Uyghur Webmasters Sentenced

By Tsering

2010/07/Gusjer1-e1280519957731.jpg

By Mihray Abdilim | Radio Free Asia | July 28, 2010    

HONG KONG—Three webmasters, all members of the Uyghur ethnic minority, have been sentenced to jail for publishing content deemed politically sensitive by the Chinese government, according to a brother of one of the men.

The defendants are Dilshat Perhat, webmaster and owner of Diyarim; Nureli, webmaster of Salkin; and Nijat Azat, webmaster of Shabnam. They were sentenced last week in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwestern China.

Dilmurat Perhat said his brother Dilshat Perhat received five years in prison, while Nureli and Nijat Azat received three years and 10 years, respectively, for “endangering state security.”

No official comment or confirmation was immediately available.

The verdicts were handed down in a series of closed trials at the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court, Dilmurat Perhat said. All three websites publish online in the Uyghur language, spoken by the predominantly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority.

Dilmurat Perhat, another webmaster for Diyarim who currently lives in England, had recently refused to speak with the media about his brother for fear of creating a more difficult situation for him in custody.

In April, after Beijing appointed Zhang Chunxian the new secretary of the Xinjiang regional committee, the family was visited by Chinese authorities who warned them to “make him shut up or his brother would be lost” in jail.

But after learning of his brother’s sentence and after their father’s recent death in the wake of Dilshat Perhat’s arrest in August last year, he agreed to a telephone interview.

“I have already lost my father and my brother, so now I will speak with the media,” Dilmurat Perhat said.

“To the media I would like to speak for freedom and justice for all Uyghur webmasters. I want the world media and other human rights organizations to call on the Chinese government to free all Uyghur webmasters and journalists.”

A friend of the family, who asked not to be named, said Dilshat Perhat’s mother was unable to attend her son’s trial because she was distraught over her husband’s recent death.

She refused to speak with the media because she remains concerned over her son’s treatment in jail.

Webmasters targeted

The verdicts follow the sentencing last week of another prominent, moderate Uyghur journalist and webmaster for talking to foreign media about July 2009 ethnic riots in Xinjiang which left nearly 200 people dead, according to official estimates.

Gheyret Niyaz was sentenced on July 23 by the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court to 15 years in prison on charges of “endangering state security” and was given 15 days to appeal.

Niyaz, 51 and a former deputy director of the official Xinjiang Legal Daily, was employed at the official Xinjiang Economic Daily as a journalist at the time of his detention on Oct. 4, 2009.

His family received a warrant for his arrest four days later, relatives have said. Niyaz also served as webmaster and administrator of the Uyghur Online website, run by outspoken Uyghur economics professor Ilham Tohti.

In its 2009 annual report, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) noted that Uyghur Online and its staff had been uniquely targeted after the 2009 violence.

“In spring 2009, authorities shut down the website Uyghur Online, a multi-language news and discussion forum that addressed issues of ethnicity in China, and interrogated Beijing-based scholar Ilham Tohti, who runs the site,” the report said.

“Authorities later detained Ilham Tohti in July after XUAR government chairperson Nur Bekri alleged that Ilham Tohti’s website contributed to incitement of rioting in Urumqi on July 5. Authorities released Ilham Tohti from detention on Aug. 2. The whereabouts of some other Uyghur Online staff members are reportedly unknown.”

Following the region’s July 5, 2009 unrest, Nur Bekri took a firm stance against Uyghur webmasters’ publishing of information related to the incident.

“These websites publish so much bad news about what happened at the Shaoguan Toy Factory between Uyghur and Chinese workers,” he said, referring to a brawl in southern China that left two Uyghurs dead and touched off Uyghur protests in Urumqi.

“They say Uyghur workers died and carry similar kinds of news and this led to the July 5 event in Urumqi.”

Not long after Nur Bekri’s statement, Chinese police began arresting several Uyghur webmasters in Urumqi and other cities in the XUAR.

Simmering tensions

Millions of Uyghurs—a distinct, Turkic minority who are predominantly Muslim—populate Central Asia and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of northwestern China.

Ethnic tensions between Uyghurs and majority Han Chinese settlers have simmered for years, and erupted in July 2009 in rioting that left some 200 people dead, according to the Chinese government’s tally.

Uyghurs say they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness despite China’s ambitious plans to develop its vast northwestern frontier.

Chinese authorities blame Uyghur separatists for a series of deadly attacks in recent years and accuse one group in particular of maintaining links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Iranian Social Networking, Hard-Line Style

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | 27389271

By Golnaz Esfandiari | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | July 28, 2010

“The website of the followers of Khamenei has been created. Please enter with your hijab and after completing your ablution.”

