A new law, which says that the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists is an offence, has been given green signal by the French Constitutional Council.

This newly enacted law might put those bystanders behind bars who dare to post acts of police violence on the web. The news have come after long sixteen years after a film of the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers was posted by a videographer George Holliday. That incident had led to riots in the city. Such acts of filming the violence would now put the person behind bars or he will have to pay a good amount of money.

But, this is no doubt a setback to citizen journalism. Citizen journalism has the potential to create a buzz. We are already seeing such cases in Egypt too where the bloggers are being maltreated.

This is clearly a disturbing precedent. A citizen who happens to capture an act of violence against another citizen is now prone to the risk of imprisonment. It’s a big step backwards for citizen journalism.

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