Hundreds of photographers gathered on the Sydney Harbour foreshore to rally against laws which prevent them from taking pictures of Australian landmarks without a permit.

Australian landscape photographer Ken Duncan says the laws imposed by all levels of government are inconsistent and unnecessary. He says some of the country's most iconic landmarks are now off limits to commercial photographers unless they have a permit which can often cost them hundreds of dollars.

He joined a crowd of protesters at Campbell's Cove on Sydney Harbour calling for a nationally consistent set of laws which allow artists to take pictures without bureaucratic restraint.

In an act of defiance the crowd took photographs of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Egypt's Public Prosecutor has referred a physician to the criminal court in Menufiya governorate for the death of a 13-year-old girl during a circumcision procedure.

Investigations indicated the child bled to death after undergoing the procedure. According to the investigations, the girl was buried without a burial license to avoid any suspicion about the cause of death.

The doctor was taken into custody pending trial.

Minister of State for Family and Population Moushira Khattab had filed a complaint demanding that legal measures against whoever was involved in the incident be taken immediately.

In June 2008, the Egyptian parliament made amendments to the Child Law banning FGM and imposing a sentence of a maximum of two years and a fine of a maximum of $1,000 as a penalty for performing it. The law also punishes practitioners, including parents, with between three months and two years in jail.

Egypt's top Islamic and Christian authorities were quick to voice support for the ban, saying the practice had no basis either in the Quran or in the Bible. But conservative Muslim and Christian Egyptian families still have their daughters circumcised as a means to preserve their chastity.

A 2005 government report found that about 90% of Egyptian women had undergone the extremely painful procedure intended to severely mutilate the genitals.

Dubai Police Palace

A British DJ was sentenced to four years in prison by a Dubai court after tests revealed traces of cannabis in his blood. Sure, it's not exactly legal at home, but FOUR years?!

Of course he's not the first Brit to wind up behind bars or deported because they're not clued up about the strict United Arab Emirates laws.

According to the Foreign Office, 1.1 million Britons visited the UAE last year and 294 of them were arrested or detained by police - making it more likely to happen there than in any other country in the world.

So if getting banged up abroad is on your to do list of life experiences, here are some easy ways to break the law in Dubai...

• Do some dirty dancing. Ever thought your dance moves ought to be illegal? Then head to Dubai, where they just very well might be. Unless you're at a licensed club or in the privacy of your hotel room then dancing is considered indecent and provocative and could get you arrested. During Ramadan you won't even find a dancefloor to throw some shapes on risk-free - dancing, loud music and live music are forbidden during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, so nightclubs usually close and all the bands go on holiday.
   
• Give someone the finger. Back home it's just a bit rude but making insulting gestures in Dubai is regarded as obscene and totally unacceptable – as 56-year-old Brit Simon Andrew discovered when he was accused of showing an aviation student his middle finger during a row and was arrested. He denies flipping the bird but has had his passport confiscated while awaiting trial. It has been known for offenders to get a 6-month sentence for such an act and some have been deported.
   
• Have sex on the beach. For a surefire way to wind up behind bars, break a couple of laws at once. Because of their strict laws about indecency, public sex is beyond unacceptable and do it with someone you're not married to – a crime that entails prosecution, imprisonment and/or a fine and deportation – and you're firing on all cylinders. Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors did just that last year and were banged up for three months before being deported, as well as fined 1,000 dirhams (about £180).
   
• Snog in a restaurant. Don't assume you have to go all the way to infringe on their decency regulations – the law exttends to kissing and even holding hands, unless you're married. British marketing executive Ayman Najafi and Charlotte Adams – both in their 20s - were arrested and accused of public indecency after an Emirati woman claimed they exchanged a passionate kiss in a restaurant. They were given a one-month jail sentence for public indecency and illegal drinking, fined 1,000 dirhams, then deported. The pair maintain it was merely a peck on the cheek.
   
• Drink Sex on the Beach. If you thought we were talking about the vodka-based cocktail before, that could work too. Buying drinks in licensed hotels or bars is allowed but drinking or being drunk is illegal in public. You'll stand out particularly well in the resort of Sharjah where booze is banned full stop, apart from for residents with a licence to drink at home. It is also an offence in the UAE to drink and drive, no matter how tiny the amount. If you're arrested on alcohol-related offences you'll likely be jailed while you await trial and penalties entail hefty jail sentences and large fines.
   