With that Facebook post, 29-year-old Iranian Ahmad heralded the arrival of a new social-networking site, called “Velayatmadaran,” launched by the Iranian establishment.

The name is a reference to “followers of the velayat,” or Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and it’s part of an attempt by Iranian officials to get in on the social-networking craze. Like other sites that have proved to be crucial tools for communication, discussion, and the exchange of news and information among members of the opposition — including Facebook — Velayatmadaran allows users to network and post pictures, videos, and articles.

Predictably, given his support for Iran’s political opposition, Ahmad’s status update, the messages that go out to Facebook “friends,” became an immediate hit. There was an explosion of sarcastic comments from his friends. One wrote that he would join the website on condition that his friends promise not to tag him in pictures of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and hard-line cleric Ahmad Khatami. Another mocked that “the networking site is a dream come true.”

Iranian officials have smeared such social networkers as lackeys of Iran’s enemies and victims of a “soft war” being waged against Tehran.

For his part, Ahmad thinks Velayatmadaran holds little attraction for young Iranians: “[The hard-liners] are losing their supporters from top to bottom. It’s clear just from the name of the site that it is designed for their own supporters.”

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em…

According to the “About Us” section, the site was launched to create an online platform for the religious hard-liners of Iran’s Hezbollah to exchange ideas and fight “evil.” Issues like “the rule of the supreme jurist” and “women and family” are up for discussion.

So far, the site has attracted some 3,000 members and includes posts of pictures of “Imam Khamenei,” a reference that seeks to elevate the current supreme leader beyond his clerical status; articles about the teachings of ultra-hard-line Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi; and cartoons skewering the opposition Green Movement.

Iranians putting the Internet to use in Qom, a hub of Shi’ite activity.

In the aftermath of Iran’s disputed election in 2009, social-networking sites were filled with images and comments related to the protests over the reelection of President Ahmadinejad. Despite official attempts to limit the free flow of information, word of the use of force by government forces spread quickly.

Velayatmadaran’s creators write that “the enemy” has recently used social-networking websites for its own benefit and for “spreading lies.” They say that while that same enemy has used the virtual world “skillfully” and social-networking sites as a “weapon,” Hezbollah has relied on its “faith and correct belief.” It’s time to fight fire with fire, they argue.

Ali Honari, a 32-year-old sociology student who has been living and studying in Holland for nearly a year, sees little to attract Iranian young people. He says the new website appears to be an attempt by the Iranian authorities to funnel their supporters away from mainstream social networking or from engaging in open debate.

“A friend of mine who taught some courses at the Qom seminary said that even there, students are becoming increasingly modern,” Honari says. “They have access to the Internet, they watch the latest movies. [The establishment] needs to make sure they remain loyal.”

Toronto-based Iranian blogger Arash Kamangir says he doubts Velayatmadaran will attract many members. “It’s not difficult to launch a new social site,” he says. “What is difficult is to attract members. [Iranian leaders] cannot do it, because they don’t want to open these sites to those who are opposed to them and their supporters don’t seem to be many.”

He adds that Velayatmadaran looks suspiciously like a sort of “training camp” for hard-liners to gain familiarity with social-networking sites. “They see it as a military camp where they can receive training,” Kamangir says. “They say that the next steps will be to go out and take some [action].”

‘Cyberwar’

New York-based journalist Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, who was jailed in Iran in 2004 over his online writings, says the creation of Velayatmadaran and other similar moves — such as the launching of hard-line blogs — is the result of Tehran viewing the Internet as a threat.

“The Islamic republic and the security military organs that are behind such projects make a big mistake by thinking that online tools — blogs and now social-networking websites — themselves have the power to influence,” Mirebrahimi says. “It’s a wrong belief, these are only tools — the ideas that are being discussed within these tools are [what is] important.”

The Iranian establishment has for years fought a cyber-battle on several fronts. It has reportedly blocked and hacked websites, tracked activists online, and threatened Iranians who have turned to blogs and other online platforms to express themselves. It has prosecuted and jailed some people based on their online content.

But the Iranian establishment has faced fierce and determined opposition by activists and intellectuals, who have used proxy sites and antifiltering tools to bypass government censorship.

One web developer in Tehran, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety, says activists seem to be winning the cyber-battle. “The government blocks [and] young citizens find a way to unblock the filtered website,” he says. “They manage to spread the news the government wants to censor.”

