Saudi Edict Bans Mobile Phone Cameras
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority has barred the use of mobile phones with built-in cameras, blaming them for "spreading obscenity."   The edict, which follows a failed ban on the sale and import of the wildly popular devices, is the most sweeping attempt by any nation to prevent the voyeurism invited by the new technology.    Camera-equipped phones have caught on fast in parts of Asia, Europe and the Middle East - particularly in oil-rich Gulf countries - prompting complaints about privacy in places where people undress, "theft" of reading materials at book stores and newsstands, and corporate espionage by employees...
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(InfoWorld) - The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday. The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday in the night of March 3, 1991. The officers' acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles. If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi. And anyone publishing such images could face up to five years in prison and a fine of â¬75,000 ($98,537), potentially a harsher sentence than that for committing the violent act. Senators and members of the National Assembly had asked the council to rule on the constitutionality of six articles of the Law relating to the prevention of delinquency. The articles dealt with information sharing by social workers, and reduced sentences for minors. The council recommended one minor change, to reconcile conflicting amendments voted in parliament. The law, proposed by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, is intended to clamp down on a wide range of public order offenses. During parliamentary debate of the law, government representatives said the offense of filming or distributing films of acts of violence targets the practice of "happy slapping," in which a violent attack is filmed by an accomplice, typically with a camera phone, for the amusement of the attacker's friends. The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said Cohet. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet. The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules. The journalists' organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.
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Mobile phone makers need to protect people from peeping toms and blackmailers who use built-in cameras to take secret pictures, campaigners said today.
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Saudi Arabia's election committee said  on Tuesday women will not take part in the country's first  nationwide vote, blaming problems over special polling  arrangements for women in the conservative Muslim kingdom.
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Saudi Arabia, where movie theaters are banned, has something new to look forward to, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the English-language newspaper Arab News: its first official film festival. On May 20 a five-day competition underwritten by the government will feature films from Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf and Arab states. Planned as an annual event and including the participation of film critics from the region for the first time, the festival will take place in the eastern city of Damman under the auspices of the Damman Literary Club and the Saudi Society of Arts and Culture. Films were exhibited in private clubs in Saudi Arabia until all public screenings were banned in the early 1980s on the ground that they contravened Islamic law. Nevertheless, cafes in main cities show films, sports and video clips on large-screen televisions.
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Riyadh kicks off Saudi Arabia's first nationwide municipal elections, but women are banned.
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RIYADH: A Saudi dissident yesterday failed to pull off protests called in Riyadh and Jeddah. Hundreds of police and special forces were deployed to stifle one of the boldest attempts to defy the ban on public displays of discontent.
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Women may neither vote nor run in Saudi Arabiaâs first nationwide elections, the government announced Monday, dashing hopes of progressive Saudis and easing fears among conservatives that the kingdom is moving too fast on reforms.
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Sale of red roses and red gifts has been banned by Saudi Arabia's religious police in the run-up to Valentine's Day, reports a local newspaper
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Cambodia's leading mobile phone network has launched 3G services but dropped a videophone feature that Prime Minister Hun Sen banned to stop the spread of pornography.
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A United Nations human rights body called on Saudi Arabia on Friday to immediately end its system of male guardianship which it said severely limits the basic freedoms of women in the kingdom.
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Bahrain will impose a ban on alcohol, discos and live entertainment in residential areas of the Muslim kingdom next year, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
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A ban on patients and doctors using mobile phones in English hospitals is to be lifted, the government announces.
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A UN committee is calling for women in Saudi Arabia to be given basic freedoms.
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Saudi riot police chased anti-royalist demonstrators through Jeddah yesterday and arrested more than a dozen as a tape recording, purportedly by Osama bin Laden, called
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But censorware research is illegal, again The US copyright office will permit mobile phone subscribers to unlock their phones, allowing them to be used by rival network providers.â¦
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Saudi Arabia is using a form of torture - flogging - to silence dissent in the kingdom, a human rights group says.