Today, in most EU countries, journalists and civil society have very limited access to migrant detention centres. The Open Access campaign focuses on visits by journalists and civil society groups to detention centres for migrants, in order to document and argue for the following call.

Because European citizens have the right to know the consequences of the policies implemented in their name. We demand that the right of access to detention centres be granted to journalists and civil society.

In Europe today, roughly 600,000 people including children are detained every year, most often without a court decision. This detention can last up to 18 months until the detainee is removed merely for breach of EU member states’ immigration laws. These people are not just deprived of their freedom of movement. Often, they are deprived of access to legal advice, health care and the right to live as a family...

Can European citizens say that they do not know all this? Unfortunately they can.

Today, in most EU countries, journalists and civil society have very limited access to migrant detention centres. Often, even when one accesses it is impossible to meet people in detention, or even to talk to them. Generally, only Members of national and European Parliaments have right of access.

This lack of transparency increases the risk of malpractice and numerous rights violations.

Yet access to information is an inalienable right of European citizens, defended by all European institutions (article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights refers to the ’freedom... to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority’).

Even the ’Return’ Directive of 16 December 2008, which our organisations continue to clearly condemn in particular on the issue of length of detention, states that ’relevant and competent national, international and non-governmental organisations and bodies shall have the possibility to visit detention centres’.

More information on Open Access Now

In days, the European Commission will try a last ditch attempt to revive ACTA. But we can shine a light on their dirty trick and foil their plans.

Governments are turning their back on ACTA one by one, so the EC is asking their Court of Justice to give the treaty the greenlight and renew its momentum — but they plan to manipulate the process by giving the court only a narrow, uncontroversial question to consider, hoping it will lead to a positive outcome.

We can push the court to see though the EC’s ploy and look at all the legal implications of this censorship treaty on our freedoms — forcing a negative decision that kills ACTA for good.

Sign the petition now on Avaaz

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

We provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

Support Creative Commons

Check in particular Commoner Letters, a series of letters written by prominent members of the CC community and sent out during our annual fundraising campaign. These exceptional "commoners" write about their past and present projects that involve CC, what CC means to them, why they feel the commons is a vital public resource in our digital age, and where they think CC is headed in the future.

Reporters Without Borders organises 24-hour online demo against Internet censorship.

More than 60 cyber-dissidents around the world are currently in prison for expressing themselves online. Something that is fairly simple for anyone to do in most countries is nonetheless banned in 13 of them. You can go to prison for posting your views on a blog or website in China, Tunisia or Egypt, for example.

In order to fight this kind of censorship and to make as many people as possible aware of the situation, Reporters Without Borders is for the first time launching a major protest : 24 hours against online censorship. The general public, Internet users, bloggers, journalists, students - everyone is invited to register their opposition to censorship with a simple click.

Everyone is invited to connect to the Reporters Without Borders website http://www.rsf.org between 11 a.m. on 7 November and 11 a.m. on 8 November.

Communications Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) is a campaign formed in November 1996 in London with the aim to ensure that communication rights are central to the information society and to the upcoming World Summit to the Information Society (WSIS). The campaign is sponsored and supported by the Platform for Communication Rights, a group of NGOs involved in media and communication projects around the world.

Address: Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS), c/o WACC, 357 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5QY - UK
Phone: +44 207 582 9139
Fax: +44 207 735 0340
Email: act AT crisinfo.org
Website: http://www.crisinfo.org/

Publish What You Pay is a campaign which aims to help citizens of resource-rich developing countries hold their governments accountable for the management of revenues from the oil, gas and mining industries. It is a coalition of over 280 NGOs worldwide which call for the mandatory disclosure of the payments made by oil, gas and mining companies’ to all governments for the extraction of natural resources.

Address: Henry Parham, International Coordinator, Publish What You Pay, c/o Open Society Foundation, 5th Floor, Cambridge House, 100 Cambridge Grove, London W6 0LE - UK
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7031 020
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7031 0201
Email: coordinator at publishwhatyoupay.org
Website: http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org