• Smoke some wacky baccy. Drugs are almost always a law breaker, but Dubai is about as far from Amsterdam as you can get. Possession and consumption is treated very seriously in the UAE and – as the British DJ who had no drugs on him recentlly discovered – possession includes anything in your system, so even if you have a cheeky joint before you get on the Dubai-bound plane and you could end up falling foul of their regulations, and wind up with their mandatory minimum of four years in jail.
   
• Other laws you should know about. Shopping in shorts could attract attention from the authorities - unless you're on the beach or by the pool, then anything tight, transparent, short or displaying your stomach, shoulders or back if you're a woman, is considered indecent. Same if you're a man in shorts or displaying a bare chest. Photography of certain government buildings is also illegal, as is perusing any form of pornographic material. If all else fails, smuggle in a bacon sandwich – pork is banned – and a poppy seed roll will add to the criminality of the action, as poppy seeds are also on the UAE's forbidden list.

A significant number of girls and women in Iraqi Kurdistan suffer female genital mutilation (FGM) and its destructive after-effects, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The Kurdistan Regional Government should take immediate action to end FGM and develop a long term plan for its eradication, including passing a law to ban the practice, Human Rights Watch said.

The 73-page report, 'They Took Me and Told Me Nothing': Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan, documents the experiences of young girls and women who undergo FGM against a backdrop of conflicting messages from some religious leaders and healthcare professionals about the practice's legitimacy and safety. The report describes the pain and fear that girls and young women experience when they are cut, and the terrible toll that it takes on their physical and emotional health. It says the regional government has been unwilling to prohibit FGM, despite its readiness to address other forms of gender-based violence, including domestic violence and so-called honor killings.

The evidence obtained by Human Rights Watch suggests that for many girls and women in Iraqi Kurdistan, FGM is an unavoidable procedure that they undergo sometimes between the ages of 3 and 12. In some cases documented by Human Rights Watch, societal pressures also led adult women to undergo the procedure, sometimes as a precondition of marriage.

The previous regional government took some steps to address FGM, including a 2007 Justice Ministry decree, supposedly binding on all police precincts, that perpetrators of FGM should be arrested and punished. However, the existence of the decree is not widely known, and Human Rights Watch found no evidence that it has ever been enforced.

In 2008, the majority of members of the Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA) supported the introduction of a law banning FGM, but the bill was never enacted into law and its status is unknown. In early 2009, the Health Ministry developed a comprehensive anti-FGM strategy in collaboration with a nongovernmental organization. But the ministry later withdrew its support and halted efforts to combat FGM. A public awareness campaign about FGM and its consequences has also been inexplicably delayed.

The new government, elected in July 2009, has taken no steps to eradicate the practice.

Egyptian men married to Israeli women face being stripped of their citizenship after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court.

The judge Mohammed el Husseiny of the Supreme Administrative Court said the interior ministry must ask the cabinet to take the necessary steps to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women, and their children, of their citizenship.

The court's decision is taking into account Egypt's national security. The case for [Egyptian] men married to Israeli Arab women is different to those married to Israeli women of Jewish origin because [Israeli Arabs] have lived under Israeli occupation, el Husseiny said in his ruling.

I am so surprised by the verdict. Egyptian law says citizenship can only be revoked if the citizen is proven to be spying on his country, and this verdict considers marrying an Israeli an act of spying. said Cairo-based attorney and human rights activist Negad el Borai.

The Egyptian citizenship is not a grant from the regime, but its our legal and constitutional right, Shokri el Shazli, the head of the Egyptian expatriates in Israel, said in the Egyptian independent daily Al Masry Al Youm: No one has the right to strip me from my nationality, and if this happens, there will be an international outcry, so I don't think they will do it.

German citizens are responsible for the security of their own private wireless connections, a court has ruled.

The ruling comes after a musician sued the owner of a network connection that had been used to illegally download and file-share music.

The owner had proof that the householder was on holiday at the time but the court ruled that the network should have been password-protected.

The court's verdict was that the owner could be fined up to 100 euros (£86).

Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation, the court in Karlsruhe said.

While it did not find the owner guilty of actual copyright violation the ruling was that the person must take a degree of responsibility for their connection being used to break the law.

British intellectual property barrister David Harris described the verdict as eccentric.

I don't think there is any prospect that a UK court would follow that guideline, he told BBC News: There is no criminal provision in English law that requires you to secure a wi-fi connection, and currently no liability for the acts of another party if they misuse your connection.

