Truck runs into Mardi Gras crowd
NEW ORLEANS: A man is being investigated for suspected drink-driving after a pick-up truck slammed into a crowd watching a Mardi Gras weekend parade in New Orleans’ Mid-City section, injuring 28 people including children and a police officer. Asked whether terrorism was suspected, police chief Michael Harrison did not say “No”, but added that it looked like a case of driving while intoxicated. THE European Parliament has taken an unusual step to crack down on racism and hate speech in its own house.
Representatives have granted special powers to the president to axe live broadcasts of parliamentary debate in cases of racist speech or acts, and the ability to purge any offending video or audio material afterwards.
However, the rules on what is considered offensive are not clear and there are concerns about manipulation and censorship.
“This undermines the reliability of the Parliament’s archives at a moment where the suspicion of ‘fake news’ and manipulation threatens the credibility of the media and the politicians,” said Tom Weingaertner, president of the International Press Association.
After Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, the rising popularity of anti-immigrant candidates such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands or far-right Marine Le Pen in France is worrying Europe’s political mainstream.
Ms Le Pen, who is running for the French presidency this spring, has promised to follow Britain’s lead.
At the European Parliament, where elections are due in 2019, many say the need for action against hate speech and strong sanctions for offenders is overdue. The assembly – with two seats, in the Belgian capital of Brussels and Strasbourg in France – is often the stage for political and sometimes nationalist theatre. Beyond routine shouting matches, members occasionally wear T-shirts with slogans or unfurl banners.
“There have been a growing number of cases of politicians saying things that are beyond the pale of normal parliamentary discussion and debate,” said British MEP Richard Corbett, who chaperoned the new rule through the assembly.
“What if this became not isolated incidents, but specific, where people could say: ‘Hey, this is a fantastic platform. It’s broad, it’s livestreamed. It can be recorded and repeated. Let’s use it for something more vociferous, more spectacular’,” he said.
In a nutshell, rule 165 of the Parliament’s rules of procedure allows the chairman of debates to halt the live broadcast “in the case of defamatory, racist or xenophobic language or behaviour by a member”.
The maximum fine for offenders would be about €9,000 (£7,600).
Under the rule,offending material could be “deleted from the audiovisual record of proceedings”. That means citizens would never know about it unless reporters were in the room.
A technical note outlines a procedure for manually cutting off the video feed, stopping transmission on in-house TV monitors and breaking the satellite link to halt broadcast to the outside world.
A tape in four languages would be kept running to serve as a legal record during the blackout. A more effective and permanent system was being sought.
It is also technically possible to introduce a time delay so broadcasts appear a few seconds later. This means they could be interrupted before offending material is aired.
But an offending act could be over before the assembly’s president has a chance to hit the kill switch.