused consternation in last July's Irish Independent, he claimed that Africa is giving nothing to anyone ... apart from Aids.

The Press Council received dozens of complaints about that Myers article.

Principle 8 of the Code of Practice of the Press Council, as agreed with media, states: Newspapers and periodicals shall not publish material intended or likely to cause grave offence or stir up hatred against an individual or group on the basis of race, religion, nationality, colour, ethnic origin, membership of the travelling community, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, illness, or age.

The Press Council found against Myers because he used the failings of some to stigmatise whole societies, employing a level of generalisation that was distorting and seriously insulting to Africans as a whole. His article was likely to cause grave offence to people throughout sub-Saharan Africa and to the many Africans in particular who are now resident in Ireland.

Which is no doubt true. But the Press Council specifically rejected complaints that Myers was anything more than offensive. It did not find reason to conclude that the article was likely to stir up hatred or that there was any intention of doing so.

So it is now clear that Principle 8 of the Press Council code is actually two principles. The first is simply that Newspapers and periodicals shall not publish material intended or likely to cause grave offence, to anyone! The rest of Principle 8, including its long list of possible victims, relates only to cases where someone has stirred up hatred.

Where is the balance between causing offence and suppressing freedom of speech? Many readers welcome some offensive comments about the powerful or rich, or about irritable self-righteous pressure groups. What is freedom of speech if it is not the freedom to say on occasion things that most people in society find offensive?

Officials with Sweden’s Road Administration (Vägverket) have denied a driver’s request for a licence place with what at first glance appears to be a completely innocent combination of characters.

Recently, the agency received a request from an individual who wanted a licence plate reading X32IARO. Despite no obviously offensive reference in the desired combination, Vägverket nonetheless rejected the application.

When read in reverse, as it would be seen through a rear-view mirror, X32IARO suddenly appears nearly as ORALSEX.

The guiding principle is that a licence plate shouldn’t be offensive, regardless of whether it’s read forwards or backwards.

Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin (Christian Democrats) has finally given into pressure and is to recommend that blasphemy is no longer a criminal offence.

Although the law, which was brought in to protect Christians from being insulted is almost defunct, in the past the minister has believed it to be useful to protect Muslims from Islam-bashing, says Friday's Volkskrant.

The law was last used in 1968 against the writer Gerard Reve. He was found not guilty.

Hirsch Ballin had suggested expanding the current legislation to cover all religions but MPs were against the move, arguing it would conflict with freedom of speech, the Volkskrant says.

The Foreign Secretary was urged to make a formal protest to the Spanish government over online racist abuse of Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton.

The FIA, the sport's world governing body, and McLaren, Hamilton's F1 team, have condemned a voodoo-style website in Spain where hundreds of abusive messages, many of which refer to Hamilton's colour, have been posted.

Visitors to the site – about 20,000 to date – are encouraged to drop imaginary nails, pins or porcupines on a mock-up of the Interlagos circuit, in Sao Paulo.

Hamilton will take to the circuit on Sunday for the Brazilian Grand Prix, needing only to finish in the top five to become the youngest champion in Formula One history.

Labour MP Keith Vaz, the chairman of the party's Ethnic Minority Taskforce, condemned the abuse and said more action needed to be taken. He urged the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to make a formal protest to Spain asking them to stop the abuse.

A French court has rejected a demand from Nicolas Sarkozy, the president, for a ban on a Sarkozy doll and voodoo manual that encourages readers to stick pins in it.

The doll is decorated with some of the French leader's most famous quotes, like Get lost you pathetic a***hole – to a bystander who refused to shake his hand at an agricultural show in 2007.

The French minister of health supports changing the Evin Law to allow wine advertising on the internet.

Despite continued fierce opposition from anti-alcohol groups, Roselyne Bachelot told Le Figaro: When we initially drew up the Evin Law we did not take into account the internet, because at the time it was not as developed as it is today.

Despite this, national demonstrations against the law will still go ahead on Thursday.

A CIVB spokesperson told decanter.com: While we welcome the news that the internet may now be a legal method of promotion for winemakers, this has not yet been made official – and is not the only threat to French wine.

Demonstrators will cover up any signs for villages that also carry the name of an appellation - such as Saint Emilion, Pauillac or Margaux - to highlight the absurdity of the censorship.

The USK are Germany's game classification board. And as you may already be aware, they're a conservative bunch, banning games that even Australia let slide. But this is new. Witness Germany's box art for Valve's upcoming zombie co-op shooter, Left 4 Dead

While every other region's box art shows a left hand with the thumb bitten off - zombies feast on the flesh of the living. On the German version, the thumb's simply tucked in behind the hand there. No gore.

A Microsoft spokesperson has told Edge that Epic’s long-awaited Gears of War 2 game will not be released in Japan.

