French advocacy group urges EU citizens to fight against ACTA

The French advocacy group La Quadrature du Net today accused the European Commission of "plainly lying" to the European Parliament about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

The group said the Commission was "engaging in an all-out offensive" in its bid to show that the agreement would have no impact on freedoms, and urged EU citizens to lobby their MEPs.

There are many concerns about the clauses contained in ACTA and the secrecy which surrounded the meetings.

Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net, said: "By signing ACTA together with EU Member States, the EU Commission dismissed the legitimate concerns of thousands of citizens across Europe who have been protesting against ACTA in the past few days.

"Citizens must contact their elected representatives and remind them what ACTA is all about: circumventing democracy and hurting freedoms to protect the outdated business models of rent-seeking industries."

The call comes only three days after the resignation of Kader Arif, the rapporteur in charge of ACTA. He said he would no longer take part in "this masquerade".

In a strongly worded press release he said: ""This agreement can have major consequences on citizen's lives, however everything is made to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter.... I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation."

Meanwhile restrictive copyright laws are being discussed in both the US and Canada. Currently in the US, the SOPA and PIPA bills are on hold but in Canada there is concern about the C-11 copyright bill.