Using new Internet filters, Afghanistan blocks news site

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Afghanistan Matters

By Danny O’Brien with Bob Dietz | Committee to Protect Journalists | October 6, 2010

Until recently, Afghanistan’s Internet has been notably free of government censorship. That stems largely from the limited impact and visibility of the Net domestically: The Taliban banned the Internet during its rule, and despite a recent boom in use, the nation has only a million users out of a population of about 29 million. But the Afghan government finally got around to imposing national filters in June, when the Ministry of Communications instructed local ISPs to blacklist websites that promote alcohol, gambling, and pornography, or ones that provide dating and social networking services.

Afghanistan’s Internet regulators are still struggling to enforce their rules. Despite the order, the vast majority of sites violating the regulator’s code are still available. Even ostensibly blocked sites are easily viewable using straightforward proxies or circumvention software.

Yet the government has already been tempted to use the new Internet regulations for more than just defending public morals. Just three months after the introduction of the rules, the government told ISPs to include news reporting websites on their blacklists. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Pashto-language website Benawa had been blocked in the country after it incorrectly reported that the first vice president, Mohammed Qasim Fahim, had died. (The site corrected the error within a half hour.) The site is available on its U.S.-based servers, but Benawa‘s U.S.-based owner and manager Khalid Hadi told CPJ: “Our site is now banned on 97 percent of ISP servers in Afghanistan, and the Afghan government says the ban will stay indefinitely.” Understandably, Hadi is angry about being pushed off Afghan servers.

There are also reports that a ban is being sought for another Pashto news site, Tolafghan.

That Internet censorship spreads beyond its initial targets should not come as a surprise. And monitoring Internet censorship poses unique problems. Unlike blacklists of books or individuals, blacklists of websites are rarely published, because providing such a list is assumed to effectively give citizens a roadmap for bypassing the flimsy defenses of a national firewall. And without such a transparent list of who is being blocked, public oversight is difficult, even in countries with strong rule of law.

Meanwhile administrations concerned by the reporting of a free press will, as apparently they did in Afghanistan, reach for filtering technology as a weapon in silencing critical voices online. Independent media aren’t the only ones who find themselves at risk. This week, The New York Times reported that after years of blocking news sites and social networking forums, Iran has begun blocking the websites of domestic prominent clerics.

Online and off, journalists are among the first to be censored. But they are rarely the last.

Afghanistan begins Internet filtering with Gmail, Facebook

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Colleen Taugher

By Rebekah Heacock | OpenNet Initiative | June, 28 2010

Afghanistan has followed up on its promise to begin filtering the Internet: the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reports the country is now blocking Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube and a host of sites related to alcohol, gambling and sex.

In March, the government announced its intention to begin filtering the Afghan internet, admitting that it lacked the technology but was investigating ways to block sites related to violence, terrorism, pornography or gambling.

Under the Taliban, Afghan citizens were completely cut off from the Internet. The government banned the Internet in 2001 because it contained “obscene, immoral and anti-Islamic material.” In 2006, fewer than just citizen per thousand had Internet access. The current government has made greater Internet access a priority, and in the past decade the number of Internet users in the country has grown from almost none to around 500,000.

While the proposed filtering plan was billed as part of the war against the Taliban, some worry that the government is reverting to Taliban-era control over online content. In an interview with Public Radio International, the BBC’s Dawood Azami notes that the Afghan media are particularly concerned:

But now the government says that there are some websites which are “immoral” and against the traditions of the Afghan people so they are planning to not only block those websites that glorify violence, but they are also trying or planning to block those websites which the Taliban didn’t like…. [The Afghan press corps] are unhappy about this. They say that if these restrictions are imposed, it would mean that the government would be able to block any website they don’t like, or block those websites which are critical of the government. So there is this concern in the journalist community in Afghanistan.

While the desire to restrict access to pro-violence content is understandable, the government’s decision to block such a wide swath of sites — including, the EFF says, Gmail — is harder to justify as part of an anti-terrorist plan.

Afghan Reporters Caught In The Crossfire

By BHRP

Flickr Creative Commons | Pal Berge

by Mohmmad Amin Mudaqiq | Radio Free Europe | March 5, 2010
The mushrooming young Afghan media face tough challenges as they try to keep their independence amid growing violence and pressure from both the government and armed insurgents. The government, with its executive power, expects the media to do business its way, while the Taliban pressure and intimidate the media to put out their version of the story.

This week, Afghan intelligence officials “requested” the media to ban live coverage of suicide attacks and firefights, like the one on February 26 in which coordinated insurgent attacks killed 16 people, including 11 foreigners. Afghan authorities have now threatened to arrest reporters and confiscate their equipment if they attempt to cover such events without official sanction.

Though the Taliban condemned the government ban, they remain keen on scaring journalists into buying into their perspective. Since the first days of the Marjah operation in mid-February, Taliban commanders in Helmand Province have called local reporters to offer interviews to show the world their view of the situation. They asked the media to visit areas under their control to see what they called the “truth.” In case of noncompliance, these Taliban threatened reporters with dire consequences.

The Afghan government has somewhat unsuccessfully attempted to clamp down on media coverage of its failings. Its ban on reporting election-day violence last fall did little to deter reporters. And a 2006 attempt to persuade journalists to buy its version of insurgency-related issues failed. Nevertheless, unnerved Afghan officials continue both to cajole and to intimidate journalists to emphasize Afghanistan’s “half-full” glass.

In the past, the Taliban invited reporters to regions under its control to report from their side. But no reporter dares to do so now, as they know the fates of many who have taken this risk. Two French reporters who wanted to see the situation from the Taliban angle in northern Kapisa Province were kidnapped last December and are still being held. And a “New York Times” correspondent who wanted to interview a Taliban commander in southeastern Logar Province last year was kidnapped and spent months in custody in neighboring Pakistan before managing to escape.

Afghan media managers and journalists feel that, in the current environment, they cannot choose between the rival sides. Professional integrity and credibility offer the best protection and long-term sustainability. But they need help and sympathy.

This week’s ban on live coverage of insurgent attacks sparked an angry reaction from the international community, Afghan media organizations, and even the Taliban. The insurgents called on Kabul to abide by “accepted and sound principles of freedom of expression” — something the Taliban themselves notoriously failed to do during their five-year-long rule.

The reactions prompted Kabul to soften its stance, and the government is now promising to find an “acceptable mechanism.” But observers question why it fomented such a controversy without doing the required legal and political homework. They speculate whether the episode is simply indicative of the endemic anarchy in the decision-making system in Kabul, or whether it is a calculated trial balloon before attempting more sweeping control over the media.

Most Afghan journalists agree that the media should take into account national interests and not reveal facts prematurely if doing so could endanger lives or public order. But this should not lead the media toward bias or turn them into propaganda tools, as was the case during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. The media in most neighboring countries still cover Afghanistan though the lenses of their own “national interests.” And that, too, needs to be changed by greater press freedom in Afghanistan, by developing links between Afghan media and the outside world, and by assisting the Afghan media to become financially viable and self-sustaining.

An Afghan journalist might sit on a story for a while if doing so is in the national interest. But if the deafening sounds of explosions and gunfire are heard on the streets, it will not be possible for a reporter to tell people that “all is normal.” This presents a great dilemma for the infant Afghan media, and the way out is not more government regulation but the voluntary adoption and mainstreaming of journalistic standards and a code of conduct on covering violence.

A planned media and government conference in Kabul later this month will provide Afghan journalists, media mangers, and officials the chance to work toward such an outcome.