One Friday Prayers leader, Ayatollah Alam Ahdi, effectively acknowledged as much last week. He said during a public appearance in Mashhad that “the enemy” has occupied the virtual world, adding that the “cyberwar” should be taken seriously. “If, for example, we have inside and outside the country 10 million bloggers, 9.5 million of them are against Islam,” he said.

He advocated using “any tool,” even if contravened Shari’a, or Islamic law. “In a war, anti-Shari’a [moves] are permissible; the same applies to a cyberwar,” Alam Ahdi said. “The conditions are such that you should fight the enemy in any way you can. You don’t need to be considerate of anyone. If you don’t hit them, the enemy will hit you.”

Honari, the doctoral candidate studying abroad, says he thinks the Iranian establishment is fighting a losing battle. “All the sites that are popular are sites where users can discuss and express their critical views [freely],” he says. “That’s against the views and principles of an authoritarian regime. The Iranian government cannot use the Internet properly.”

As far as Velayatmadaran goes, he says a critical dialogue is impossible. “What would they do with someone like me with opposed views if I became a member?” Honari asks. “They would have to delete me over and over.”

China’s star blogger treads fine line

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Scott Chang

By Polly Hui | AFP | July 23, 2010

HONG KONG — China’s most popular blogger recalls being baffled when a publisher told him he could not run an article because it mentioned a person ordering a dish of lamb.

“I did not get it. What’s wrong with eating lamb?” Han Han says.

The publisher explained that by ordering lamb, the diner could be someone who did not eat pork.

And that could imply he was a Muslim — a particularly sensitive subject in China following deadly ethnic unrest in Xinjiang last year that pitted mostly Muslim Uighurs against the nation’s dominant Han group.

The 27-year-old high school drop-out and champion amateur race-car driver said he was frustrated that self-censorship by mainland publishers was often more stringent than the authorities themselves.

“I wish there was a law saying clearly what can be done and what can’t be. I wish we could lay all the issues on the table and discuss frankly about them.”

Han, famous for his witty, scathing critiques of China’s corrupt officials and social issues, has achieved phenomenal fame in the country’s tightly monitored cyberspace.

He has accumulated more than 300 million hits on his blog, making it the most popular in China — and probably the world.

A top-earning author with a dozen titles under his belt, Han was named by TIME magazine as among the world’s 100 most influential people, grouping him alongside US President Barack Obama and pop star Lady Gaga.

He said he had also recently rejected an invitation to promote a commercial product on his blog with the reward of 10,000 yuan (1,500 US dollars) for each word he writes — with no word limit.

“Some people are beneficiaries of a flawed judicial system. Some are beneficiaries of a chaotic society. I just happen to have benefited from telling the truth,” he recently told reporters at the Hong Kong Book Fair.

Han conceded that technological advances have played a vital role in his success.

“In the Internet era, once an article is posted online, there is nothing one can do to deny its existence,” Han said, referring to the fact that his readers always managed to copy contentious articles from his blog to their own sites — before they were taken down by China’s Internet police.

Before the launch of his popular literature-themed magazine “Party” this month, Han said he spent time and money consulting different publishers in the futile hope of preserving the articles in their original form.

“It is about making compromise all the time,” he said. “I still had to follow the rules because I wanted the magazine to be a legal publication.”

All 500,000 copies of the bi-monthly’s first issue, which included articles by other writers, sold out just four days after its release, government newspaper China Daily reported, smashing sales records.

For many, Han is the unofficial voice for China’s “Post 80s”, a generation born into the country’s economic boom who are typically regarded as spoilt as the single child in the family, apolitical, rebellious and status-obsessed.

Han shot to fame in 2000 after he published “The Triple Gate”, a novel based on his own experience as a school drop-out in Shanghai that mocked China’s rigid education system.

He has criticised China’s “underground Internet commentators” — hired by the government to skew public opinion by posting comments online favourable to the authorities.

The blogger also likes to ridicule officials’ conservative and outmoded approach to handling crises.

“Sometimes, the incident itself was not a big deal. But it was blown up by the government officials themselves,” he said.

After a man stabbed 32 people — mostly small children — at a kindergarten in eastern China in April, he wrote: “By controlling the media, prohibiting hospital visits, diverting attention, the (local) government managed to re-direct people’s anger towards the killer to the government itself.”

Despite his bravado, some critics have pointed out that Han has always been careful not to challenge the one-party rule of the Communist Party.

Han himself admits that he abides by the rigid — if unwritten — rules to ensure that his voice continues to be heard.

Asked about his views on the crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, he changed subject.

“I fell in love with this girl in the mainland a few days ago,” he said.

