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INTERNET
ENEMIES
12 march 2009
Internet Freedom desk
Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne - 75002 Paris
Tél : (33) 1 44 83 84 84 - Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51
E-mail : internet@rsf.org
Web : www.rsf.org
The Internet represents freedom, but not every- But for now, at least 69 people are behind bars
where. Under the pretext of protecting morals, for having expressed themselves freely online.
national security, religion and ethnic minorities,
even the “spiritual cultural and scientific poten- Australia and South Korea: democracies
tial of the country”, many countries resort to fil- “under surveillance”.
tering the Web in order to block some content.
Governments have no hesitation in allowing The Australian parliament in January 2008 ex-
their citizens only partial connections. Use of the amined a draft law requiring service providers to
Internet can rest on a tacit agreement: Govern- systematically provide two connections per
ments do not make websites inaccessible in ex- household, one for adults and the other for chil-
change for self-discipline on the part of Internet dren, both of them submitted to strict, and
users. above all secret, filtering. This draft was put for-
ward against a background in which anti-terror
The 12 “Internet Enemies” presented in this re- legislation is already allowing serious inroads
port (Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, Cuba, into the confidentiality of private correspon-
Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Tunisia, Turk- dence. Since 2001, the law has allowed an
menistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam) have all agency independent of the government to inter-
transformed the network into an intranet, pre- cept all suspect email and to carry out inde-
venting Internet users from obtaining news seen pendent investigations, including in the absence
as “undesirable”. All of these countries mark of any prior judicial authorisation.
themselves out not just for their capacity to cen-
sor news and information online but also for South Korea, one of the world’s most connected
their almost systematic repression of Internet countries, also has recourse to some dispropor-
users. tionate measures to regulate the Net. A blogger
was arrested on 7 January 2009 for having af-
Ten governments which Reporters Without Bor- fected “financial exchanges in the markets” as
ders has placed under its own “surveillance”, well as the “credibility of the nation” because of
still alternate between censorship and harass- articles he posted on one of the country’s
ment of Internet users. biggest discussion forums. He is still being held
in detention.
Internet Ennemies
But is blocking of news online still effective?
Through experience and thanks to their techni- A participatory censorship
cal knowledge, Internet users have learned to
get round some censorship installed on the Web The most technically advanced repressive
by their governments. In countries where access regimes know it well: playing the online censor-
to news is prized, it is not unusual to find soft- ship card means taking the risk of coming up
ware to defeat online censorship installed on against experts determined to develop the tools
computers in cybercafés, and also managers to guarantee access to news despite everything.
willing to put them to use if need be. Internet ex- Most of the regions do not have the means to
perts belonging to some of the most recognised join an endless technological struggle.
institutions constantly create and fine-tune soft- So, in the face of the fad for social networking
ware versions so as to adapt them to the reality sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other online
of the virtual world and to ensure that news is exchange platforms like the Arabic-language
accessible to all. Maktoob and the Russian language LiveJournal,
censorship operates through a battle of com-
Even major Internet sector companies, who co- ments.
operate either willingly or unwillingly with cen-
sorship within the countries of the “Internet For example, in a bid to limit online criticism dur-
enemies”, agreed a compromise at the end of ing the Beijing Olympics in August 2008, the
2008. By signing the Global Network Initiative, government paid some Internet users to leave
the US firms Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft pub- pro-government comments on the spaces re-
licly said that they wanted to respect their cus- served for online discussion where debates
tomers' freedom of expression worldwide. How were being held. Called the “Five cents” – an
much they may in reality defy the demands of ironic reference to the money paid for non spon-
authorities in countries to which they provide taneous comments, they contributed to the ma-
services remains to be seen. But it will no longer nipulation of news and information. But there
be as easy for governments of these countries are other ways of manipulating online information.
to obtain confidential information about their cit-
izens.
2
During the Israeli offensive in Gaza in January “.co.il”. Since the conflict ended, Israelis have
2009, hackers, chiefly Moroccans, Lebanese, hit back. An army of bloggers have been bom-
Turks and Iranians launched hundreds of at- barding the Net with the views of the Jewish
tacks against Israeli websites, targeting nearly state.
Web 10,000 pages with the domain name
Internet Ennemies
3
Burma losing its total control of this space. There are
two service providers, MPT and Bagan Cy-
Domain name : .mm bertech. The first of these belongs to the state
Population : 47, 758,181 and the second is hosted by the services of the
Internet-users : 40,000 Prime Minister.
