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The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ (CM) latest batch of country-specific Resolutions adopted in the context of the Second Monitoring Cycle of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) concern: the Russian Federation; Romania; Ireland and Norway. The Resolutions contain a number of provisions concerning the (audiovisual) media (for similar provisions in earlier country-specific Resolutions, see IRIS 2007-3: 6 and IRIS 2006-2: 4). The CM recommends that the Russian authorities “further improve access to the media of persons belonging to national minorities”...

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recently made public four new reports as part of its ongoing monitoring process 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 2006-6: 4 and IRIS 2005-7: 3). Each of the country reports, which examine the situation in: Monaco (for the first time); Azerbaijan (for the second time) and Finland and Ireland (both in the context of the third monitoring cycle), contain specific recommendations concerning the media. In respect of Monaco, the ECRI...

On 18 June 2007, Manhunt 2 became the first video game to be banned by the Irish Film Censor’s Office (IFCO) under the Video Recordings Act 1989 (see IRIS 2001-2: 13). The game was banned due to its high level of “gross, unrelenting and gratuitous violence”. The IFCO stated that “in certain films, DVDs and video games, strong graphic violence may be a justifiable element within the overall context of the work however, in the case of Manhunt 2, the IFCO believes there is no such context, and the level of gross, unrelenting and gratuitous violence is unacceptable”. Video games are expressly exempt...

On 2 February 2007, a new Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill, along with an Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, was published. The Bill is intended to amend the Communications Regulation Act 2002, so as to confer additional functions on the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) and to make further provision for the enforcement of the 2002 Act. The primary purpose of the Bill is to increase the enforcement powers of ComReg in order to promote competition in the Irish telecommunications market. The Bill provides ComReg with powers similar to those of the Competition Authority,...

A new Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill, along with an Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, were published on 21 December 2006. The Bill seeks to “establish a more flexible and market-responsive model for licensing DTT in Ireland and to allow for progress to be made towards analogue switch-off”, according to the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. A further purpose of the Bill is to permit RTÉ (the public service broadcaster) to use public funding to provide a broadcast service for Irish communities abroad (s.3(1)(b)). The Broadcasting Act 2001 (see IRIS 2001-4: 9) was a major piece of legislation,...