“She’s worried that if I said anything anti-government, I won’t be allowed back to China.”

Three Years On, Cyber Crime Law Stifling Debate – Critics

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Tim Parkinson

By Lynette Lee Corporal | The Asia Media Forum*| July 23, 2010

BANGKOK, Jul 23 (IPS) – Many netizens worldwide have long realised that the Internet is not completely without fetters, but those in Thailand say a three-year-old law is now practically choking Thai self-expression and right to information in cyberspace.

More to the point, Thai netizens, journalists and media advocates say that the country’s authorities have taken advantage of ambiguities in the Cyber Crime Act (CCA) to censor or close down altogether websites or forums that the government deems “offensive”.

“The problem with the cyber crime law is its lack of clarity, which leaves it wide open to misinterpretation,” Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of the yet-to-be-unblocked independent news website Prachatai (‘Free People’), told a discussion here this week to review and propose amendments to the law.

Already, reports of prosecution under the computer crime law have driven much political discussion underground. Others worry this is discouraging people from debating key issues in the public sphere, especially amid the political divisions in Thailand that led to the largest protests in decades by the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship and the military’s subsequent crackdown in May.

Already, “the authorities’ actions are driving the growth of underground forums and space,” adds Chiranuch.

The actions of Thailand’s online censors “will cause people to drop off from the discussion of issues”, agrees South-east Asia Press Alliance Executive Director Roby Alampay. “Only the truly determined and technologically savvy will continue to find ways to express their voices online,” he adds.

Critics say that the government has been on an intensive cybercrackdown in the last two years. The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says that in July 2009 alone, the information and communications technology (ICT) ministry, citing threats to national security, blocked more than 16,944 websites.

Internet freedom activists say that as of this year, the number has reached more than 50,000, adding that it is difficult to get a clear figure of exactly how many websites have been blocked.

Likewise, “it is difficult to say how many have been charged under the CCA.” said independent media lawyer Sinfah Tunsarawuth. “There are at least 10, but we don’t know if there are more as defendants don’t want to talk and would rather settle out of court. It’s also difficult to track down individual court cases.”

Thailand, a country of 68 million people, has 13.4 million Internet users, with 113 Internet service providers (ISPs) licensed as of July 2009.

Netizens say the CCA has enabled authorities to step up the online clampdown. Other regulations in place that affect the online community and media include the emergency decree that the government imposed in April and remains in effect in Bangkok and several provinces, and which allows it to shut websites deemed to detrimental to security.

Among the websites that have been blocked since April is Prachatai. Even before that, Chiranuch herself was charged with violating Section 15 of the computer crime act for postings made on Prachatai’s web board that were allegedly in breach of the lese majeste law.

CCA critics also cite the law’s Section 14 as being problematic. It covers offences such as the uploading of material deemed “likely to” threaten any person as well as national security or sow panic among the public, Sinfah’s report says.

“If anyone is seen as ‘likely to’ harm national security, it doesn’t have to happen but that person is already liable,” he told IPS recently. Against the backdrop of legal restrictions on expression, Thai Netizen Network committee member Sarinee Achavanuntakul says that there is a need to distinguish between threats to national security and the expression of opinion. “We should be able to define what constitutes dangerous content,” she says.

But one hindrance to this, says Thai Journalists Association president Prasong Lertratanawisut, is that implementing bodies such as the ICT can easily be “led by political agendas”.

Political analyst Suranan Vejjajiva adds that the Thai authorities’ notion of control is through the use of propaganda. “The bureaucratic system has so many laws, rules and regulations that give universal power to the person holding office,” he also says. “They think that control or shutting down websites, for instance, gives more security but, in fact, reflects insecurity.”

TNN’s Sarinee believes as well that the government does not really understand the nature of the Internet and that, unlike the more traditional forms of media, it simply is impossible to censor it.

At the same time, she worries that “unless you make it a very personal thing” and show people how censorship affects their own lives, they would not to care to react to the government’s current sweep through the Web.

Prachatai, however, seems to be waving a white flag, and is closing down its controversial web board end of July. Chiranuch, who says past comments on the board have led to the arrest of several people, explains, “We don’t want to mislead users that we can protect them online.”

“We’d rather shut down the web board than collect our users’ personal data,” she also says, referring to a provision in the law that directs Internet providers to collect and store online users’ personal information for 90 days.

Comments Suranan: “Sharing is the heart of the new Internet culture where everybody is a stakeholder. Unfortunately, the government and other organisations can’t seem to come to grips with this and are refusing to understand that the world has changed.”