Population : 27,601,038
Internet-users : 6,200,000 Internet-users are officially banned from using
Average cost of one hour’s connection in a messaging services apart from those provided
cybercafé : 20 centimes (euro) by the government. However, computers in cy-
Average monthly salary : about 40 euros bercafés frequently boast proxies for getting
Number of private service providers : 0 round censorship and to allow use of Yahoo!,
Number of public service providers : 2 Gmail and Hotmail. Currently, 0.1% of Burmese
Number of imprisoned bloggers : 2 connect to the Internet inside the country. Gov-
ernment authorisation is required to get an In-
Burma has one of the lowest Internet pene- ternet connection at home.
tration rates in the world. However, its users
are among the most threatened. Going on Rules that thwart freedom of expression
line is itself seen as a dissident act.
The Internet is regulated by the law on television
Only 40,000 people connect to the Internet, and video and the Electronic Act, dating from
mostly in cybercafés in the cities. 1996, that bans the import, posses-
For most of the country, the band- sion and use of a modem without of-
width is barely higher than an indi- ficial permission, under threat of a
vidual ADSL connection in Europe. 15-year prison sentence for “damag-
Downloading a single text can take ing state security, national unity, cul-
an hour. With fewer than two users ture, the national economy and law
for 1,000 residents, Burma is prob- and order”.
ably one of the least connected
countries in the world. In addition, A total of 14 journalists and two blog-
service providers offer prohibitive prices for gers are currently in prison in Burma. The owner
Internet Ennemies
membership (an average of 25 euros a month). of two Rangoon cybercafés, Nay Phone Latt
(http://www.nayphonelatt.net/), aged 28, who
Despite all this, Internet access has expanded was arrested on 29 January 2008, is due to
since 2003 with the opening of the first cyber- leave prison in 2020. He was sentenced under
cafés in Rangoon. Today, there are more than the Electronic Act for possessing a film viewed
200 in the capital. Moreover, the Burmese al- as “subversive”. The comedian Zarganar was
phabet sits ill with the most recent software sentenced to 35 years in prison under the Elec-
adaptations and it is often necessary to under- tronic Act, after posting articles on the Internet
stand English to go online. Added to all this is criticising the authorities’ management of hu-
the fact that laws relating to electronic commu- manitarian aid donated by the international
nications and the dissemination of news online community following Cyclone Nargis. His blog
are among the most dissuasive in the world, ex- (http://zarganar-windoor.blogspot.com/) is one
posing Internet-users to very harsh prison sen- of Burma’s most popular websites in terms of
tences. In the light of the narrowness of the hits from within the country.
network and the absence of any private service
provider, the military regime has no difficulty in Since 2006, cybercafés have had to be ap-
imposing restrictions. proved as “public Internet access points”. This
obliges managers of cybercafés to carry out
Burma’s media landscape is monolithic: it is en- screen captures of each computer every five
tirely controlled by the state. The only independ- minutes. They must also be able to provide the
ent sources of news are exiled media and the identity card number of each user, along with
Burmese services of the BBC, Radio Free Asia, their telephone number and their address each
Voice of America and the Democratic Voice of time they connect, if the regime requires it.
Burma.
Since February 2008, the Censorship Bureau
The Internet was introduced in Burma in 1997, has ordered a score of newspapers to ensure
but access to the network by individuals was the front page of their printed edition is exactly
only permitted in 2000. The government feared
4
the same as that on their website. They can only land, were targets of cyber-attack in September
post online what has already appeared in the 2008, preventing them from putting out news.
paper version, under threat of closure of the Despite the creation of a mirror site (http://their-
website. These steps have been taken against rawaddy.blogspot.com), The Irrawaddy saw its
the weeklies Weekly Eleven (http://www.week- hits reduced by half in three months.
lyeleven.com/), 7 Days News
(http://www.planet.com.mm/news/), Myanmar The exiled media website the Democratic Voice
Times (http://www.myanmar.com/myanmar- of Burma, as well as Mizzima, devoted to news
times/), Flower News (http://www.myanmar- on Burma suffered the same type of attacks
visa.com/flowernews/index.htm), Yangon Times since August 2008. These were stepped up be-
(http://www.theyangontimes.com/), and the tween 15 and 22 September, during which time
monthlies Popular, Action Times, Snapshot, Yati, both sites were equally inaccessible outside the
Tharapu and Fashion Image. country.
