FC: Report on global Net-censorship, from RSF; Administrative note

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 10:20:41 -0800 (PST)
From: "Tuyet A. Ngoc Tran" <tatn2000 () yahoo com>
Subject: Overview on communication censorship
To: declan () well com

Declan,

Happy new year. I'm forwarding this report to you
and/or politech-bot posting for others who might be
interested. Best wishes.

Tuyet
---------

Reporters Without Borders/Reporters Sans Frontières
The enemies of the Internet
URL: http://www.rsf.fr/uk/html/internet/ennemis.html

espanol:
http://www.rsf.fr/esp/html/internet/internet.html
francais: http://www.rsf.fr/internet/ennemis.html


Forty-five countries restrict their citizens' access
to the internet - usually by forcing them to subscribe
to a state-run Internet Service Provider (ISP). Twenty
of these countries may be described as real enemies of
this new means of communication. On the pretext of
protecting the public from "subversive ideas" or
defending "national security and unity", some
governments totally prevent their citizens from
gaining access to the internet. Others control a
single ISP or even several, installing filters
blocking access to web sites regarded as unsuitable
and sometimes forcing users to officially register
with the authorities.

The internet is a two-edged sword for authoritarian
regimes. On the one hand, it enables any citizen to
enjoy an unprecedented degree of freedom of speech and
therefore constitutes a threat to the government. On
the other, however, the internet is a major factor in
economic growth, due in particular to online trade and
the exchange of technical and scientific information,
which prompts some of these governments to support its
spread. The economic argument seems to be winning the
day in countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, where
controlling "dangerous" sites is proving difficult for
the authorities. Moreover, web surfers can find ways
round censorship: encoding, going through servers that
offer anonymity when consulting banned sites or
sending email, connecting via GSM telephones and
cellphones, and so on.

Reporters Sans Frontières has selected 20 countries
that it regards as enemies of the internet because
they control access totally or partially, have
censored web sites or taken action against users. They
are: the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus
(Azerbaijan,Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), Belarus, Burma, China,
Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia,
Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Viet Nam.

Belarus
In line with its repressive attitude towards other
media, Alexander Lukashenka's government does not
leave its citizens free to explore the internet
independently. Access is supplied by a single ISP,
Belpak, which belongs to the state.

Burma
Censorship is total, due to a state monopoly on
access. In addition, a law passed in September 1996
obliges anyone who owns a computer to declare it to
the government. Those who fail to comply may face up
to
15 years in prison.

Central Asia and the Caucasus
In most of these countries, the authorities control or
restrict internet access. In Tajikistan, a single ISP,
Telecom Technologies, owned by the government, offers
web access - and only in the capital, Dushanbe.
Turkmenistan, a "black hole" where information is
concerned, offers even more restricted access.
Although there are privately owned ISPs in Uzbekistan
and Azerbaijan, their operations are controlled by the
telecommunications ministry, which is responsible for
chastising those who speak out against the government.
In Kazakhstan, and to a lesser extent in Kirghizia,
the authorities demand prohibitively expensive usage
and connection fees from private ISPs.

China
Although internet use is spreading rapidly, the
government is trying to keep up pressure on users.
They are closely monitored and are supposed to
register with the authorities. In January 1999 a
computer technician, Lin Hai, was sentenced to two
years in prison by a Shanghai court for giving the
email addresses of 30,000 Chinese subscribers to a
dissident site that publishes an online magazine from
the United States. Meanwhile officials fearing
disturbances as the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen
massacre (4 June 1999) drew near ordered the closure
of 300 cybercafÈs in Shanghai, on the pretext that
they did not have the necessary authorisation.

In order to prevent the Chinese from finding
information on the web, the authorities have blocked
access to some sites. This happened to the BBC in
October 1998. Zhang Weiguo, editor of the New Century
Net (www.ncn.org) site, in Chinese, launched in the
United States in 1996, estimates that it takes two
months on average for the Chinese authorities to track
down the relay server of a site and block access to
it. The sites then change their address. Some censored
pages are distributed by email, like underground
newspapers that are photocopied and passed around
secretly.

Cuba
The government controls the internet, just as it does
other media. There is no free expression in Cuba at
national level. About ten independent - and illegal -
news agencies such as Cubanet and Cuba Free Press
telephone reports to organisations based in Miami
which publish them on their web pages. But this news
is still the subject of repression: in October 1998, a
foreign ministry official filed a complaint for
"insult" against Mario Viera, of the independent
agency Cuba Verdad, following publication of an
article criticising him on the US-based Cubanet site.
The journalist is still awaiting trial, and faces an
18-month prison sentence if convicted.