*The Asia Media Forum (http://www.theasiamediaforum.org) is a space for journalists to share insights on issues related to the media and their profession. It is coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific.

Human rights defender held since mid-June on charge of “annoying others”

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Sergio

Reporters Sans Frontieres | July 22, 2010

Middle East & North Africa – Saudi Arabia

Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Sheikh Mekhlef bin Dahham al-Shammari, a writer, human rights activist and social reformer who was arrested on 15 June and who has yet to be taken before a judge.

His arrest is believed to have been prompted by his criticism of political and religious leaders, especially in articles posted on the Saudiyoon (www.saudiyoon.com)and Rasid (www.rasid.com) news websites. The main charge listed in his case file is the fanciful one of “annoying others.”

“This is far from being the first arbitrary detention in Saudi Arabia but this case borders on the ridiculous,” Reporters Without Borders said. “If they are holding Al-Shammari just for upsetting or annoying people, then a lot of Saudis are going to end up in prison.”

The press freedom organisation added: “His arrest is a blow to free speech and belies the Saudi government’s claims, to the United Nations in particular, that it is making progress on human rights. The international community must press for the release of Al-Shammari, a person committed to human values and entirely praiseworthy causes.”

Al-Shammari has been arrested several times in recent years, in part because of his defence of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority. This year, his articles criticising the conservative interpretations of Islam promoted by Saudi officials led to his being arrested on 15 May and then released on bail. His latest arrest took place on 15 June in Jubail. He was transferred to Damman prison at the start of this month.

Ibrahim Al Mugaiteeb, the founder and head of the Human Rights First Society, said that, prior to this arrest, Al-Shammari had given him a special power of attorney to defend him. “Mr. Al-Shammari’s arrest is illegal. The prosecutor-general’s office has no evidence against him. His detention is a flagrant violation of freedom of expression.”

Al-Shammari often writes about poverty and unemployment, accusing the government of ignoring these problems because it is obsessed with public morality and keeping men and women apart. He has also highlighted the government’s failure to promote tourism and its discrimination against the Shiite minority.

Although a Sunni, he was very critical of the influential Saudi preacher Mohammed al-Arifi for referring to one of Iran’s most respected Shiite clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, as an “obscene atheist.”

Twitter users facing 11-year jail terms for criticising banking system

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Sean Hobson

Reporters Sans Frontieres | July 12, 2010

Reporters Without Borders calls for the immediate release of two Venezuelan users of the social-networking service Twitter, a 41-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman, who were arrested on 8 July for criticising the Venezuelan banking system. They are facing the possibility of 9 to 11 years in prison under a 2001 banking law on charges of “disseminating false rumours” to “destabilise the banking system.”

The judicial authorities have said that charges could be brought against 15 other Internet users in the next few days for similar reasons.

“After initiating proceedings against the news and opinion website Noticiero Digital for alleged disinformation, the authorities are now targeting ordinary Internet users whose only crime is to express views on Twitter,” Reporters Without Borders said. “These utterly disproportionate measures confirm that the government’s strategy is to gain control of the Internet, a space that until now had been spared its censorship.”

The press freedom organisation added: “The authorities are treating Twitter users like criminals and challenging the view of the Internet as a space where freedom should prevail. President Chávez nonetheless maintains his right to affirm his presence and his opinions on the Internet, above all on his blog and his Twitter account.”

Luis Acosta Oxford (@leaoxford) posted the following message on his Twitter account on 30 June: “Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t say you weren’t warned… Pull out today… I’m telling you, there are just a few days left.”

The police seized the mobile phone from which the Tweet was allegedly sent, together with two external disk drives and USB flash drives belonging to the two suspects. They live in the southeastern state of Bolívar, 580 km from Caracas, and their Twitter accounts do not seem to have had a great deal of impact on Venezuelan Internet users.

More than 10 banks have been closed or placed under government control since November 2009. The investigations into the spreading of rumours and false information about the banking system began in March 2010, when the police began noticing a lot of online comments warning of an imminent “financial crash.”

The head of the Department of Forensic and Criminal Investigations said that investigators were initially trying to establish whether the two detainees and the 15 other suspects were in contact with a particular organisation that was trying to bring about a banking crash.

Former Vice-President José Vicente Rangel yesterday accused some Twitter users in Venezuela of spending all their time spreading rumours. Speaking on television on 13 March, President Chávez said: “The Internet cannot be a completely free space where anything is said and anything is done. No, each country must impose its own rules.”

A proposed organic law on telecommunications, information technology and postal services that has been submitted to parliament provides for the blocking of websites and the creation of a single point of entry for all Internet traffic, which would facilitate control and surveillance.

