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French court upholds Scientology fraud conviction
Legal World News |
2012/02/03 16:53
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A French appeals court on Thursday upheld the Church of Scientology's 2009 fraud conviction on charges it pressured members into paying large sums for questionable remedies.
The case began with a legal complaint by a young woman who said she took out loans and spent the equivalent of euro21,000 ($28,000) on books, courses and "purification packages" after being recruited in 1998. When she sought reimbursement and to leave the group, its leadership refused to allow either. She was among three eventual plaintiffs.
"It's a severe defeat for the Church of Scientology, which is hit at the very heart of its organization in France," Olivier Morice, a lawyer for the National Union of Associations Defending Family and Individual Victims of Sects, told reporters after the decision.
Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for the church in Los Angeles, denounced Thursday's decision, calling it a "miscarriage of justice."
She said the group would appeal the decision to the Court of Cassation and plans to bring a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. Another complaint is pending with a U.N. special rapporteur. |
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Online game theft earns real-world conviction
Legal World News |
2012/01/31 18:10
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The amulet and mask were a 13-year-old boy's virtual possessions in an online fantasy game. In the real world, he was beaten and threatened with a knife to give them up.
The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the theft conviction of a youth who stole another boy's possessions in the popular online fantasy game RuneScape. Judges ordered the offender to perform 144 hours of community service.
Only a handful of such cases have been heard in the world, and they have reached varying conclusions about the legal status of "virtual goods" — and whether stealing them is real-world theft.
The suspect's lawyer had argued the amulet and mask "were neither tangible nor material and, unlike for example electricity, had no economic value."
But the Netherlands' highest court said the virtual objects had an intrinsic value to the 13-year-old gamer because of "the time and energy he invested" in winning them while playing the game.
The court did not release the offender's name, only his year of birth — 1992. It said he and another youth beat and kicked the boy and threatened him with a knife until he logged into RuneScape and dropped the objects in 2007.
One of the thieves, who was also playing the game, was then able to pick up the items, making them his virtual property. Both were convicted by a lower court in 2009, but only one of them had appealed to the Supreme Court. |
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Ex-Pakistani envoy to US wins court victory
Legal World News |
2012/01/30 12:42
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Pakistan's top court Monday lifted a travel ban imposed on the country's former ambassador to the U.S. during an investigation into a memo sent to Washington that had enraged the army, in a sign that a scandal that once looked capable of bringing down the government may be losing steam. Husain Haqqani resigned in November and returned to Islamabad to answer allegations that he masterminded the note, which asked for Washington's help in curbing the powers of the Pakistani army in exchange for security policies favorable to the U.S. The unsigned memo, sent to Washington following the May 2011 American operation that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistan army town, appeared to confirm the army's worst fears that the country's elected politicians were conspiring with Washington — a potent charge in a country where anti-Americanism runs deep. The outrage, whipped up by right-wing, pro-army sections of the media, exposed the apparent fragility of the government in the face of generals who have ruled the country for much of its more than 60-year existence and still run defense and foreign policy. |
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Man gets car ban after 4 children found in trunk
Legal World News |
2012/01/26 16:54
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A British court has banned a man from driving for a year after he was caught traveling with four children in the trunk of his car.
Britain's Press Association news agency said Thursday that police found a total of 11 people in Zoltan Lakatos' Audi A4 when they stopped him in the English city of Leicester last year.
One passenger was in the driver's seat, three adults and two children were squeezed into the back, and officers discovered four more children in the trunk.
The news agency says Lakatos was convicted of endangering his passengers and of driving without insurance earlier this week at Leicester Magistrates' Court. He also was fined 1,325 pounds (about $2,080).
The agency said the 38-year-old was not in court for the ruling. |
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Dutch court orders companies to block Pirate Bay
Legal World News |
2012/01/12 11:18
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A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered two major Internet service providers in the Netherlands to block their customers from accessing The Pirate Bay website or face large fines.
The Swedish-born website has been a thorn in the side of the entertainment industry for years by helping millions of people download copyrighted music, movies and computer games. In 2010, a Swedish appeals court upheld the copyright infringement convictions of three men behind the site, but it remains in operation.
The Dutch ISPs Ziggo and XS4ALL had resisted demands by a copyright holders’ organization to block their subscribers’ access to the site, arguing they should not have to act as censors.
But the Hague District Court said in its written ruling they must do so within 10 working days or face fines of euro10,000 ($12,750) per day.
Another option, individually pursuing “many thousands of subscribers in the Netherlands who trade files via The Pirate Bay would be, in the court’s judgment, no less a far-reaching measure,” the court said.
Past attempts by the copyright organization Stichting Brein had either failed or proved ineffective: Dutch courts have repeatedly found that downloading copyrighted files is not illegal. Uploading them is illegal, since it is considered publishing without permission _ but it can be difficult to prove a person has uploaded a file without using spying techniques that are themselves illegal. |
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Japanese whalers ask US courts to stop activists
Legal World News |
2011/12/27 08:22
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Japanese whalers have asked a U.S. federal court judge in Seattle to order the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to stop disrupting its whaling activities in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.
The Tokyo-based Institute of Cetacean Research and others are seeking a U.S. court order to prevent the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd and its founder from engaging in activities at sea that could harm the crew and damage its vessels.
But U.S. District Court Judge Richard A. Jones has delayed hearing the institute's motion for a preliminary injunction by several weeks, granting a Sea Shepherd request for more time to respond. The judge set a hearing for Feb. 16.
"The violence and attacks from the Sea Shepherd have increased year by year," the institute's spokesman Gavin Carter in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday.
The Japanese companies had hoped to resolve the issue of maritime safety diplomatically, he said, but decided suing was the best course after its last whaling season was cut short by interference from protesters. |
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