We can confirm that Gears of War 2 will not be available in Germany or Japan indefinitely said the spokesperson.

The reasons why the game will not be released remain unclear. In May this year Germany’s ratings organization declined to issue the game an age certificate.

The BBFC passed Gears of War 2, 18 uncut.

Update: Evidently this story is causing waves within Microsoft. A spokesperson has contacted us to clarify that no announcement has been made about plans for Gears of War 2 in Japan.

The European Parliament on Wednesday agreed on a $71 million, five-year plan to protect children from illegal content on the Internet and online bullying.

The Safer Internet program, which runs between 2009 and 2013, will cover Web 2.0 services such as social networking sites Facebook and MySpace as well online multiplayer gaming. It also will fight harmful behavior such as bullying.

The proposed new programme will:

• Reduce illegal content and tackle harmful conduct online: actions to provide the public with national contact points for reporting illegal content online and harmful conduct, focusing in particular on child sexual abuse material and grooming.
   
• Promote a safer online environment: fostering self-regulatory initiatives in this field. To stimulate the involvement of children and young people in creating a safer online environment, in particular through youth panels.
   
• Ensure public awareness: actions targeting children, their parents and teachers. Encourage a multiplier effect through exchange of best practices within the network of national awareness centres. Support contact points where parents and children can receive advice on how to stay safe online.
   
• Establish a knowledge base by bringing together researchers engaged in child safety online at European level. Establish a knowledge base on the use of new technologies by children, the effects these have on them, and related risks. Use this to improve the effectiveness of ongoing actions within the Safer Internet Programme.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to sue a publishing company unless it withdraws a Sarkozy doll that comes with a voodoo manual telling readers to plant pins in it.

The doll is emblazoned with some of Sarkozy's most famous quotes such as Get lost you pathetic arsehole -- his words to a bystander who refused to shake his hand at a farm show last year.

Readers are encouraged to plant pins in the quotes.
Sarkozy

Nicolas Sarkozy has instructed me to remind you that, whatever his status and fame, he has exclusive and absolute rights over his own image, his lawyer Thierry Herzog wrote to publishers K&B in a letter published by newspaper Le Monde.

Herzog said Sarkozy would sue the publishing firm if it didn't respond and pull the product. K&B has issued 20,000 copies of the manual and doll.

The Council of Europe today launched, in close cooperation with European online game designers and publishers and with Internet service providers, two sets of guidelines which aim to encourage respect and promote privacy, security and freedom of expression when, for example, accessing the Internet, using e-mail, participating in chats or blogs, or playing Internet games.

Ireland's Department of Justice has introduced a series of cutbacks to save €11m across 20 bodies.

One of many measures is that the Film Censor's Office and Censorship of Publications Office are to be amalgamated.

The Censorship of Publications Board

Based on article from citizensinformation.ie

The Censorship of Publications Board is an independent board in Ireland established by law to examine books and periodicals for sale. The Board may prohibit the sale and distribution of books and periodicals if they are found to be obscene. A prohibition on the sale and distribution of a particular publication means that it is illegal for this book to be bought, sold or distributed around the country. Books that are prohibited may be appealed to the Censorship of Publications Appeal Board. Both the Censorship of Publications Board and the Appeals Board consist of five members each. Members of both boards are appointed by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Posts on these boards are without remuneration (i.e., they are unpaid).
Rules

The Censorship of Publications Board will examine any book or periodical referred to it by a Customs and Excise officer and any book referred to it by a member of the public. It may also examine any book or periodical on its own initiative. In Ireland, there is no category of restricted access - a publication is either prohibited or it is not prohibited. The Board does not prohibit publications very often, and in some years, nothing is prohibited.

The Board has regular meetings to discuss publications referred to it. Every member of the Board will have read the publication before the meeting. For a book to be prohibited, at least three members must agree with the decision and only one can dissent (i.e., disagree). If the prohibition is passed, it comes into effect as soon as it is announced in Iris Oifigúil (Ireland's official State gazette). A prohibition order on a book ceases on the 31 December following a period of 12 years beginning on the date of the order coming into effect.

Books are prohibited if the Censorship of Publications Board considers them to be indecent or obscene. Periodicals are prohibited if the Censorship of Publications Board considers them to be frequently or usually indecent or obscene. Both books and periodicals may be prohibited if the Board considers that they advocate abortion or ways of carrying out abortions. Periodicals may also be prohibited if the Board is of the opinion that they have given an unduly large proportion of space to matters relating to crime. In practice, however, publications are usually only reported to the Board for obscenity. The Board will measure the literary, scientific or historical merit of the publication. It will take note of its general tenor, the language in which it is written, its likely circulation and readers and anything else it feels is relevant. It may take into account any communication with the author, editor or publisher.