Libya and Thailand were among 14 countries elected as new members of the U.N.'s top human rights body in a vote that rights advocates criticized as uncompetitive and pre-cooked.

Angola, Mauritania, Uganda, the Maldives, Malaysia, Qatar, Moldova, Poland, Ecuador, Guatemala, Spain and Switzerland were also elected by the General Assembly for three-year terms on the 47-nation Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva.

Both Libya and Thailand have been criticized by rights groups for their human rights records.

The council elections have become a pre-cooked process that strips the meaning from the membership standards established by the General Assembly, said Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director at U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

States serious about the role the council can play in promoting human rights should push for competitive slates in all regions, and should be willing to compete for a seat themselves, she said.

Without naming any specific countries, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice made it clear she was not happy with some of Washington's new fellow council members: It's fair to say that this year, there is a small number of countries whose human rights records is problematic that are likely to be elected and we regret that, she said.

Iran also had been running for a seat on the council, but it withdrew its candidacy last month in exchange for a seat on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

Offsite Comment: Human Rights Just a Joke At the U.N.

See article from foxnews.com By Anne Bayefsky

Once upon a time, the United Nations was about protecting human rights and Eleanor Roosevelt was the chairman of its premier human rights agency, the Human Rights Commission. This week, the U.N.’s top human rights body, renamed the Human Rights Council, is poised to add Libya to its membership. Libya will be elected by the U.N. General Assembly through a secret ballot in a process that champions geographic and religious loyalties over anything remotely resembling the actual protection of human rights.

The Obama administration is making no moves to call for the defeat of Libya or any of the other soon-to-be human rights specialists now running for a seat. And yet, the 2009 State Department Human Rights Report says that in Libya there is routine torture and abuse of detainees, legally-sanctioned amputations and flogging, sentencing of political opposition members without trial, indefinite detention of women and girls suspected of violating moral codes, homosexuality is criminalized, and their president claims that the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah are forgeries.

A British woman jailed for kissing a man in public in Dubai has spoken of the hypocrisy of the Emirate's strict decency laws.

Charlotte Adams was arrested with Ayman Najafi last November after a local woman complained they had been seen kissing on the mouth in a restaurant.

Adams and Najafi insisted they had given each other only a peck on the cheek but were sentenced to a month in prison by a Dubai court last month.

Adams served 23 days and was freed on Friday and deported. Najafi, a management consultant from north London who has lived in Dubai for the past 18 months, is understood to be continuing his fight against the conviction after being backed by his employers.

I love (Dubai) and it makes me sad that I'll never come back, although I think I'd struggle to ever feel free here again. The laws need to evolve to match the culture here. At the moment, it's all just hypocrisy.

She said hotels in Dubai regularly offer free alcohol, particularly to women, though drinking in public is still officially illegal in the Gulf state: Everyone gets so drunk they forget where they are, particularly the westerners, which is when their behaviour can become dangerous legally.

A trainee teacher who fronts a German death metal band whose live act features blood-smeared women has been threatened with dismissal by German authorities.

Unless he abandons his controversial music career with the band Debauchery, Thomas The Bloodbeast Gurrath will have to give up his teaching traineeship, according to a report in Bild.

The Stuttgart-based teacher and his band have released albums with names like Kill, Maim, Burn and Torture Pit. The band's live shows and promotional materials feature nude women covered in blood and BDSM equipment.

Gurrath defended his hobby, saying it merely reflected the violence in the world around him, according to thelocal.de, the English-language German website: I would never give up my music just because the education authorities order it, he said.

A girl aged 12 has won a divorce from her 80-year-old husband in Saudi Arabia in a case that may help to introduce a minimum age of marriage in the kingdom for the first time.

The girl's unusual legal challenge to the arrangement generated international media attention and scrutiny of Saudi Arabia's record of child marriages.

It also prompted the state-run Human Rights Commission to appoint a lawyer to represent her. The commission has capitalised on the case and pushed for a legal minimum age for marriage of at least 16.

Three committees have been assembled to examine the possibility. Medical experts, child psychologists, social workers and scholars in Islamic law will debate the issue over the coming months before submitting their recommendations to a public hearing.

Based on these findings, the commission and the Ministry of Justice will issue new guidelines and impose a legal minimum age for the first time. The main aim is to not allow cases like this to happen again, said Alanoud alHejailan, a lawyer for the commission: There will be some opposition, of course, but we feel that public opinion has changed on this issue. We want to gather all the public support we can for a minimum age for marriage.

