Massive Protests in Poland Against the Ratification of ACTA
ACTA Harms Freedom
Massive protests erupt in Poland against the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement, which is seen as a form of censorship of the internet, causing the European Parliament rapporteur to resign in protest. Kader Arif resigned on Friday, saying that the ACTA bill is being accompanied by unprecedented maneuvers of the European officials. Arif criticized the process that led to the signing of the treaty: the lack of consultation of the civil society, the lack of transparency since the negotiations began, the repeated delays of the signature of the texts without any explanation, the rejection of several recommendations of the Parliament.
Poland signed the ACTA treaty on Thursday, and rallies were organized in the country for an entire week, with a climax on Friday, when tens of thousands took it to the streets in a freezing cold weather protesting what they call internet censorship.
While the ACTA is well intended, mirroring to some extent the American SOPA bills, the protesters in Poland fear that it would be used as a tool to implement police control over the internet.
The Polish concern is more motivated than the one of the American protesters, considering that the European Union has no democratic grounds, no transparency, and is led in a bureaucratic way which would make possible for a “thought police” to be establish via ACTA.
Decision-making in Europe happens away from the public eye, while the institutions that still act in a democratic way, like the parliament, have little power, as showed by European commissioner.
The Polish protests on Friday were also politically motivated, as the people held the government accountable to its promise to be pro-youth, pro-modern, and pro-internet. Reports say that the scale of the protests have gotten the authorities nervous.
In order for ACTA to become operational, the new bill must be approved by both Polish and European parliaments. On Friday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government would not give in to the “ACTA blackmail.” He rejected the proposal of the opposition to hold a referendum on the topic.
The ACTA bill was developed by industrialized countries and was signed by the United States, Australia, Canada and Japan and several other countries such as Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea and Singapore.
The treaty had been in public attention since May 2008, and has been criticized ever since. On January 26, 2012, the European Union and 22 of its member states have signed the treaty. Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia are waiting for their national procedures to be observed.
Romanian public learnt that their representatives had signed the document from the media reports on the Polish protests on it, whereas Poland announced its intention of signing it on January 18, at which moment the protest began. The Polish ambassador to Tokyo signed the treaty in spite of the situation in his own country.
The project is to arrive in the European Parliament in May, and there it is about to be debated and voted. In November 2010 the Liberal group in the European Parliament co-sponsored a resolution by which they were expressing concern over the content of ACTA bill, and demanded the European Commission to present the Parliament a thorough and complete evaluation of the consequences the accord will have before the national parliaments pass it.
ACTA is accused of having been drafted without public control of it, and that the wording of its final version is not known by anybody, except for what was leaked. It is considered that the document would allow intrusion into personal computers and laptops for mere suspicions of containing pirated documents. The networks will be asked to develop way to control the users and report the piracy acts.
Websites may be erased, and the development of the internet could be blocked. Similar bills SOPA and PIPA caused the large internet companies to protest by a 24-hour blackout, which convinced some of the decision-makers to reconsider.