Lebanese Facebook Users Arrested for Defaming President

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Steven Damron

 By Sarah Hamdi | OpenNet Initiative | July 6, 2010

On June 28th, The Guardian, Menassat, L’Orient Le Jour, and the AFP reported that Lebanon arrested 3 individuals (Naim George Hanna, Antoine Youssef Ramia, Shebel Rajeh Qasab), and Prosecutor General Saeed Mirza issued an arrest warrant for a fourth (Ahmed Ali Shuman). They were all students in their early 20′s, and were placed under arrest for slander and defamation of President Michel Suleiman on Facebook. Currently, the first three have been released on bail of 100,000 L.L. each ($66.65 USD) and are expected to be tried later in Beirut with no news of the fourth suspect, according to NOW Lebanon.

Their posts are no longer available on Facebook (the AFP indicates that they were removed). No notice about who removed them is available – whether it was Facebook, an individual/the authors, or another institution is unknown. However, the Guardian reports that the comments, which were re-posted on President Suleiman’s official Facebook fan page included harmless gems like “You’re worth my foot,” “you’re like a snake; all you do is from under the table,” and “the king of racism and sectarianism.”

In an open letter to the President, blogger pinkfloyed rightfully expressed outrage that the government chose to waste resources on this, considering all the other domestic issues worth of governmental attention and action, such as widespread poverty and Israeli military presence in Lebanon. In protest, a petition has been circulating online, to Protect Free Speech in Lebanon, with up to 139 signatures as of July 6th.

However, this is not the first time that Lebanon has harassed a netizen for defaming the President. Threatened Voices reported that on March 15, Lebanese blogger and journalist Khodor Salameh was interrogated by Lebanese security forces and threatened with arrest “unless he changed his tone” regarding criticizing the president.

It is telling that these events occur in the wake of upcoming parliamentary voting on a Lebanese e-Transaction law. The law, which activists fought and succeeded in postponing voting on, would legitimize the surveillance of Internet users through regulation of ISPs, as well as limit their ability to communicate by preventing the use of VOIP services. Government monitoring of bloggers and other Internet users becomes especially concerning in light of these arrests.

While Lebanon is frequently considered liberal in terms of freedom of speech (see the Global Freedom of Speech Index) and contains no evidence of Internet filtering (ONI Country Report), these incidents are significant because they indicate the lack of transparency about the limits of Lebanese liberalism. There is apparently a ceiling that these individuals hit which is not explicitly legally defined, as The Guardian notes: “Since these insults were made online – where Lebanese law doesn’t yet reach – that ceiling is only as high as the president deems appropriate.” This sentiment was further reinforced by Justice Minister Najjar who defended the decision of the Prosecutor when he stated that “media freedom in Lebanon and any civilized country reaches its limits when the content is pure slander and aims at undermining the head of state.”

If the results of this case prove Najjar’s statement right, it might have dire consequences for Lebanese bloggers and other Internet users’ freedom of speech online. This is particularly true if the Lebanese e-Transaction bill gets voted and signed into law, legitimizing government surveillance of Lebanese internet users.

Authorities step up Internet restrictions, harassment of online journalists

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Novocortex

Reporters Sans Frontieres | July 6, 2010

Reporters Without Borders is concerned about the constant harassment of online journalists and Internet users. In the latest case, Natalia Radzina, the editor of the Charter’97 opposition website (www.charter97.org), was interrogated in Minsk on 1 July about a comment posted on the site. It was the fourth time she has been interrogated since March.

“The authorities are stepping up the tension by increasing the frequency of interrogations, confiscation of material and legislative initiatives that limit online free expression,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They are trying to reinforce their control over the Internet as they already have for other media.”

The press freedom organisation added: “The intimidation attempts, which have been mounting in the run-up to a presidential election due to be held in the coming months, must be brought to an end to permit the criticism and pluralistic debate that are necessary for any free election.”

The comment that prompted Radzina’s latest interrogation voiced support for Soviet-Afghan war veterans who refused the jubilee medals issued by President Alexander Lukashenko. The computers and equipment that were seized from the Charter ’97 office in March in connection with an earlier case have never been returned (http://en.rsf.org/belarus-journalists-emails-probed-charter-29-04-2010,37233.html).

Decree No. 60 “On measures for improving use of the national Internet network,” issued last February, meanwhile took effect on 1 July. It establishes extensive control over Internet content and access, and requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to register with the communication ministry and provide technical details about online information resources, networks and systems.