No news must be sent abroad At the start of October 2008, the capital’s cyber-
cafés were inspected by soldiers who ques-
The harsh jail sentence against Zarganar was tioned clients about the sites they were looking
chiefly due to the fact that he had spoken to for- at as well as the people with whom they were in
eign media, particularly the BBC World Service, contact online. According to their owners, the
about delays on the part of the military authori- connections speeds were considerably re-
ties in providing assistance to the victims of cy- duced, making downloading photos and videos
clone Nargis. The regime takes good care to virtually impossible.
shut down any source of information when
Burma is at the centre of the news, as happened More information :
in September 2007, for the first since 1988,
when Buddhist monks withdrew their support http://www.dvb.no/ (Democratic Voice of
form the regime and demonstrated against the Burma): Burmese media based in Norway.
dictatorship of General Than Shwe. The author- http://www.bma-online.org/ (Burma media as-
ities then cracked down, isolating the country sociation): independent organisation founded by
from the international scene by making it impos- Burmese journalists and writers in January 2001
Internet Ennemies
sible for information to be sent abroad online. to defend freedom of expression in Burma,
member of a network of partner organisations
As the first anniversary of the “Saffron Revolu- of Reporters Without Borders.
tion” approached, four news websites based http://www.burmanet.org: Burmanet News
abroad were regularly targeted in denial-of- http://www.irrawaddy.org: website of exiled op-
service attacks. These attacks consist of simul- position magazine The Irrawaddy.
taneously sending thousands of requests to a http://jotman.blogspot.com/: news blog on the
server in order to block it. The magazine The Ir- country and international news.
rawaddy (http://www.irrawaddy.org), as well as h t t p : / / w w w. b l c - b u r m a . o rg / h t m l / m y a n -
the online daily The New Era (http://www.khit- mar%20law/lr_e_ml96_08.html : the 1996
pyaing.org), whose websites are hosted in Thai- law regulating the Burmese Internet.
5
China Times) is using unregulated sources of informa-
tion. We ask you therefore not to use articles
Domain name : .cn originating with this newspaper. Websites which
Population : 1,321,290 000 have reproduced them are asked to delete them
Internet users : 300,000,000 immediately. Please reply to this message”. This
Average cost of an hour’s connection in a cy- order was sent to websites on 8 May 2006 by
bercafé : about 1.50 euros Fan Tao, deputy director of the Internet news
Average monthly salary : about 170 euros management bureau in Beijing.
(People’s Bank of China)
Number of private access providers : figure The government filters news through the use of
not available key words. These “banned” words can some-
Number of public service providers : figure times be replaced by asterisks and controlled
not available by moderators before they are posted online.
Number of cyber-dissidents imprisoned : 49 For example, all the words associated with the
pro-democracy movement, bloodily suppressed
The Chinese government has the sorry dis- by the authorities, on Tiananmen Square in 1989
tinction of leading the world in repression of are prohibited on the network: “1989.6.4”, “stu-
the Internet. With the world’s largest number dent wave of 89”, “student movement of 89”,
of Internet users, its censorship mechanisms “unrest”, “riots”, “massacres”, “rebellion” and
are among the world’s most blatant. How- so on. Internet users tend to use signs such as
ever, the authorities are rarely caught nap- “ “, “ / “, “ \ “, between the words to avoid cen-
ping on the content of articles sorship, but websites have installed
posted online. new filters that can detect these
codes. Websites even pick up
The Beijing Olympics were the oc- homonyms and synonyms. There are
casion, under pressure from the today around 400-500 banned key
media, for websites to be un- words relating to the events of 4
blocked so that journalists could June 1989.
have access to news worldwide.
