MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION

4.7.2006

with request for inclusion in the agenda for the debate on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law
pursuant to Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure
by Monica Frassoni, Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit, Angelika Beer, Hélène Flautre, Eva Lichtenberger, David Hammerstein Mintz, Rebecca Harms, Raül Romeva i Rueda, Carl Schlyter, Helga Trüpel, and Claude Turmes,
on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group
on freedom of expression on the Internet

NB: This motion for a resolution is available in the original language only.

B6‑0401/06

European Parliament resolution on freedom of expression on the Internet

The European Parliament,

• -having regard to its previous annual reports on the situation of human rights in the world;
• -having regard to its previous resolution on human rights and freedom of the press in Tunisia and evaluation of the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunisia of December 2005
• -having regard to the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Dialogue (2001) and on Human Rights Defenders (2004) and their first evaluation under Austrian Presidency;
• -having regards to the EU policy on human rights and democratisation in third countries adopted by the Council in December 2005;
• -having regard to the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR);
• –having regard to Rule 115 of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas the fight for freedom of expression has today largely shifted on-line as the internet has become a means of expression of choice for political dissidents, democracy activists, human rights defenders and independent journalists worldwide;

B.  whereas authoritarian regimes and governments have been working on ever more far-reaching methods of controlling the net, chiefly using more and more sophisticated filtering technology and surveillance of electronic communications and setting-up cyber-police;

C.  whereas China is in the frontline in this onslaught against freedom of expression on the internet but is not however the only country to have taken a repressive approach; at least 14 other countries can be seen as enemies of freedom of expression on-line: Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam;

D.  whereas to date 61 cyber-dissidents are detained in prison - 51 of them in China - among others, Hao Wu, Chinese blogger and documentary filmmaker, Yang Zili, Chinese cyber-dissident, Motjaba Saminejad, Iranian weblogger, Mohammed Abbou, Tunisian lawyer, Pham Hong Son, Vietnamese doctor and Habib Saleh, Syrian online journalist; whereas the most recent cases concern the Egyptian bloggers Mohamed Sharkawy and Karim Lel-shaer;

E.  whereas companies based in democratic states provide these countries the means to censor the web and to monitor electronic communication;

F.  whereas in particular companies such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft agree to censor their services by following orders from the Chinese government, other companies like Secure Computing and Fortinet supply governments in Tunisia or Burma with the means to censor the internet;

G.  whereas the Chinese authorities have in this days announced their intention to greatly increase efforts to police and control the Internet, along with other communication technologies like instant messaging and cell phones,

 

H.  whereas CISCO Systems sold police in these countries equipment allowing surveillance of internet users and Yahoo has been collaborating for several years with the Chinese judiciary system resulting in arrests of journalists and political dissidents and notably, of Shi Tao, Chinese journalist at the daily Dangdai Shangbao;

I.  concerned by the fact that in Cuba, a country in which the internet is heavily censored, it is an EU firm, Telecom Italia which runs the network;

J.  concerned by the fact that Wanadoo, a subsidiary of France Telecom, announced in April of last year that it was launching a broadband service with Tunisian operator, Tunisia Planet while the Tunisian government decided to make all opposition websites inaccessible in the country;

K.  welcoming the fact that US legislators introduced a draft law in February 2006, the Global On-line Freedom Act, aimed at regulating the activities of the internet sector businesses when they operate in repressive countries;

L.  believing that the EU should demonstrate that the rights of internet users are at the heart of its concerns and that it is ready to act to promote free expression on-line;

M.  expressing its concern that recent measures aiming at strengthening the Intellectual Property regime of immaterial goods could seriously hamper the flow and access to information and hence deepen the digital divide;

1.  Reaffirms the fact that freedom of expression is a key value shared by all EU countries and that they have to take concrete steps to defend it;

2.  Calls, in this respect, on the EU Council and its Member States to agree on a joint statement confirming their commitment in favour of the protection of the rights of internet users and of the promotion of free expression on the internet world-wide;

3.  Calls on the Commission and the Council to draw up a code of conduct to commit themselves not to participate to online repressive activities;

4.  Recalls that freedom of expression is one of the priority issue of the EU human rights dialogue and a key element of the EU's policy in promoting human rights and democratisation in third countries; calls, in this respect, on the EU to take all necessary measures vis-à-vis the authorities of the concerned countries for the immediate release of all detained Internet users;

5.  Expresses its concern at the policies of major internet firms such as Yahoo which have bowed directly and indirectly to Chinese government demands for censorship; calls for a ban on the automatic use of the search engines of such companies in the web-site of the European Parliament as long as they do not comply with a code of conduct which binds them to respecting freedom of expression;

6.  Calls on the Council and the Commission to make assistance programmes to third countries regarding the development of information technology conditional on their citizens being granted full and unhindered access to the Internet;

7.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the 25 EU Member States.