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According to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), Iceland has breached the right to freedom of expression of the editor of a web-based media site, by holding him liable for defamation. The applicant in this case is Mr. Ólafsson, editor of the web-based media site Pressan. He published articles alleging that a political candidate (‘A.’) had sexually abused children. The allegations were based on statements made by relatives of ‘A.’ who had declared that he had sexually abused them when they were children. These allegations were also forwarded to the police and the child protection services,...

On 8 March 2017, the Conseil d’Etat (Council of State) deliberated on an application for the suspension of two film licences issued by the Minister for Culture for the animated film ‘Sausage Party’, which prohibited the film from being shown to anyone under 12 years old. The appeal was lodged by a number of associations against the judgments delivered under the urgent procedure rejecting their application. One of the licences had been issued for the original version of the film, the other for the French version. The applicant associations claimed, in support of their appeal, that the licencing...

On 8 March 2017, the Catalan Audiovisual Council (CAC) denounced two child pornography websites to the State prosecution and to the Catalan police. The Council took this action following a complaint made against the two above-mentioned websites. The two sites are in English and offer free-to-view photographs of underage girls who are nude or semi-nude. One of the two websites announces that on a pay-per-view basis, each user can access a range of 1,000 videos and 10,000 pictures banned on social networks. The first website belongs to the profile of an online community based in the United States...

On 14 February 2017, the National Audiovisual Council (Consiliul Naţional al Audiovizualului, CNA) adopted Decision no. 63 for the modification and completion of the CNA Decision no. 221/2011 with regard to the Audiovisual Code for audiovisual content (see inter alia IRIS 2006-4/33 and IRIS 2014-5/28). The main goal of the modification to the Audiovisual Code was to afford better protection to minors. The Decision will enter into force 30 days after its publication in the Official Journal of Romania Part I, except the new Article 117 a1), which will enter into force in 6 months’ time. In the Code,...

In February 2016, after undertaking broad consultations, Jean-François Mary, Chairman of the Film Classification Board, submitted to Minister for Culture Audrey Azoulay a report on the classification of cinematographic works with regard to minors aged between 16 and 18. The report had been commissioned after considerable controversy was caused by the courts’ cancellation of the licences issued to a number of films containing scenes of non-simulated sexual activity (including Love and La Vie d'Adèle) or scenes of extreme violence (including Salafistes). Despite the fact that at the time the Minister...