15 Aug 2012 | Tunisia
Tunisia’s data protection authority is in the process of amending the country’s 2004 privacy law, which will regulate the use of personal data.
Hacking into activists’ emails, tapping into dissidents’ phone calls, or installing surveillance cameras in the homes of political opponents were common practices during the reign of Zeine el-Abidin Ben Ali. Amending this particular law section related to the processing of personal data by public entities, would place the State and its organs under the scrutiny of the INPDP.
(more…)
14 Aug 2012 | Mexico
Rest stops for migrants operated by Roman Catholic priests across Mexico are coming under attack from top Church officials after centre directors criticised Mexican government policies on Central American migrants.
The most recent case is that of Father Alejandro Solalinde, the Mexican priest who ran Hermanos en el Camino (Brothers in the Road), a rest stop in the state of Oaxaca. Solalinde, who recently returned from two months of forced exile after receiving death threats from organised crime groups, was ordered by the Bishop of Tehuantepec, Oscar Armando Campos, to stop his work with migrants. Solalinde said the Bishop objected to his public statements in the media in support of migrants who face harassment from not only organised crime groups, but also local government and police officials. Local residents have also criticised the centres, whose rest stops draw large groups of the mostly male Central-American migrants. A political backlash has forced Bishop Armando Campos to clarify that he never told Solalinde to leave the centre.
(more…)
14 Aug 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Digital Freedom, News and features
The world’s largest democracy is all too willing to censor the web, says Marta Cooper
(more…)
13 Aug 2012 | Americas, Mexico
Mexican investigative journalist Lydia Cacho has fled the country after receiving death threats.
Cacho, a columnist for the daily Mexico City-based El Universal, tweeted on 4 August that “mafiosi are the ones that should be running, not us,” a week after telling Mexican authorities that she had received anonymous death threats via phone and e-mail for revealing the names of sex traffickers. (more…)