The information ministry launched a
Internet Ennemies
However, it was especially the
English versions of Wikipedia, YouTube and major filtering campaign on 5 January 2009, in a
Blogspot that were made accessible. The Chi- bid to counter pornography. The minister urged
nese versions of these sites remained blocked all Internet actors to redouble their vigilance on
and most foreign-based Chinese news websites content of websites to which they allowed ac-
are still inaccessible. cess. The authorities particularly asked hosts
and access providers to regulate online publica-
Nearly 40,000 employees of the state and the tions themselves, which the state enterprises
party monitor files circulating on the Internet. did. But among the blocked websites were the
Since it was introduced into the country in 1987, New York Times and the political blog portal Bul-
the authorities have controlled the information log (http://www.bullog.cn), because this one
available through their expertise on the Web. For “posts a huge amount of negative news in the
example, the largest blog platform used in the political field”, the information ministry said.
country is monitored by the information ministry.
Since all the blogs on this platform are hosted in A “Made in China” Internet that mistrusts all
China, the government can easily control them competition
if they consider their content to be contrary to
the Party’s principles. In 2008, nearly 3,000 Control exercised by the Chinese Communist
news websites were made inaccessible within Party is eased greatly by the fact that it is serv-
the country. ices provided by Chinese companies that attract
the use, ahead of Yahoo! and Google, the most-
The censorship system is highly organised. The used search engine is Baidu.cn, which makes
Information Bureau of the Council of State and up 60% of searches (20% for Google) and
the Publicity Department (formerly the Propa- scrupulously filters “subversive” content. On
ganda Department) are the main instruments of subjects such as the “Tiananmen massacre” or
censorship. They tirelessly send instructions to “Charter 08” the following message appears:
websites. One such example: “The newspaper “Some results are not displayed according to
Minzhu yu Fazhi Shibao (Democracy and Legal laws, rules and politics”.
6
The most used blog platform is Sina, which was secrets abroad”. And 2009 is a test year for the
the first to obtain a government licence to post circulation of news online. Two historic anniver-
news. It is subjected to a self-discipline pact im- saries are coming up this year: the 50th anniver-
posed by the Internet Society of China (ISC), af- sary of the uprising of the Tibetan people and
filiated to the Chinese ministry of industry and the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen revolt. A
information, in August 2007. The pact “encour- crackdown has already begun to prevent things
ages” registration of the identity of clients before getting out of hand. The renowned human rights
posting their articles and keeping their personal defender Liu Xiaobo was arrested on 8 Decem-
information. The judicial authorities effectively ber 2008 for posting an article online based on
have a monopoly on the closure of certain web- the 1977 Charter of Czechoslovak dissidents.
sites. More than 300 intellectuals and human rights
activists were the original signatories of “Charter
Far from easing the pressure, the government 08”, which calls for democratic reform and re-
has issued new regulations that came into force spect for basic freedoms. Liu Xiaobo is still
in January 2008, forcing websites to obtain ad- awaiting trial.
vance permission from the government.
Three subjects were widely followed and dis-
Foreign Internet sector companies are also cussed by Internet users in 2008 and 2009: the
being brought to heel. The Google search en- organisation of the Beijing Olympics in August
gine google.cn, has been censored since 2004. 2008, the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008 and
Yahoo! was pushed into denunciation during the the scandal of the contaminated milk sold by the
riots that shook Tibet in March 2008 and it Sanlu factory, which sickened 12,900 babies,
posted portraits of four Tibetan demonstrators two of whom died.
alongside an appeal for witnesses. Shortly af-
terwards, one of the demonstrators gave himself The Beijing Olympics in August 2008, focused
up and another was arrested after being de- international attention on China. Militants took
nounced. The same goes for the company advantage of the opportunity to repeat their de-
Skype which, following an agreement with Chi- mands. Hu Jia was one of these, calling for
nese firm TOM, allows the authorities to inter- democratic reform. He was arrested in Decem-
Internet Ennemies
cept its communications. ber 2007 and sentenced to three and a half
years in prison for “incitement to subversion of
Online information in defiance of the author- state power” on 3 April 2008. The Internet ac-
ities tivist used his blog to condemn repression of
human rights defenders by the Chinese regime.
According to the China Internet Network Infor-
mation Center (Cnnic), the symbolic bar of 300 Internet users criticised the distribution of aid
million Internet users was passed in January after the Sichuan earthquake and called for a
2009. One quarter of these have their own blog. national mobilisation. One of them, Huang Qi,
Despite “preventive” control of the flow of infor- has been held since 10 June 2008 in the
mation, a space for expression does exist for Sichuan capital of Chengdu for posting articles
Chinese Internet users. Individuals have on his website www.64tianwang.com condemn-
achieved prominence thanks to their online work ing the poor management of international aid by
as “citizen journalists”. The blogger Zhou the local authorities.