The decree also requires ISPs to identify all the devices (including computers and mobile phones) that are being used to connect to the Internet. The aim of this provision is clearly to allow the government to control online access.

At the same time, anyone going online in an Internet café or using a shared connection (for example, in an apartment building) now has to identify themselves, while a record of all online connections will have to be kept for a year. All these measures will inevitably discourage people from visiting independent and opposition websites.

The decree also creates an “analytic centre” attached to the president’s office that will be tasked with monitoring content before it is put online – clearly establishing censorship at the highest level of government.

Every request by this centre for a website’s closure must now be carried out by the ISP concerned within 24 Hours.

Regulations currently being drafted by the government and expected to be enacted on 1 September envisage a filtering system for controlling access to websites that are considered dangerous, including “extremist” sites and sites linked to pornography, violence and trafficking in arms, drugs or human beings. If banned by the communication ministry, such sites will be rendered inaccessible from state agencies, state companies and Internet cafés. ISPs could also render them inaccessible for other Internet users (at their request).

Vilejka.org, a news website based in the town of Vileyka, has been blocked as a result of a police investigation into comments posted on the site. Police arrested one of the site’s users, Mikalay Susla, on 1 July on suspicion of posting one of the insulting comments about the principal of the town’s high school. Susla told Reporters Without Borders he thought the site had been blocked because of criticism of local and national policies, and that the crackdown was linked with the fact that Decree No. 60 had just come into effect.

Nine members of the National Bolshevik Party (Nazbol) meanwhile staged an unauthorised demonstration on Freedom Square in Minsk on 23 June, waving placards and wearing T-shirts with the words “Internet Freedom.” They were all arrested and convicted of violating procedures for holding demonstrations. Leader Yawhen Kontush was fined 875,000 roubles (236 euros). The others were fined 175,000 roubles (47 euros) each.

Web blocks remain one year on for China’s Uighurs

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | Dimitry Perstin

By Marianne Barriaux   | AFP | July 5, 2010

URUMQI, China — For Ruzmammat, the Internet is a crucial way of keeping in touch with his Uighur friends in China’s Xinjiang region — a lifeline that was denied to him for 10 months following deadly ethnic riots.

Authorities cut off the web in Xinjiang in the aftermath of violence that erupted a year ago in the regional capital Urumqi between mainly Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese, leaving nearly 200 dead and 1,700 injured.

Access to dozens of websites, largely government-run or national web portals, was restored earlier this year, and most others came back on stream in May.

But three major portals used by Uighurs for news and discussion remain blocked — a reality which is hindering efforts by members of the Turkic-speaking minority to preserve their culture, experts say.

“If something big happens outside (Urumqi), that’s how we communicate,” said Ruzmammat, a 22-year-old web cafe employee in a mainly Uighur quarter of Urumqi, sitting at a computer as other men played games or chatted online.

“But we also use the sites for other stuff like finding jobs,” he said.

Authorities accused Uighurs inside and outside China of using the Internet to orchestrate the unrest last year and analysts say foreign Uighur-language websites remain inaccessible in the region as a result.

Such sites are “important for Uighurs wishing to be in contact with each other and with the outside world, and for the propagation of the Uighur language and culture,” said Michael Dillon, a Xinjiang expert based in Britain.

When the regional government announced the general restoration of Internet access in May, it warned that “anyone transmitting harmful information will be dealt with in accordance with the law”.

According to Ilham Tohti, an outspoken Uighur professor and blogger who lives in Beijing, many people who operated Uighur websites “have been thrown in prison or have disappeared” since the July 2009 unrest.

The Chinese government has further upped the stakes by requiring many website operators to register their names and claim responsibility for their content, creating a climate of fear, he told AFP in an interview in Beijing.

“Under this situation, many people involved in websites face great obstacles and a lot of pressure,” Tohti said.

He added that before the unrest in Urumqi, there had been a “lively” online discussion among Uighurs — deemed crucial amid tight restrictions on other publications such as magazines — but people were now scared to say much.

“With many websites closed, this has closed off our ability to debate, to exchange opinions,” he said.

China has long maintained an extensive nationwide system of Internet censorship, known as the “Great Firewall”, aimed at filtering out information deemed politically sensitive and harmful.

But the shutdown in Xinjiang went far beyond that. Paris-based media watchdog Reporters without Borders described it as the “longest ever case of government censorship of this kind”.

The government also cut text messaging services and international phone calls over fears of more unrest, isolating Xinjiang even further. These were only restored in January.

