All Content Related to Human rights

Over 1,203 Sites Blocked in Thailand

jillian — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:05:39 -0500

Over the weekend, it was reported by WikiLeaks that the secret censorship lists of Thailand's Ministroy of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) had been obtained by advisory board member CJ Hinke, who is the director of Freedom Against Censorship Thailand.

Wikileaks reports that the 1,203 newly blocked sites are located in over 20 different countries including Canada, France, and Australia, and that each blocked site is internally noted as being blocked due to "lèse majesté," or criticism of the King. The group states that it is apparent that many of the sites were not examined closely, however, and appear not to violate that particular law at all.

Of the blocked sites, over 860 are YouTube videos, and 200 sites mirroring those videos are being filtered as well. Wikileaks states that "Curiously, Hillary Clinton's campaign videos, and 24 Charlie Chaplin videos are also on the censorship lists."

Although the OpenNet Initiative has not yet confirmed the reports, Thailand has been found to selectively filter political sites in the past. ONI's full report on Thailand can be found here.

Wikileaks calls for transparency from the MICT, saying: "Typically, web censorship in Thailand is conducted in secret. We think there is a right to know inherent in a free society. We call for transparency and accountability in government and freedom of expression, freedom of communication and freedom of association as fundamental human rights."

Internet Censorship in Saudi

charles — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:50:11 -0500

Saudi Arabia has one of the most restrictive Internet filters in the world, yet according to BusinessWeek news reports, the Saudi censorship regime is vastly unlike that of most countries. Employing a mere twenty-five people, the country’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) uses software to “block broad swaths” of the Internet, while relying on citizens who send 1,200 requests daily for offensive sites to be blocked to cover the rest of the Internet.

In addition to pornography and online gambling, which are filtered by the CITC software, Saudi citizens (mostly students and religious figures) voluntarily filter cites that they deem offensive, including those that violate religious and cultural mores. According to consultant Khalid Baheyeldin, “there’s a feeling of moral conviction that obliges people to have these sites blocked.”

As far as blogging is concerned, the majority of the country’s 2,000 bloggers post anonymously, fearing repercussions. Earlier this year a local blogger was jailed for advocating political reforms.

CITC states that only 40 percent of Saudi citizens are concerned with Internet filtration. Haitham Abu Aisha, general manager of a Riyadh ISP claims that censorship can be defined “in many ways.” “We want censorship of pornography and harsh ideas,” he continues. Regardless of the interpretation or voluntary aspect of Saudi’s censorship regime, this type of Internet filtration violates the right to free access of online content.

Australia's Slippery Slope

jillian — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:02:56 -0500

With all of the news lately regarding Australia's Internet filtering scheme, one might think Australia were the first or only country to ever filter the Internet.

Since the filter was announced in 2007, it has been widely criticized. First, Australia announced their filtering scheme, which includes blocking nearly 10,000 sites. Then an Australian youth cracked the filter. Later on, Australian ISPs were told to keep quiet about their disagreement with the scheme.

The latest news reports state that Michael Malone, head of Australian ISP iiNet, has expressed distaste with the plan, going as far as to say that his main purpose was to: "provide the Government with "hard numbers" demonstrating "how stupid it is" - specifically that the filtering system would not work, would be patently simple to bypass, would not filter peer-to-peer traffic and would significantly degrade network speeds."

Malone is not the only one speaking out against the scheme. Two weeks ago I reported that Australian activists were protesting the filters. Today I spoke with Antoun Issa, an Australian journalist, to get his take on the filter.

The first issue that activists have with the filter is its effectiveness. Issa explains: "...When there was only 2% of network degradation, it performed only to 80% accuracy. When it reached its peak of 94% accuracy of sites blocked, the network degradation was as high as 30%." Given the fact that Australia's Internet speeds are generally lower than those in the United States and Europe, Australian subscribers would be hit with significantly low Internet speeds.

The second major problem with any filtering scheme, of course, is that of overblocking. Although the non-opt-out filter in Australia intends to block only illegal materials, including hardcore pornography, Issa explains that "There's a good chance sexuality-based websites and sexual-health sites would be mistakenly overblocked, because the filtering system simply cannot distinguish between what's 'good' sex and 'bad' sex."

The third and most important issue in terms of the economy is that the filter is an enormous expense, one which is not justifiable.

