[huridocs-tech] The twenty enemies of the Internet

This is a recent report by Reporters Sans Frontières on freedom of speech,
press freedom etc and the Internet. You find will the English text below.
Links to French and Spanish versions of the text are at the beginning of
the article. To receive the French version via e-mail, please send a
message to <getweb@hrea.org> and write in the message:

GET http://www.rsf.fr/internet/ennemis.html

To receive the Spanish version, send a message to <getweb@hrea.org>, with
in the message:

GET http://www.rsf.fr/esp/html/internet/internet.html 


Hope this is useful.


Regards,
-Frank


---------------
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 Vietnam.

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.

Vietnam
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 Vietnam)
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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