France

Numerous journalists have reported being attacked and threatened by riot police during the ongoing demonstrations sweeping France; others have been forcibly ejected from meetings by protesters and physically intimidated.

French authorities should investigate whether police anti-riotntactics were necessary and proportional, and should hold officers to account for excessive use of force, Human Rights Watch says.

Three years after 12 people were killed at the French satirical weekly, those who censor in the name of God still pose one of the gravest threats to free expression.

Can Europeans be sentenced to jail for vague references to terrorism? It already happened. And it is a trend that threatens to spread throughout Europe.

“France and Germany, it’s time to assert your values”, stresses Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab, currently on trial for criticising the Saudi bombing of Yemen and exposing torture in Bahrain’s prisons.

The supporters of “religious correctness” are using respect for God and concepts such as blasphemy to create an exception to freedom of expression in general, and freedom of information in particular – an exception for which there is absolutely no provision under international law.

The expanded emergency powers allow the government to impose house arrest without authorization from a judge, conduct searches without a judicial warrant and seize any computer files it finds, and block websites deemed to glorify terrorism without prior judicial authorization.

The introduction of this law only two months after the Charlie Hebdo tragedy is seen as an attempt to broaden surveillance powers under the guise of preventing terrorism.

Free expression advocates worldwide condemn the 7 January attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Several organisations have published cartoons from the publication in solidarity.

Violence against journalists is becoming more and more common at all kinds of demonstrations in France, including the “Manif pour Tous” protests against same-sex marriage and the recent protests against the proposed Sivens Dam in the southern department of Tarn.

The bill would allow the government to ban French nationals from leaving the country on very broad grounds that could breach their right to free movement under international human rights law.

French hacker Grégory Chelli has been using extraordinarily aggressive methods to harass Benoît le Corre, a journalist with the French news website Rue89, ever since the site published Le Corre’s profile of Chelli on 29 July.

A decision by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights sacrifices the expression rights of a minority for the comfort of the majority, setting a worrying precedent for the rights of all people in Europe.

Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the extensive provisions for electronic snooping in the Military Programming Law that was passed by the French Senate on 10 December, after previously being approved by the National Assembly.

A far-right magazine recently put France’s black justice minister Christiane Taubira on its cover, comparing her to a monkey. The storm of indignation that followed gave unexpected visibility to the magazine and members of the government expressed their desire to sue the magazine or to block the distribution of the infamous issue.

Freedom of expression is generally protected in France, although is limited by strict defamation and privacy laws. The country also has some of the toughest hate speech laws in the EU.