Additionally, Issa warns that the filtering scheme presents a slippery slope: While intended to only block illegal sites, it could easily be expanded to include other sites, including GLBT ones. In an interview Issa conducted with Greens Senator Scott Ludlum, the Senator warned that GLBT sites are at a great risk of being included in the filter eventually.

In an e-mail to me, Issa concluded: "It's just a completely flawed proposal. Not only does it leave our freedom and civil liberties open to manipulation by interest groups, but the impacts, including cost, that it will have on our internet speed and functionality is just astronomical. What's worse is that there's no demand for it. No one knows where on earth this policy has come from! If parents want to protect their children, they can buy their own personal filtering systems which can be far more aggressive than what the government is proposing."

Image credit: Janet Hawtin
"No filtering" t-shirt available online.

UAE blog blocked after analyzing impact of US financial crisis on UAE economy

ONI-MENA — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:51:06 -0400

The UAE ISPs blocked access to the Arabic blog Mujarad Ensan (Just a man) a few days after the blogger published a post sarcastically entitled "Lough with me and say: Our economy is in a good condition" in which he accused the UAE government of the lack of transparency in dealing with the current US economic crisis, and the local papers of lying about the real status of the local economy. The writer also accused government-owned real estate companies of publishing exaggerated information about business deals to create the impression that the local economy has not been negatively effective by the US financial crisis.

The blogger has in the past discussed sensitive issues such as media freedom, human rights, and political transparency in the UAE.

The UAE's filtering system continues to target political, social and sexual contents. Earlier this year, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority expanded the filtering regime to the Dubai free zones which in the past enjoyed unfettered access to the Internet.

Tunisian journalist sues government agency for blocking Facebook, claims damage for the use of 404 error message instead of 403

ONI-MENA — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:50:07 -0400

Tunisian journalist and blogger Zied El-Hen filed a suit this week in a Tunisian court against the Tunisian Internet Agency for blocking the social networking Web site Facebook, according to a report by Reuters (Arabic). The journalist demands about $5,000 as a compensation for the damages which the blocking caused to him. He said the fact that the Tunisian President himself had to intervene to have the site unblocked last week is an evidence that the blocking was wrong and illegal.

In an interesting technical argument he said that the the agency mislead him by serving the message 404 (Not Found) error message instead of the 403 message (Access Forbidden), which the agency serves to users who attempt to access banned sites. This action of misleading (Not Found vs. Forbidden) caused him material as well as punitive damages, he said.

The 404 message or Not Found error message is a standard response code which means that the user connected to the site, Facebook in this case, but the site, Facebook, could not find what was requested. The 403 (Forbidden) message, however means that the user was able to communicate with the site, Facebook, but the server forbids him/her from accessing the site.

The President of Tunisia Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali ordered the unblocking of the site last week after it was blocked by the country's ISPs without giving any reason.

ONI will monitor the progress of this unprecedented legal case and report any development.

Saudi journalist to Western journalists in Beijing on Internet filtering: “quit your belly aching”

ONI-MENA — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:24:27 -0400

Saudi journalist Molouk Y. Ba-Isa wrote an interesting article in Saudi Arabia’s principal English daily (Arab News) in which she reminds the Western journalists covering the 2008 Olympics in Beijing that censorship for people like her in countries such as Saudi Arabia is a daily reality where they have to live and function, not just a matter of a limited time inconvenient.

The article raises a couple of interesting issues that are rarely discussed in the Saudi local press.

First, in addition to blaming Saudi “faceless bureaucrats” for imposing Internet filtering, she also blames the US corporations for exporting filtering technologies, and the US government for allowing the exportation of these technologies, “to be used to halt freedom of expression through the Internet for hundreds of millions of people.” This is probably the first time the Saudi media accuses the US companies of complicity of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. Usually the blame is put on the faceless bureaucrats and the security apparatus only.

Second, the journalist not only questions the sensibility of censoring foreign publications and filtering the Internet, but is also critical of the government spending "desperately needed resources" on such efforts and, as she put it, on protecting her morality, instead of allocating these resources to more important issues such as education, infrastructure, and health care. This is interesting because usually the Saudi media does not question the state filtering practices. Previous local reports have expressed concerns over overblocking but rarely are they so openly critical of the entire system.

It remains to be seen whether similar voices will continue to be heard in the Saudi local media, and whether the authorities will listen and respond to these concerns.