~bohwaz/blog/

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11:

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

Well in France it seems that they don't care at all about this declaration. The french government, in order to help their friends from the music industry, wrote a new law against digital piracy. This law can lead to the suspension of your internet access, without any right to defend yourself, just because some corporation told a french authorithy (HADOPI, Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet, High Autorithy for Diffusion of works and Protection of rights on Internet) that you have violated some intellectual rights. But this can be totally fucked up as there is no technical solution to know if you are really downloading something copyrighted.

And today those bastards got another victory. Some months ago, the European Parliament added an amendment to the european law about telecommunications. This amendment was saying that:

no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened where the ruling may be subsequent.

This amendment was voted by a 88% majory. And today the European Council (which is not elected by the people) just removed this amendment on the demand of the french government.

So now in France you can be sentenced without the right to defend yourself. That's just another step from democracy to dictatorship. Great.