May 21st, 2012
Pakistani authorities have
restored access to micro-blogging platform Twitter, after temporarily blocking it because of messages deemed “offensive to Islam”. The ban, which came into force on Sunday (20 May) shortly after Interior Minister Rehman Malik said there were no plans to block Twitter, seemed to be the result of a competition on Facebook to submit images of the Prophet Muhammad. The ban was lifted about eight hours after it was imposed, and the chairman of The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) Twitter was blocked after it
refused to remove inflammatory and blasphemous content.
April 30th, 2012
The
UK High Court has ruled that file-sharing website The Pirate Bay must be
blocked by internet service providers. The Swedish site, which provides links to download free music and video, which critics claim are are mostly pirated, will be blocked by Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media. BT requested “a few more weeks” to consider their position on blocking the site. The same group of ISP’s were asked by the British Phonographic Industry to voluntarily block access to the site in 2011, but they refused to do so, unless a court order was made.
April 27th, 2012
Access to the website of
Ethiopia’s leading weekly newspaper
has been blocked within the country. The website of privately-owned weekly,
The Reporter, has been inaccessible since 21 April, other than through a proxy server. Though the reason for the blocking is unclear, it has been speculated that the block is being carried out by the state-owned company Ethio-Telecom, the only ISP in the country. The site usually has 30,000 visitors per day.
April 19th, 2012
The European Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favour of a human rights resolution which calls for new rules to
monitor internet censorship under autocratic regimes yesterday. The report’s author Labour MEP Richard Howit recommended an export ban on the technology that can be used to censor or block websites and monitor mobile communications. The reports calls for a coherent European Union policy on the implications technology can have on human rights. The MEP’s report also recommended the
implementation of a “human rights tzar” in each of the 130 delegations of the union, who would be responsible for all issues relating to human rights.
February 13th, 2012
Internet censorship has
dramatically increased in
Iran over the last week. On 7 February, internet users in Iran began reporting an increase in the blocking and filtering of certain kinds of internet traffic in the country. Many users complained of not being able to access HTTPS websites, the secure and encrypted version of HTTP protocol. Many banks, Google services, Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft Hotmail use HTTPS to protect private data. Though there have been no official announcements regarding the changes, it is widely believed to be the first step towards a
Halal internet.
November 1st, 2011
As the London Conference on Cyberspace begins, Index on Censorship has joined leading media freedom groups and activists in calling on Foreign Secretary William Hague to reject censorship and surveillance techniques that undermine free expression.
Dear Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,
World leaders will today converge on London for the London Conference on Cyberspace.
The conference will take place in the shadow of revolutions that have laid bare the relationship between technology, citizens’ freedom and political power. This has created a unique opportunity for the UK government to show leadership in promoting the rights of citizens online.
However, the government’s record on freedom of expression and privacy is less than ideal. Britain’s desire to promote these ideals internationally are being hampered by domestic policy.
The government is currently considering greater controls over what legal material people are allowed to access on the Internet. This is clear from recent public support by the Prime Minister, and through Claire Perry MP’s ongoing inquiry, for plans to filter adult and other legal material on UK Internet connections by default. The new PREVENT counter-terrorism strategy contains similar proposals for the filtering of material that is legal but deemed undesirable. Earlier this year the Prime Minister suggested there should be more powers to block access to social media, a policy that drew praise from China and which the government swiftly backed away from. There are also plans for more pervasive powers to surveil and access people’s personal information online.
The government now has an historic opportunity to support technologies that promote rather than undermine people’s political and social empowerment.
We call for the UK government to seize this opportunity to reject censorship and surveillance that undermines people’s rights to express themselves, organise or communicate freely. That is the only way to both enshrine the rights of citizens in the UK and to support these principles internationally.
This government should be proud to stand up for freedom of expression and privacy off- and online. This conference should herald a new stage in which these principles are upheld in UK policy.
Yours sincerely,
Brett Soloman, Executive Director, Access
Dr Agnes Callamard, Executive Director, Article 19
Cory Doctorow, Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Jonathan Heawood, Director, English PEN
Evgeny Morozov, author, ‘The Net Delusion’
Andrew Puddephatt, Director, Global Partners
Heather Brooke, author, ‘The Revolution will be Digitised’
Jo Glanville, Editor, Index on Censorship
Tony Curzon Price, Editor-in-Chief, openDemocracy
Simon Davies, Director, Privacy International
Jim Killock, Executive Director, Open Rights Group
August 10th, 2011
A
Vietnamese court today
sentenced French-Vietnamese activist Pham Minh Hoang to three years in prison on subversion charges for “carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration.” Authorities say he posted several anti-government articles online, and had ties to Viet Tan, a pro-democracy group that is banned in Vietnam. He also faces three years of house arrest following the end of his prison term.