Shuguang, nicknamed Zola, has won the con-
fidence of his readers by covering social issues. The scandal of the contaminated milk at the
His website, which is not censored inside the Sanlu factory, broke on 14 September 2008.
country, has become a reference in China. The However, a journalist on the magazine Nanfang
blogger, who has become the spokesman for Zhoumo (Southern Weekly) turned out to have
the conditions of Chinese workers, is however had most of the information about it since July
watched by the local authorities who, for exam- 2008. If he had been authorised to reveal the in-
ple, banned him from going to Beijing during the formation as soon as it was known, the cata-
Olympics. He is also unable to leave the coun- strophic health consequences of this food
try. poisoning – nearly 13,000 children affected and
at least two deaths – could have been very
Currently, 49 cyber-dissidents and bloggers are much reduced. But for reasons connected with
behind bars, most of them for “revealing state China’s image, the information was officially cen-
7
-sored before and during the Olympic Games. http://boxun.us/news/publish/ (Boxun): news
The government sent the media written censor- website on China (English and Mandarin).
ship instructions, including Article 8 that said http://crd-net.org: website of Chinese Human
“any subject linked to food safety, such as min- Rights Defenders (English and Mandarin).
eral water being a source of cancer cannot be http://www.hrichina.org/: website of Human
published”. Rights in China (English).
http://www.xinhuanet.com : official Xinhua news
agency (English, Mandarin).
More information : http://sirc.blogspot.com : blog on the Internet in
Asia (English).
http://cmp.hku.hk/: website of the Study centre http://blog.sina.com.cn/xujinglei : blog of Chi-
for Journalism and Media at Hong Kong Univer- nese star Xu Jinglei, the most popular in the
sity (English). country (Mandarin).
Internet Ennemies
8
Cuba connection is three times cheaper than the interna-
tional network.
Domain name : .cu
Population : 11,200,000 Until May, the international network was re-
Internet users : 1,310,000 served for foreigners in Cuba, who could get ac-
Average cost of one hour’s connection in a cess to it from hotels to which Cubans were
cybercafé : 1.20 euro for the national network - denied access. The international network how-
4 euros for international. ever remains one of the most difficult to access,
Average monthly salary : 13 euros failing any means of getting round censorship.
Number of private access providers : 0 Search engines Yahoo! and Google are for ex-
Number of public access providers : 2 ample inaccessible because of the US embargo
Number of cyber-dissidents imprisoned : 0 on the island. If one types “google.fr”, one is
redirected to the pages of the official Cuban
Cuban Internet users can now connect to the newspaper (Granma) or of the state news
international network but at a crippling price. agency Prensa Latina. But the information avail-
The Raul Castro government’s promise in able on this network has also been selected by
2008 to put an end to “excessive prohibi- the Cuban government, which block access to
tions” has very far from been kept. websites such as the BBC, Le Monde, and
Nuevo Herald (Miami-based Spanish-language
Since May 2008, Cuban citizens have been al- daily).
lowed to use Internet connections in tourist ho-
tels. They can look at foreign websites that are Government administrative staff are among the
not filtered by the authorities. But, for the minis- very few privileged people whom the regime al-
ter of information science and lows to connect at no charge to the
communications, Boris Moreno, international network using access
“The use of the Internet [must codes they are provided with. Others
serve] to defend the Revolution have to pay from 6 to 12 dollars an
and the principles in which [Cuba] hour, which is a considerable sum for
has believed for years”. a Cuban citizen.
Internet Ennemies
The network is in fact closely
monitored by the Cuban Supervi- Profile of a blogger
sion and Control Agency which comes under
the information ministry. This body awards li- Despite the access problems, Cuba’s few blog-
cences, fixes prices and connection possibili- gers are very active, their posts relayed by the
ties. In addition, the island only has one Internet Cuban community in the United States, chiefly
service provider, ETEC SA, that offers one of the putting out news about the situation on the is-
world’s most restricted networks. Cybercafés land.
are few and far between.