Despite this, people in the region still found ways to communicate within Xinjiang and with the outside world, according to Dru Gladney, an expert on Uighurs at Pomona College in California.

“They cut mobiles off for a while, but people used landlines and public phones, and they also smuggled out videos and photos on memory sticks,” he said.

“But it hurt the business people in the region and Han as well as Uighurs were very upset at being cut off because the Internet is so important for business.”

Tohti said Xinjiang’s 20 million people, nine million of whom are Uighurs, had been stripped of a “vital” tool of information for nearly a year.

“Today’s world is inseparable from the Internet. Whether it is entertainment, news, education, research, social contact or business, the Internet is indispensable,” he said.

Pakistan, Turkey Target Google, Other Sites

By Tsering

Flickr Creative Commons | The Wandering Angel

By Tom Wright, Marc Champion And Amir Efrati | The Wall Street Journal | June 26, 2010 

A move by Pakistan to begin monitoring for anti-Islamic content on major websites—including those run by Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.—is the latest sign that censorship looms as a threat to Internet companies in a number of countries.

The Pakistan announcement on Friday came a day after a communications minister in Turkey, which has blocked thousands of sites including Google’s YouTube, said the video site was “waging a battle against the Turkish Republic” and suggested that the situation could change if Google were to register and pay taxes.

Authorities in Pakistan on Friday said they would start monitoring major Internet search engines, including Google and Microsoft Corp.’s Bing.com, as well as the e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. The move follows an action last month against social-networking site Facebook Inc., which Pakistan blocked for several weeks after it hosted a page in which users could post pictures of the Prophet Muhammad. The portrayal of Muhammad is forbidden by Islam, and the ban was lifted when the site removed the page.

A YouTube spokeswoman said it was aware of the actions announced in Pakistan and said it will work to keep its services accessible there. “Google and YouTube are platforms for free expression, and we try to allow as much content as possible on our services and still ensure that we enforce our content policies,” she said.

She added that the company remains “disappointed” about the continuing ban on YouTube in Turkey “against a safe and lawful international service enjoyed by millions of people around the world.”

Regarding Pakistan’s decision, a Microsoft spokeswoman said, “Government decisions to restrict online content should respect the rights of individual users and be adopted through open, transparent and publicly accountable processes.” A spokeswoman for Yahoo said the company “was founded on the principle that access to information can improve people’s lives, and we are disappointed to learn about the monitoring and possible blocking of our sites in Pakistan.” Amazon declined to comment.

Google and other Internet companies have helped some Asian countries, such as India and China, enforce certain standards online by removing material that governments find objectionable or violate local laws. YouTube blocks access to videos in Thailand that might be seen to insult the king—which is against the law in that country—and Nazi imagery that is illegal in some parts of Europe.

Earlier this year Google stopped self-censoring its Internet search results in China after complaining it had been hit with a cyber attack originating from that country. China’s own Internet filters now censor Google’s searches.

A number of countries in the Islamic world, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, have banned Internet content in the past for being sacrilegious. But those countries have authoritarian governments that closely monitor the Internet and the media. In Pakistan, where Islamists have vied with secular-minded politicians since the country’s creation in 1947, the implementation of such bans is fraught with difficulties.

On Friday it remained unclear how the state-run Pakistan Telecommunication Authority would be able to monitor millions of links on the Internet to ensure blasphemous material wasn’t appearing on sites like Google and Yahoo.

In Turkey, Google has been the most prominent victim of a 2007 law that has resulted in the closure of thousands of websites, putting the government under pressure in recent weeks as newspapers and opposition parties have begun to cry foul over the restrictions being placed on ordinary web users.

In May 2008, a Turkish court shut down access to Google’s YouTube due to material posted on the site that was found to be insulting to the nation’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Related

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Earlier this year Turkey’s communications ministry extended the ban to other Google sites, a move that appeared to be triggered by a separate tax battle with the U.S. giant. As a result, Turks suddenly lost direct access to GoogleMaps and other sites, as well as to YouTube. However, many ordinary users have been able to circumvent the closures.

The opposition People’s Republican Party, usually a fierce defender of Ataturk’s honor, on Thursday attacked the government in parliament for creating what one parliament member called a “culture of censorship” in the country, including Internet censorship.

Some of Turkey’s top leaders have sought to distance themselves from the Internet closures. President Abdullah Gul earlier this month sent out a public message through his account on micro-blogging site Twitter.com, saying he “cannot approve of Turkey being in the category of countries that bans YouTube [and] prevents access to Google.”
Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com, Marc Champion at marc.champion@wsj.com and Amir Efrati at amir.efrati@wsj.com

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