Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network --------------------------------------------------------------------- DAILY MAIL & GUARDIAN 18 March 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Guerilla tactics against net censors ------------------------------------------------ A free speech conference hears how the Internet has managed to defeat authoritarian regimes in countries like Nigeria. But some governments have learned how to fool the net... ------------------------------------------------ Brian Whitaker ------------------------------------------------ The Internet means the end of censorship, a conference on guerrilla journalism was told on Tuesday. "There has never been a successful attempt to censor the net. It is very difficult to remove something once it is online," said Adam Powell, a vice president of the Freedom Forum (www.freedomforum.org), a US foundation promoting freedom of expression, at an international gathering of journalists and Web publishers in the forum's offices in London. Authoritarian regimes have a choice between censorship and development, Powell noted. "More and more, it is development that is winning. They want to restrict information but they have to give access to data for business development - which makes censorship much more difficult." Journalists from around the world described the power of the Net in resisting attempts to control the flow of information. Babafemi Ojudu, a Nigerian newspaper editor, turned his laptop into a mobile newsroom, travelling from one hiding place to another and filing stories to the Internet after the printed version of his paper was suppressed by the country's former regime. In the Middle East, journalists from several countries are co-operating in a site for uncensored news www.amin.org. Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist, said: "There is a problem of censorship of local news, but papers can cover news of other Arab countries. Our aim is to break the censorship of local news by getting Jordanian news, for example, from Syria or Palestine." The site allows journalists to exchange stories about each other's countries. Some journalists also file uncensored versions of their stories to the site, which can later be compared with the printed versions. "For the first time the traditional censorship of newspapers arriving across borders is becoming useless and worthless," Kuttab said. Broadcasters faced with censorship are also turning to the Internet. The Yugoslavian radio station, B92 (www.b92eng.opennet.org), had its transmitter shut down, but continued putting out audio programmes - often derived from smuggled cassettes - over the Internet. As a safeguard against sabotage, it has three mirror sites: in the US, the Netherlands and the Balkans. Some of the new possibilities opened up by the Internet can be seen on a Gibraltar web site www.frontier.gibnet.gi, which has four live cameras - probably costing no more than $50 each - documenting hold-ups at the border. Powell . said: "Think of the applications. You could also use them to monitor police stations, villages threatened with attack, and so on." The Spanish authorities have now blocked one of the cameras by putting up a screen in front of it, but other governments have found more sophisticated ways of fighting back. Internet users in Tunisia who look up Amnesty, for example, are likely to be directed to a site resembling that of Amnesty International, the agency that campaigns for human rights. But instead of seeing data documenting the country's poor record in the field, they will be offered descriptions of the Tunisian government's wonderful achievements in human rights. Bogus press releases are another ploy. Several organisations, including Amnesty and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, now include digital signatures on e-mailed press releases so that they can be authenticated. Many authoritarian regimes restrict Internet access by allowing only one (state-controlled) service provider, and often charge prices that are beyond the reach of all but businesses and a wealthy elite. The alternative for users is to dial up a service in a nearby country, which is also expensive. But whatever barriers they erect, ultimately there is no way to stop Web information reaching any corner of the world. The big question is how much of it actually filters through to a wider audience. One view is that the information will get through if it is important enough. To beat the censor you need only one Web browser with a printer. But you also need an awful lot of photocopiers. The Guardian - 11 March 1999 ---------------------------------- Send mail for the 'huridocs-tech' list to 'huridocs-tech@hrea.org'. Mail administrative request to 'majordomo@hrea.org'. For additional assistance, send mail to: 'owner-huridocs-tech@hrea.org'. Archives of previous messages posted to the list can be found at: http://www.human-rights.net/huridocs-tech.
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