Since Raul Castro took power on 24 February, it
The island should be connected to the network is no longer an offence to own a laptop com-
between now and 2010 thanks to a fibre optic puter or a mobile telephone. However the mar-
cable via Venezuela, to get round the embargo ket price is a deterrent, often equivalent to
imposed by the USA since 1962. Chinese com- several months’ salary. Some Cuban bloggers
pany Huawei has financed the connection for share access codes and computers to get
the west of the island at a level of 40% but these themselves heard but they know they are run-
works will not allow very significant web access. ning risks.
The island with two networks In fact, Cuban Internet users face up to 20 years
in prison if they post an article considered to be
The Cuban Internet is divided into two networks. “counter-revolutionary” on a foreign-hosted
The “national” network only allows access to website, and five years if they connect illegally
government websites and a .cu email address, to the international network. In one such case, in
carefully controlled by the authorities so that no 2007, journalist Oscar Sanchez Madan, corre-
“subversive” message gets on to it. This “col- spondent for Cubanet in Matanzas province,
lective” connection is provided free to universi- was sentenced to four years in prison “for ten-
ties and doctors for example. For others, a dency to social dangerousness”. Under this pro-
9
-vision of Cuban criminal law, any citizen, even Ortega y Gasset prize in the “digital journalism”
if he has committed no offence, is liable for im- category, cannot leave Cuba since the authori-
prisonment in the name of the threat he could ties refuse to give her a passport. The authori-
pose to society. Despite this, a score of citizens ties have also used their power of dissuasion to
regularly post blogs from Cuba, even if they are cancel a meeting she tried to organise between
inaccessible on the island. They are often not the island’s bloggers in December 2008. Her
their own administrators because the network is blog is one of the rare breaches in the informa-
too restricted and often too slow. tion control dam, and has led to her being ac-
cused of “illegal activity”.
Since 20 March 2008, the platform
Desdecuba.com (www.desdecuba.com), which More information :
includes an online magazine, Consenso, and six
blogs, has been inaccessible from public con- http://www.cubanet.org : website of an inde-
nection points, although it can be accessed pendent journalist in Cuba (English and Span-
from cybercafés and hotels. The few private ish).
connections used for professional reasons or in http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony:
secret, take at least 20 minutes to upload a wel- (Generacion Y): Yoani Sanchez’s blog in Havana
come page, making it impossible to edit com- (Spanish).
ments or to moderate them. http://www.granma.cu : website of official daily
Granma (French, English, Spanish).
Some dissident voices have been targeted by http://www.prensa-latina.cu : website of govern-
the authorities. The blogger Yoani Sanchez ment news agency (English, Spanish, Russian,
(www.desdecuba/generacionY), laureate of the Turkish, Italian, Portuguese).
Internet Ennemies
10Egypt sion. To connect to the wireless network, a cus-
tomer has to provide a mobile phone number
Domain name : .eg and some personal data such as identity card
Population : 81,713,517 numbers, address and so on, which gives rise
Internet users : 10,532,400 to concerns about freedom of speech.
Average cost of an hours connection in a cy-
bercafé : about 0.15 centimes (euro) The banner of the state of emergency law
Average monthly salary : about 40 euros
Number of private service providers : 208 Unlike its Saudi and Syrian neighbours, Egypt is
Number of public service providers : 1 a country in which freedom of speech does still
Number of imprisoned bloggers : 2 exist. An independent press has developed and
criticism is permitted.
The vitality of the Egyptian blogosphere on
the international scene is far from being an More than a space for expression, the Web has
advantage for the bloggers involved, who are become a space for action, particularly through
among the most hounded in the world. social networks, which little by little have started
taking on the role of trade unions, which were
Three bodies run the Egyptian Internet: The In- banned under the state of emergency law. In
formation and Decision Support Centre – which force since 1981, the emergency legislation
also advises the authorities in the socio-eco- banned trade unions from political activities. But
nomic and political field; The Supreme Council the most active Internet users call virtual rallies
of Universities – because the net- that can give rise to genuine political
work was initially developed to demands. One group, created on the
ease exchange of information in social networking site Facebook, and
the academic world - ;as well as boasting more than 65,000 mem-
Telecom Egypt, which owns one of bers, was used to channel protests
the country’s biggest service in April 2008. Calling on Egyptians to
providers, TEData. “stay home”, it contributed to a gen-
eral strike and one of the largest ex-
Internet Ennemies
There are more than 200 private pressions of unrest in several years.
