08/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - Call for ban on technology exports to repressive countries. On Tuesday 6 November the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee called for a ban on information technology exports that can be used by repressive regimes. By adopting (47 votes in favour, none against and 4 abstentions) the report by Leonidas Donskis (ALDE, Lithuania) on human rights and democracy in the world in 2011, the MEPs want to ban technology that can be used to censure information, to set up systems of mass surveillance, and to follow the movements of people who use telephone networks and the internet. The foreign affairs committee welcomes the decision of the member states to ban exports of certain information technology to Syria and Iran, and urges the EU to consider this ban as a precedent for restrictive measures against other repressive regimes in the future. The Donskis report will be voted on in December's plenary session.