Venezuela: A report by Espacio Publico describes a series of requests for information to state agencies and encourages more requests. Transparency Venezuela holds events on access to information. Venezuela, along with Bolivia, are the only countries in the continent that does not have legislation regulating the right to access information held by the state.. “Join our campaign on social networks with the label #DerechoASaber and participate in the survey of access to public information in this link.”
Latin America: “Cases of citizen control transparency in public action,” covering Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. A report (in Spanish) on a project on governance and citizen participation in the Andean region held in conjunction with the OPALC-Sciences Po and Transparencia por Colombia, supported by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation.
India: Ajay Kumr explains why he filed an RTI application about how the government would handle a zombie or alien invasion. It wasn’t a frivolous query, he says, there was a point being made. “Filing a frivolous RTI is like casting a protest vote in an election,” he wrote.
Sweden/Finland: Unveiled at the Sept. 26 UNESCO celebration of Right to Know Day was a illustrated timeline on origins of the Swedish/Finish Freedom of the Press Act. “The exhibit focuses on the events, people, as well as the advances and setbacks that shaped it since the late 15th century until today.” The joint exhibition from Sweden and Finland will be open to the public at UNESCO headquarters from September 26 to October 6, 2016.
Malaysia: The state of Penang’s FOI law isn’t as good as that of Selangor’s said Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) founding director Cynthia Gabriel at a conference, as reported by FMT News.
Tunisia: “Tunisia’s New Right to Information Law Needs People Power to Work,” an article by Joel Campagna and Eszter Filippinyi in the Open Society Foundations blog.
Australia: “Have we reached peak secrecy?” asks a commentary article by Sarah Gill.
Australia: The Australian Tax Office is continuing its refusal to process requests made through the Right to Know website, run by the charity OpenAustralia Foundation, reports The Canberra Times.
Scotland: A new annual report has found that most Scottish public authorities appear to be getting better at handling FOI requests. The report by the Scottish Information Commissioner reveals that less than 1% of the 68,000 FOI requests last year were appealed to the Commissioner. The report also reveals that the number of appeals investigated by the Commissioner following an authority’s failure to respond to an FOI request fell significantly – from 94 in 2013/14 to 61 this year.
India: Civil society and RTI activists held a rally in the capital of the state of Odisha demanding withdrawal of an order exempting the Vigilance department from the purview of the Right to Information Act, The Daily Pioneer reports.
Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu filed suit to keep the details of the amount of money his official residence spent on laundry from being made public, according to an article in The Times of Israel. “Netanyahu’s attorneys argue that the inclusion of laundry expenses would be tantamount to “peeping” into his private affairs, but Anat Revivo, who oversees compliance with the Freedom of Information law at the prime minister’s office, maintains that the public has a right to know,” said Reuters.
Filed under: What's New