The 12-year-old has been fighting her case through the courts in the conservative town of Buraidah, near Riyadh, the capital. She was married against her wishes to her father's elderly cousin last year. A dowry of 85,000 riyals (£14,500) was paid and the marriage consummated. She has now reached agreement with her family that a divorce will be settled privately, and has dropped her legal challenge to the marriage.

An air stewardess fears she can't return to Dubai where she lives because she has had a baby out of wedlock.

Irish Ex-pat Liz Curry has Alexandra during a 24-hour stopover in South Africa.

Dubai's strict Muslim laws mean Liz could now be sent to prison if she goes back to the country where she has lived for eight years.  The penalty for having sex outside marriage is at least three months in prison followed by deportation.

Liz said: I'm on unpaid leave at the moment but I can't go back to work in Dubai because of the law. I'm unmarried so if I'd had the baby in Dubai I would have been arrested and I can't take that risk.

A British couple jailed in Dubai for kissing in public have lost their appeal against their conviction.

Ayman Najafi and Charlotte Adams were sentenced to a month in prison with subsequent deportation and fined about £200 for drinking alcohol.

The couple were arrested in November after a vengeful local woman accused them of breaking the country's decency laws by kissing on the mouth in a restaurant.

The couple's defence lawyers said the woman - who did not appear in court - had not seen the kiss herself, but had been told by her two-year-old child that the girl had seen the couple kissing.

The pair said they would make a second appeal against the judge's decision. The couple decided not to start their sentence immediately, but the Dubai authorities are holding their passports so they are unable to return to Britain.

The BBC's Ben Thompson, at the court, said the judge spoke entirely in Arabic as he quickly dismissed the appeal, saying he upheld the previous sentence.

Professor John Strawson, an expert in Islamic law, told BBC Radio 5 Live he was not surprised by the judge's decision. He said: The problem in this particular case is that one of the British citizens is of Muslim origin.

And I think that the combination of the alleged kissing and the consumption of alcohol in an illegal place, meant that this was a case that the authorities really wanted to pursue, and they are probably sticking to their rigid interpretation of the law.

A British expatriate in Dubai is facing jail and deportation after being accused of making a single-finger gesture in an argument.

Simon Andrews has had his passport confiscated for almost eight months while waiting for his case to be heard.

He told Dubai Court of Misdemeanours he denies flipping the finger at Mahmoud Rasheed, an Iraqi aviation student, during an argument. He will appear in court on Sunday for a full hearing of the case.

Making insulting gestures is regarded as unacceptable, and carries with it the possibility of a jail sentence of up to six months and deportation.

It is the latest in a string of prosecutions of expatriates and visitors in Dubai for breaching the emirate's public decency laws.

The Foreign Office says that British citizens are more likely to be arrested in the United Arab Emirates than anywhere else in the world. It warns visitors not to misled by the emirate's tolerance of some non-Muslim practices such as drinking alcohol into thinking that there is a free-for-all. The emirate still practises a form of Sharia law.

Two Emirates Airline cabin crew in Dubai were given three-month jail terms for exchanging sexy text messages.

The then-married flight attendant and her male supervisor were convicted of coercion to commit sin, the National daily reported.

It said the pair -- both Indian -- were earlier sentenced to six months in prison to be followed by deportation, but an appeals court last week reduced the jail time and dropped the expulsion penalty. The court concluded there was not enough evidence to prove that the unidentified pair had actually been sexually involved.

The messages were exposed during a bitter divorce battle between the attendant and her husband that began in 2007, the daily said.

It said the divorce court had ordered Dubai's telecommunications company, Etisalat, to produce the text messages after the husband accused his wife of an affair. Etisalat provided copies of SMS messages in October 2008, allowing the husband to file a criminal complaint against his wife, the paper said.

Australian children engaged in sexting could be charged with child sex offences under laws set to pass federal parliament.

However, the attorney-general will have 'discretion' [as if politicians know the meaning of the word discretion] as to whether people under 18 are charged with child sex offences for sending sexual material via their mobile phone.

The federal government has accepted the recommendation of a parliamentary committee into the proposed Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences Against Children) Bill 2010 which means a young person cannot be prosecuted for sexting without the consent of the attorney-general.

The committee is of the view that the extension of this safeguard may ensure that behaviour which is not exploitative of, or harmful to, children is not captured by the child sex offence regime, particularly where that behaviour involves children themselves, the committee said in a report tabled in the Senate.

