Since Shehbaz Sharif took over as a Pakistani prime minister in April, there have been a dozen reports of army-related agencies harassing the media, as RSF cautioned. Critical journalists have been a target of a major army campaign to intimidate their work, parallelly destabilizing Pakistan’s democracy.
This serious decline in press freedom was bolstered with the latest case on 9 July when BOL news anchor, Sami Ibrahim, got attacked by three people. The next day, he posted a YouTube video, saying that the attack was planned to prevent him from filming the scene, and the attackers later left in a vehicle with clear signs of being state-owned.
A report outlining the Parliament’s position concerning the AccessibleEU centre was voted on by the Internal Market and Consumer protection committee led by the Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Katrin Langensiepen, and it was adopted by 43 MEPs in favour and 1 abstention. The center is to be created in 2022 with the aim to support the implementation of EU accessibility legislation by facilitating access to relevant knowledge and resources.
This report further details the MEPs expectation of the commission and Member States to set up in order to have a positive impact on 100 million persons with disabilities.
Furthermore, the Parliament calls on Member States ‘to establish national accessibility hubs, which could consist of contact points and mirror groups of experts to work hand in hand with the AccessibleEU centre on implementing, monitoring and enforcing accessibility legislation.’
Founder and director of The Citizen Lab, Ronald Deibert talked to Article 19’s Jo Glanville about the technologies that turn your mobile into a spy in your pocket. The lab research unit, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto, focuses on internet security and threats to human rights.
In the podcast, recorded on 21 June, Deibert talks about the growth of the spyware industry and the fast-moving innovations that mean the people targeted are completely unaware of violations against their privacy. He points out that ‘democracies are among the clients for these technologies, and explains what role international human rights bodies can play in stemming violations and calling governments to account.’
The Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) imposed new rules that oblige telecommunication companies to identify, trace, and block numbers associated with scam calls and SMSes. Telecommunication companies are now required to share information among them and with the authorities to identify scammers.
Essentially, the new code revised the ACMA 2020 Code for combating scam SMSes. It aims to ensure that telecommunications companies assist and inform their customers about the services they receive and thus prevent them from scam calls and SMSes.
In case of non-compliance, telecommunications companies could face penalties of up to $250,000.
Reporters Without Borders (RWB) is an international non-profit public interest organization in France which has defended the promotion of freedom of information since 1985.
On 18 July, RWB will present its newly founded Digital Security Lab: a digital forensic laboratory that will help combat the threats of online surveillance. Based in Berlin, the Digital Security Lab is designed to analyze the devices of journalists who suspect they are under any digital surveillance. Journalists are a target of many threats that can affect their devices or personal social accounts for malicious reasons. This requires a rigorous and united response, and that is why any journalist will be able to contact the Digital Security Lab if they suspect they are the target of digital espionage because of their work.
Journalists often receive sophisticated phishing messages, and Digital Security Lab experts will search for clues with the analysis of suspicious messages to find out if they are for sent spying purposes. The team will also examine installed programmes and will check for other data traces that might offer traces about previous activities and spying technologies.
The OECD has released a progress report on Pillar One of the new global tax rules, and specifically on the design of the so-called Amount A. The report confirms the need for further agreement before it is ready to be reflected in a multilateral convention. The convention will also include rules for withdrawing existing unilateral digital services taxes, which have been sprouting in many jurisdictions.
The rules under Pillar One will ensure that profits are distributed more fairly. Those very large companies, which generate billions in revenues will have to pay taxes on 25% of the profit they make above a 10% threshold of revenue – a threshold referred to as Amount A.
The public consultation on the progress report is open until 19 August 2022.
Relatives of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank in May, showed their deep disappointment in President Joe Biden in a letter released over his administration’s response to her death.
The family accused the U.S. of trying to deny Israel’s responsibility for her death, saying in an official statement that Israeli fire most likely killed her but that the shooting in the West Bank town of Jenin was an accident. They sent a request to Biden for meeting with them when he visits the region, which The White House declined to comment on, alongside with the matters of the letter.
Palestinian eyewitnesses who claimed they saw she was shot by Israeli forces gained support from a reconstruction made by The Associated Press, investigations by CNN, New York Times, and The Washington Post as well as monitoring by the U.N. human rights office.
The European Accessibility Act is an EU law that should ensure the accessibility of a range of products and services for persons with disabilities. These include: computers, Tablets, banking services, ticketing machines, smartphones, TVs, e-books, online shopping etc.
On 28 June 2022, the European Accessibility Act had to be transposed into national law according to the deadline set in the legislation that was adopted in 2019. The adopted law takes the form of an EU Directive, this means that the provisions are not directly applicable but, Member States first have to include them into their national laws. This can be done in two ways;
1. Have a new law on accessibility, or
2. Include the accessibility provisions in a range of existing national laws
So far, four Member States; Austria, Belgium, Estonia, and Finland have notified the European Commission on their finalization of the transposition and published their national laws in the national language(s)
British Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts were hacked. The name of the Army’s Twitter account was changed, while videos on cryptocurrency, and posts related to NFTs appeared on their feed. The British Army stated there is no evidence as to who may be behind the hacking of the accounts. The accounts were restored to normal while investigations regarding the hacks are still ongoing. Army’s spokesperson stated that there will not be any further comments on the incident until the investigation is complete.
The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report on the dramatic real-life effects of internet shutdowns on people’s lives and how this has been vastly underestimated.
‘Too often, major communication channels or entire communication networks are slowed down or blocked,’ the report says, adding that this has deprived ‘thousands or even millions of people of their only means of reaching loved ones, continuing their work or participating in political debates or decisions.’
The report also discusses the phenomenon of internet shutdowns, looking at when and why they are imposed and examining how they undermine a range of human rights, primarily the right to freedom of expression. The report notes that between 2016 and 2021, there have been 931 shutdowns in 74 countries, as documented by the #KeepItOn coalition.