Iran
Censorship of the internet is identical to that
affecting other media and covers the same subjects:
sexuality, religion, criticism of the Islamic
Republic, any mention of Israel, the United States,
and so on. Because of the filters put in place by the
authorities, access to some sites is banned: medical
students are denied access to web pages that deal with
anatomy, for instance.

Iraq
People in Baghdad have no direct access to the
internet. Web sites of the official press and certains
ministries are maintained by servers based in Jordan.
In any case, because of the embargo very few people
own computers.

Libya
It is impossible to explore the web from Libya. The
government carefully keeps the population away from
international information networks with the aim of
maintaining control of their minds.

North Korea
People in Pyongyang cannot access the internet. The
government deliberately prevents the population from
seeing any news other than its own propaganda. The few
official sites aimed at foreigners (the national news
agency, newspapers and ministries) are maintained by
servers located in Japan.

Saudi Arabia
Even though 37 private companies have been given
permission to operate as ISPs, all traffic at the
moment goes through the servers of the Science and
Technology Centre, a public body, which is equipped
with filters banning access to sites that provide
"information contrary to Islamic values". The internet
is officially regarded as "a harmful force for
westernising people's minds".

Sierra Leone
As part of their repression of the opposition press,
the authorities have also attacked an online
newspaper. In June 1999, two journalists from the
daily The Independent Observer, Abdul Rhaman Swaray
and Jonathan Leigh, were arrested. They were accused
in particular of collaborating with the online
newspaper "Ninjas", which is published on a site based
abroad (www.sierra-leone.cc) by journalists who have
gone into hiding.

Sudan
Through Sudanet, the only ISP, the state controls the
few connections to the internet possible in this
country where freedom of expression is often
suppressed.

Syria
Internet access is officially banned to individuals.
Offenders may face a prison sentence, just as they may
for "unauthorised" contacts with foreigners. Only
official organisations are allowed access to the
internet through the public telecommunications
authority, whose ISP maintains web sites for state
newspapers, the national news agency and a few
ministries.

Tunisia
The Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) controls the two
privately owned ISPs, which are in fact connected with
the authorities: one is run by President Ben Ali's
daughter and the second by another person close to the
government. Their central servers control the access
of certain users. In November 1998, following
publication by Amnesty International of a report on
human rights violations, a web site with the address
www.amnesty-tunisia.org, deliberately designed to
create confusion with the non-government organisation,
praised the president's work for human rights. The
director of the public relations agency that launched
the site - one of whose biggest customers is the
Tunisian government - claimed that he was merely
coming to the country's defence. Meanwhile, access to
Amnesty International's official site was blocked by
the authorities.

Viet Nam
Anyone who wants to access the internet has to ask for
permission from the interior ministry and sign up with
one of the two state-owned ISPs. Access is blocked to
sites maintained by Vietnamese organisations based
abroad and international human rights organisations.
On 9 June, the Police Ministry ordered the post office
to cancel the journalist Nguyen Dan Que's Internet
account, after this former political prisoner had
released a communique through the Internet calling for
freedom a month earlier.

Recommendations
Reporters Sans Frontières calls on the governments of
these 20 countries to immediately:

- abolish the state monopoly on internet access and,
where appropriate, stop controlling private ISPs,
- cancel the obligation for citizens to register with
the government before obtaining internet access,
- abolish censorship through the use of filters, and
stop blocking access to certain sites maintained by
foreign servers,
- protect the confidentiality of internet exchanges,
particularly by lifting controls on electronic mail,
- call off the legal proceedings undertaken against
internet users who have done no more than exercise
their right to freedom of expression.

Reporters Sans Frontières calls on Burma, China, Cuba,
Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and Tajikistan to ratify and
enforce the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, Article 19 of which stipulates that
"everyone shall have the right (...) to receive and
impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless
of frontiers
(...)".

The organisation also asks those states that have
signed the covenant (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Iran, Iraq,
Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Libya, North
Korea, Uzbekistan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia
and Viet Nam) to respect the undertakings they made by
doing so.
---------------------
For further informations, please contact Reporters
sans frontières: rsf () rsf fr

Source: Reporters Without Borders/Reporters Sans Frontières

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