A rare dose of government-issued sanity

Based on article from theregister.co.uk

A US federal appeals court rebuked a Pennsylvania district attorney who threatened to file felony child pornography charges against teens who were photographed semi-nude unless they attended an education program.

In a unanimous decision issued by the appeals court in Philadelphia, a three-judge panel said the threat amounted to a Hobson's Choice that would retaliate against one of the girls and her family for exercising their constitutional right to free speech. A rare dose of government-issued sanity in the prosecutorial crusade against teenage sexting, the ruling upheld a lower-court order issued last year in the case.

The case stems from inappropriate images of minors found by officials at Pennsylvania's Tunkhannock School District, that included, among other things, a girl posing in her bathing suit. In late 2008, Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick told an assembly of about 20 students and their parents he would bring felony child pornography charges against them unless they completed a six- to nine-month program. For female offenders, that meant attending classes designed to help the participants gain an understanding of what it means to be a girl in today's society, and require them to write a report on what the students did and why it was wrong.

The panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said the education program requirement amounted to compelled speech, in violation of the Constitution's First Amendment. As such, Skumanick's threat to prosecute was retaliation.

A British man is facing jail in Dubai after he was accused of kissing a woman in public.

Ayman Najafi is expected in court today alongside a 25-year-old female British tourist to appeal against a one-month prison sentence.

The pair were allegedly seen kissing on the mouth in a restaurant, breaching Dubai's nasty decency laws. They were arrested by police in November last year and appeared in court last week.

A judge at Dubai's Misdemeanours Court heard written evidence from a woman who initially snitched to police about the alleged incident. She said she was 'offended' by their behaviour at the Jumeirah Beach Residence, where she was dining with her daughter.

The judge dismissed Najafi's claim that he had merely kissed the woman on the cheek and sentenced both defendants to a month in jail followed by deportation. The Britons were bailed pending the appeal against a custodial punishment.

The Dubai authorities are holding their passports so that they cannot leave the country.

A Saudi Arabian woman, Sawsan Salim, has been sentenced to 300 lashings and one and a half years in prison for filing harassment complaints about government officials and appearing in court without a male guardian present.

In 2007, Salim filed 118 harassment complaints against local officials, who allegedly mistreated her when she appeared in their offices unchaperoned, according to Business Week. Salim appeared without a male guardian because her husband, her sole male family member, was in prison at the time. She initially approached a local court in 2004, when she sought help to release her husband from prison.

The legal guardianship system in Saudi Arabia requires that women, both minors and adults, must be accompanied by a male guardian outside the home. If women wish to conduct themselves in public business, work, or to drive, they must obtain permission from or be accompanied by their male guardian, who may be her husband, father, brother, or even a minor son, according to Human Rights Watch.

Between 6,000 and 8,000 women in Austria have been forced to undergo genital mutilation, according to Social Democratic MP Petra Bayr.

Bayr, a member of the Austrian Platform against Female Genital Mutilation, said today: Many parents believe they are doing their daughters a favour by forcing them to undergo it.

She said the only way to change such thinking was to engage in awareness-raising and make it clear to parents that genital mutilation was neither called for by religion nor a pre-condition for finding a husband.

Rather, she added, genital mutilation was a violation of human rights that left its victims mentally and physically damaged for the rest of their lives.

Bayr added that her group was working with health personnel, migrant organisations and religious leaders to try to change the situation.

Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an honour killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.

The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website. The girl had previously been reported missing. The informant told the police she had been killed following a family council meeting.

Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl's mother was arrested but was later released.

Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.

A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.

On the occasion of the International Action Day against Female Genital Mutilation, a representative empirical study on Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi-Kurdistan is going to be presented on February 6.

The report summarizes the results of a one-and-a-half year empirical study conducted by the German relief organization WADI. The numbers presented in the report are alarming: A vast majority of women in Iraqi-Kurdistan have undergone FGM with some regions reaching a top ratio of more than 80%.

The study provides comprehensive evidence on the underlying dynamics of FGM and helps understand, why mothers who themselves experienced the horror of mutilation allow FGM to be practiced on their daughters.

A vast majority of women who adhere to the practice believe it to be a religious obligation in Islam. Others refer to tradition and state that it has always been like that.

The study also shows a clear correlation between the level of education and the attitude towards FGM. Still, the FGM rate amongst university graduates is around 30%. But it becomes clear that with an increasing social status, women are more likely to question harmful traditions and alleged religious obligations.