Reporters Without Borders recently voiced its concerns about a new French law on the prevention of criminality following its approval by the French Constitutional Council on March 5.
The council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists.
The law on the prevention of criminality, which was adopted on Feb. 13, was referred to the constitutional council by the socialist group in France's parliament.
"The sections of this law supposedly dealing with 'happy slapping' in fact have a much broader scope, and posting videos online showing violence against people could now be banned, even if it were the police who were carrying out the violence," the organization said.
'Happy slapping' is a physical attack on a person carried out with the aim of obtaining a video recording of the attack, which then is circulated by mobile phone or posted on the Internet.
Reporters Without Borders points out that all Internet users now are in a position to participate in the creation and dissemination of information. They often are the "recorders" of an event, especially thanks to mobile phones with photo and video capability, and can disseminate their own content online.
"We make no assumptions about the government's intentions, and we recognize the need to prevent the spread of 'happy slapping,' but this law introduces a dangerous distinction between professional journalists allowed to disseminate images of violence, and ordinary citizens, who could be jailed for the same thing," Reporters Without Borders continued.
"It is particularly regrettable that the law would forbid the online distribution of images showing acts of violence by the security forces," the press freedom organization added.
The law provides for sentences of up to five years in prison and fines of 75,000 euros for disseminating images concerning the offences in the criminal code. These offences range from acts of serious violence ("torture" and "acts of Barbarity") to ordinary physical attacks. The law specifies that the ban "is not applicable when the recording or dissemination is the result of the normal exercise of a profession whose purpose is to inform the public or if it is carried out with the aim of serving as judicial evidence."
These "citizen journalists" can play a role in monitoring the activities of the authorities throughout the world. In Egypt, for example, bloggers recently revealed a series of scandals involving the security services and showed, by means of video recordings made clandestinely in detention centers, that torture still is regularly practiced in Egypt.
In the field of human rights, it is not professional journalists who are responsible for the most reliable reports and information—the information that has most upset the government. Reporters Without Borders thinks it would be shocking if this kind of activity, which constitutes a safeguard against abuses of authority, were to be criminalized in a democratic country.
