United Kingdom

Index on Censorship rejects many of the suggestions made in a report into intimidation of UK public officials by a committee tasked with examining standards in public life.

The new UK laws would reportedly see anyone “repeatedly” viewing extremist content online jailed for up to 15 years.

A joint statement by the Association of Progressive Communications, IFEX and 64 co-signatories at the UN-HRC 36 warns of the threat to human rights posed by recent attacks on the right to use encryption technology, in Turkey and across the globe.

No televised debates. Boycotting of media outlets. Journalists shut in a room and prohibited from covering campaign events. Is this the new face of British democracy?

A proposed new UK law could lead to the imprisonment of civil servants and journalists for disclosing information that would otherwise be available to anyone who asked for it.

In September 2016, RSF submitted a contribution to the UN Human Rights Council underscoring press freedom concerns in the U.K. This worrying trend has worsened in the months following this submission.

Journalists in the UK could face up to 14 years in jail just for receiving secret information if an update to the Official Secrets Act is approved.

Section 40 is part of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which deals with a whole range of issues but also implemented some of the recommendations contained in the Leveson Report into phone hacking by newspapers.

Aside from giving authorities access to citizens’ browsing history, phone calls, emails, documents, GPS location records and even passwords, little else is wrong with Britain’s new surveillance law.

HRW demands that UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal confirm whether they were subject to surveillance by GCHQ.

Surveillance companies and government officials from across the world gathered in the U.K. at the invitation of the Home Office for the UK’s “Premier Security and Law Enforcement Event”, one week after the controversial spying legislation, entitled the Investigatory Powers Bill, had its first reading in Parliament.

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels,” wrote H.L. Mencken. “For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

Said the Court of Appeal about their decision, “If journalists and their sources can have no expectation of confidentiality, they may decide against providing information on sensitive issues of public interest.”

The Draft Investigatory Powers Bill, proposes the legitimisation of powers that no other democratic nation has had the audacity to attempt. They are asking Parliament to give them new powers to hack into our computers and look at our internet browsing histories.

“The bill as it stands is not only a threat to the privacy of millions of people in the UK and abroad, but also sets a dangerous example for other governments.”

Detectives served an order obtained from a judge on the BBC and Secunder Kermani, a Newsnight reporter who has produced extensive reports on jihadis born in Britain. It is understood that the police wanted to read communications between Kermani and a man who had publicly identified himself as a member of the Islamic State.