law

Fouad Mourtada got three years in a maximum security prison for creating a fake Facebook profile page for a member of the Moroccan royal family. Now, web users all over the world are ganging together to get Fouad out of prison. Read more…

Web-users show support for the Facebook prisoner online

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Prostitution is legal in Canada, but brothels aren’t. As a result sex workers put their lives at risk to go to work. Now, Susan Davies, a prostitute for 22 years, is campaigning to open the country’s first brothel in Vancouver. Read more...

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Now known as ‘The Baltimore Cop’ on YouTube, a police officer who physically and verbally abused a fourteen year-old skateboarder was yesterday suspended for his actions. Seventeen-year veteran Salvatore Rivieri was caught on camera shouting at and pushing Eric Bush last summer. But until the video surfaced on YouTube this week, no action was taken. Now, Rivieri, who threatened to “smack you upside the head”, is awaiting the conclusion of an internal investigation. And while he waits, the world watches. The video has already been viewed by around a million people worldwide. Read more…

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Filmed in September and posted online a few weeks ago, this video had been watched by 15,000 people just two days after being posted on YouTube. Now, after an investigation by Shanghai's metro rail authority, one of the employees responsible has been fired, while the other two had already resigned. The couple, who were filmed at Youyi underground station while being mocked by the voyeurs, say that their privacy has been violated. Although they were issued a formal apology by the rail authority, they still plan to take them to court. Since the incident, the man has quit his job due to insulting telephone calls.

Video posted on YouTube by 'greatsunrise', 18 January 2008

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A group of artists in the Czech Republic are facing up to three years in prison for playing a practical joke. Last July, the ‘Ztohoven' art group hijacked a Czech television broadcast and introduced the image of an atomic cloud into a weather report. Early risers who were tuned in to the morning programme were stunned to see the cloud rising in the midst of a peaceful country landscape. Read more...

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One hundred villagers in south-west China were removed from their homes by a force of 300 riot police last Friday. Authorities ordered the armed force to evacuate the village so that they could hand over the land to developers who they had recently sold it to. The villagers have received almost nothing from the deal and most of them have ended up homeless as a result. They will inevitably follow in the path of tens of thousands of other Chinese individuals who are pursuing futile legal chases. See the video of the exiled villagers and read the commentary of a Chinese blogger, He Weihua. Read more...

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The streets of Minsk are full of protesters, a particularly rare event in Belarus, which is considered the worst dictatorship in Eastern Europe. The demonstrators aren't asking for freedom of the press or fair elections, but just to be able to get on with their simple trade. Our Observer Ales, who collaborates with the site Nasha Niva Online, which is banned in Belarus, sent us photos from the event. The photos are not likely to be found in a local paper, since the entire media is controlled by the state. Read more...

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