Growing ACTA protest online and on the ground

By now, more than 1.526 million netizens have signed the Avaaz.org petition for the European Parliament to reject #ACTA. The call is also directed at the parliaments in the EU member states, where most of the governments are preparing ratification.

Protests are planned on the ground, too. Via @hope_74 a map of protests planned, mostly for 11 February 2012. Matt Brian writes on TNW about the day of protest in Europe against the controversial ACTA treaty.

This may already be the greatest demonstration of discontent with the EU ever, but the Brussels bubble, with few exceptions, refuses to engage with the protestors. See #ACTA on Twitter.

Not much is heard from the national capitals yet, but the online protest boom combined with local demonstrations may induce the to governments to publicly close ranks behind the EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht, who works to extol the virtues and to secure the passage of the Anti-Counterfeiting (and much more) Trade Agreement (see earlier Grahnlaw post).

Interestingly, mainstream media in Europe have been slow or reluctant to pick up the escalating anti-ACTA movement. Who watches the watchmen?


To the source

Since we are in linguistically diverse Europe, a reminder that the ACTA proposal and treaty text are available in 22 of the official languages of the European Union. Here to the English version (pdf):

Proposal for a COUNCIL DECISION on the conclusion of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Mexican States, the Kingdom of Morocco, New Zealand, the Republic of Singapore, the Swiss Confederation and the United States of America; Brussels, 24.6.2011 COM(2011) 380 final


Ralf Grahn

P.S. Between the global issues and the national level, the European Union shapes our digital future and online freedoms. Is your blog already listed among the more than 900 euroblogs aggregated by multilingual Bloggingportal.eu?