11 Aug 2011 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
Argentina‘s National Criminal Court has issued an interim order to block a website and blog used to expose corruption and ordered the National Communications Commission to instruct all internet service providers to temporarily block access to them. Using the motto “Let’s stop lies and hypocrisy”, leakymails.com sought to obtain and publish emails either from official or personal accounts, pictures, videos or any other document exposing misbehaviours or unethical actions of public figures. Dr Esteban José Rosa Alves, General Director of the Argentinean Ministry of National Security, denounced the websites to the judicial authorities, arguing that their content jeopardised national security and risked the privacy of a number of public functionaries.
10 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
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.
9 Aug 2011 | Digital Freedom, Uncategorized
The New Republic has published a piece online this week taking the US State Department to task for its seeming lack of urgency in doling out its internet freedom budget — and its choices over which tools that budget has so far been used to fund. Author Max Shulman argues that this reality is at odds with the image Hillary Clinton has portrayed to the world of the US as the benefactor of internet freedom fighters toiling away in repressive regimes. Writes Shulman:
“This is complicated, Clinton finds new ways to say with every speech, but we’re doing all the right things. Official U.S. policy unequivocally favors a “free and open Internet” and opposes repressive censorship regimes worldwide through the best available means.
“But, in reality, this isn’t exactly true. An examination of the State Department’s record of its 18-month-old Internet freedom agenda reveals significant failures, both in overall funding efforts and in the omission of vital tools from its approach to helping activists crack through the layers of censorship imposed by repressive regimes. Before democracy advocates abroad can truly take heart in Clinton’s words, the department needs to admit to past mistakes and adopt a truly comprehensive approach to addressing the issue.”
There has been bitter dispute among technologists and politicians in the US over the wisdom of relying too heavily on circumvention tools to open the internet, particularly in countries where dictators are prone to simply shutting the whole thing off. But Shulman argues that the State Department should be trying everything — “mesh networks and circumvention tools, training for activists and pressure on antidemocratic corporations” — even as it acknowledges no one strategy will solve the problem.
Read the full piece here.
5 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Catholic blogger Paulus Le Son was arrested in Hanoi yesterday during a major police operation targeting around 10 Catholics. Reports suggest Son’s arrest, his second this year, is linked to his attempts to cover court proceedings against cyber-dissident Cu Huy Ha Vu, who is currently appealing against his seven-year jail term for disseminating anti-government propaganda, having advocated a multi-party system. Vietnam was ranked 165th out of 178 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2010 press freedom index.
