propaganda.lege.net/misperceptions/examples/rsf/switzerland

http://propaganda.lege.net/misperceptions/examples/rsf/switzerland/




Reporters Without Borders
Switzerland

Source:  http://rsf.fr/article.php3?id_article=7144
Or:      http://rsf.fr/print.php3?id_article=7144

19.06.2003



Article 322-b of the Criminal Code, which came into force on 1 April 1998, provides for prosecution of anyone who, deliberately or carelessly, allows the posting of illegal material. This is the system of responsibility by association that also applies to the written media. So if the author cannot be found or cannot be tried in a Swiss court, a website's content can be blamed on the publisher, the site's host and even the ISP. The federal law on monitoring postal and telecommunications traffic that came into effect on 1 January 2002 requires ISPs to retain customers' connection records for six months and to hand them over to the monitoring authorities, by court order and if possible in real time.

The federal police, in a written statement in spring 2000, said a site's host had a duty to check the legality of material in case there was a legal complaint. The police can also ask an ISP to block access to a site and ask a host to either block or erase one, all at their own expense and without compensation. The exact extent of these monitoring obligations has so far only been discussed and no court has yet had a case testing these rules.

Links :

  *   Federal Data Protection Commissioner:  http://www.edsb.ch/

  *   Information technology law site:  http://www.juriscom.net/

  *   Swiss Internet User Group:  http://www.siug.ch/


Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom throughout the world, as well as the right to inform the public and to be informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reporters Without borders has nine national sections (in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Washington and more than a hundred correspondents worldwide.



© Reporters Without Borders 2002

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