The Gardai may be issued with a search warrant if they suspect that prohibited books or periodicals are being kept anywhere for sale or distribution. If they find prohibited publications, they may remove them. If you are convicted of possessing prohibited publications, you may be liable for a fine of 63.49 euro or six months imprisonment.

The Council of Europe (CoE) is a larger body than the EU with 47 rather than 27 member states.

It intends to  extend the scope of a convention that affects the regulation of TV broadcasting to include video on-demand services and some online video. The changes will match those already made by the European Union.

The most important change to the rules will relate to their coverage. The regulations will no longer apply simply to television content, but to video on demand services.

The Convention does not include home-made audio visual material, such as that which someone would post to a sharing site such as YouTube. It only includes commercial material.

The Convention also governs the retransmission of services and orders states to allow material which complies with the rules in the Convention to be re-transmitted into their country, with exceptions for material which breaks the rules of the Convention or broadcasting rules in the country of first broadcast.

On the subject of content restriction it proposes:

• television broadcasts do not, include programmes which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, in particular those that involve pornography or gratuitous violence7. This provision shall be extended to other television programmes which are likely to impair the physical mental or moral development of minors, except where it is ensured, by selecting the time of the broadcast or by any technical means, that minors in the area of transmission will not normally hear or see such broadcasts.
   
• on-demand services which might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors are only made available in such a way that ensures that minors will not normally hear or see such on-demand services.

The Government has asked for responses to the initial consultation by 31st October, and the CoE has said that a more formal consultation will take place at the end of the year.

Bloomberg reports that Google lost two court cases in Germany over the display of thumbnails in their image search results.

Google’s preview of a picture by German photographer Michael Bernhard violates his copyrights, the Regional Court of Hamburg ruled, his lawyer Matthies van Eendenburg said in an interview today. Thomas Horn, who holds the copyrights on some comics that were displayed in Google search result.

“It doesn’t matter that thumbnails are much smaller than original pictures and are displayed in a lower resolution,” the court said in its ruling for Bernhard. By using photos in thumbnails, no new work is created, that may have justified displaying them without permission.

In the US, fair use laws make it possible to offer such third-party services without specifically asking for permission. Adult magazine Perfect 10 once lost a case against Google in these regards, after an original decision was reversed. (In any case, Google’s bots respect the “robots.txt” protocol, where webmaster can disallow the spidering of images.)

A Google rep said: The ruling of the Regional Court of Hamburg is bad for internet users and users of image search engines in Germany in general – just as it’s bad for thousands of site owners who based their business on image searches.

Charges were also brought against other provides of image searches, such as AOL, T-Online, Yahoo. With this ruling, the court of Hamburg throws German internet users back into the digital stone age. And this is not just in regards to Google image search, but all of them. We are confident that the Regional Court will correct the ruling in the appeals procedure.

The French wine industry is calling for demonstrations across the country on October 30 to protest recent government and court decisions that would severely limit not only wine advertising, but wine writing.

This year alone, the wine industry has been hit with these blows:

• A French court ruled that newspaper and magazine articles on wine must contain health warnings, in much the same way the United States requires tobacco advertising to include warnings. But remember we’re not talking about advertising, but journalism.
• That same court ruled that wine and beer cannot be advertised on the Internet.
• Proposed new laws will put wine on the same level as pornography by limiting access to wine- and alcohol-related sites only to certain hours, with the rationale of protecting minors.

The recent court decisions are the latest manifestations of the French Evin Law, which was enacted in 1991 to control the advertising of wine and spirits. The law limited advertising to showing a product, naming the place where it was made, how it was made and how it should be consumed. It eliminated all references to social or financial success, or to wine as part of any social or domestic scene.

The rationale for the law was the high rate of deaths in France that could be attributed to alcohol and tobacco abuse. But the recent restrictions betray hostility to any sort of pleasure derived from wine. This, I would think, is about as un-French as you can get.

RTE's new series Raw is proving too hot to handle for some viewers who have complained to the Broadcasting Complaints Commissioner about certain scenes.

The new TV drama received a number of complaints over the week following scenes broadcast last Monday night.

Now the BCC has contacted the national broadcaster about the complaints and is awaiting a response from RTE.

Monday night's episode reportedly received five objections from viewers to the national broadcaster and the BCC received one complaint.

The episode in question featured a lesbian kiss and a full frontal scene between two men.

But a spokeswoman for RTE said that she believed the show on Monday did not cause huge offence as there were only five complaints received.

The six-part series is set in a fictitious Dublin restaurant and follows the lives and loves of the staff. The series has already shown several sex scenes and one incident where bodily fluids were served at the restaurant as part of a practical joke.