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On 26 June 2007, the Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Regulator for the Media) issued a decision admonishing the Flemish public broadcasting organisation (VRT) for breach of its obligation of impartiality and non-discrimination (former Article 111bis of the Media Decree). Prior to the federal elections of 10 June 2007, the VRT had organised two television debates during which three top politicians (Leterme, Vande Lanotte and Verhofstadt), who all held first place on the list of representatives of their respective political parties in the Senate, were invited. The fourth politician in this...

On 26 May 2009, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) made public its latest reports on Belgium, Germany and Slovakia, adopted in the fourth round of its monitoring of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2009-5: 4, IRIS 2008-4: 6, IRIS 2006-6: 4 and IRIS 2005-7: 3). In respect of Belgium, ECRI “strongly recommends” that the State authorities “pursue and step up their efforts to combat the presence of racist expressions on the Internet” (para. 100), including through...

In an interesting but highly controversial judgment, the European Court focused on the limits of freedom of expression in a case of incitement to hatred and discrimination (“hate speech”). The Court held by four votes to three that there had been no violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights in respect of the conviction of the chairman of the Belgian political party “Front National”, Mr. Daniel Féret. Mr. Féret was convicted by a Belgian criminal court for publicly inciting to racism, hatred and discrimination, following complaints concerning...

The tasks of Belgium’s postal services and telecommunications regulator (Institut belge des services postaux et des telecommunications - IBPT) are laid down in the Loi du 17 janvier 2003 relative au statut du régulateur des secteurs des postes et des télécommunications belges (Law on the Statute of the Belgian Post and Telecommunications Sectors) of 17 January 2003. This law was last amended on 4 June 2009, inter alia with the aim of transposing the provisions of the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive. In particular, the law describes the regulator’s tasks and structure. For example,...

On 12 March 2009, The Vlaamse Raad voor de Journalistiek (Flemish Council for Journalism Ethics) issued a directive on the way the media (audiovisual, as well as print media and the internet) should deal with User Generated Content (UGC). This Council is an independent self-regulating institution that supervises journalistic work in all Flemish media upon the filing of a complaint by a member of the public, thereby ensuring that journalistic ethics are upheld. It can also issue ethical directives and recommendations on its own initiative. Up until now, the Flemish Council has not been in the habit...