service providers. Each public Internet access Since no law regulated this space, the interior
point can provide the user with a telephone ministry in 2002 set up a department responsi-
number to go online via a modem. Despite the ble for investigating online offences. As a result,
government’s efforts to make computers more security forces arrested around 100 bloggers in
affordable, the Internet penetration rate remains 2008 for “damaging national security” .
low at 12.9%. But ADSL, launched in 2004, is
attracting more and more users; there were One of the members of the 6 April Facebook
427,100 in December 2008, twice as many as in group, Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed spent two
2007. weeks in prison for being a member of this
group. Its creator, Ahmed Maher, a 27-year-old
Since the beginning of 2007, the government engineer, was detained and beaten for 12 hours
has stepped up its surveillance of the Web in the by police in Mahalla, north of Cairo, who wanted
name of the fight against terrorism. Officials to identify the rest of the group. Shortly after-
monitor information exchanged online and cy- wards, another blogger, Kareem El-Beheiri,
bercafés have to obtain a licence from the spent 73 days in custody in connection with ar-
telecommunications ministry under threat of clo- ticles posted on his blog
sure. Some cybercafé owners have said that (http://egyworkers.blogspot.com/), dealing with
they had been ordered to note and file all their workers’ rights and official corruption.
customers’ identity card numbers. Large num-
bers of people use these cybercafés that are Currently, two cyber-dissidents are behind bars
under surveillance because the charges are so because of the opinions they have posted on-
much lower than that of individual subscriptions, line. Dia’Eddin Gad, aged 22, was arrested at
sometimes shared between several users. The his home in Kattour, in Gharbiyah province, in
authorities have since last summer applied reg- the Nile delta on 6 February 2009. He started a
ulations to access to the WiFi network, which is blog in January 2009, “A voice in anger”
having a direct impact on freedom of expres- (http://soutgadeb.blogspot.com), on which he
11posted articles criticising the Egyptian govern- pression by the authorities against bloggers in
ment’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Arab world. He was the laureate in the
where he presented himself as “an Egyptian cyber-freedoms category of the 2007 Reporters
citizen who loves his country and wishes it long Without Borders – Fondation de France prize.
life along with its courageous people”. He is
being held in an unknown detention centre and More information :
the authorities have not provided any explana-
tion. http://www.idsc.gov.eg/ : site du Centre d’in-
formation et de décision (anglais et arabe).
On 22 February 2007, Abdel Kareem Nabil http://www.hrinfo.net : site de l’association
Suleiman, aka “Kareem Amer”, was sen- HRInfo, défenseur des droits de l’homme dans
tenced to three years in prison for “insulting the le monde arabe (anglais et arabe), membre du
president” and one year for “incitement to ha- réseau des organisations partenaires de Re-
tred of Islam”, because of his comments on an porters sans frontières.
Internet forum seen as overly critical of the gov- http://www.ise.org.eg : site de la « société
ernment. He used his blog to regularly con- égyptienne de l’Internet » (anglais et arabe).
demn abuses on the part of President Hosni http://misrdigital.blogspirit.com/ : blog de Wael
Mubarak’s government and the country’s high- Abbas (arabe principalement. Quelques articles
est religious authorities, in particular the Sunni en anglais).
university of al-Azhar, where he was studying http://www.karam903.blogspot.com : blog de
law. He has become a symbol of political re- Kareem Amer (arabe).
Internet Ennemies
12Iran Internet,” he added in an interview with the offi-
cial news agency Fars. In this way, “The Internet
Domain name : .ir will be made safe because anti-religious and im-
Population : 72,769,694 moral activities will be tried there”. The com-
Internet users : 23,000,000 mander of the “special forces for moral security”
Average cost of an hour’s connection in a cy- said on 8 February 2009 that “identifying
bercafé : 70 centimes (euro) banned websites and arresting Internet users
Average monthly salary : 200 to 300 euros that go on them is one of [its] responsibilities”. It
Number of private service providers : more was the first time that the police raised this sub-
than 50 ject.
Number of public service providers : 1
Number of imprisoned cyber-dissidents : 4 Crackdown on political bloggers increases in
run-up to presidential elections
Iran leads the way in the Middle East in re-
pression of the Internet. According to the The pro-government press considers the Inter-
Tehran prosecutor general’s adviser, the au- net to be “subversive”. The authorities in 2008,
thorities blocked five million websites in arrested or questioned 17 bloggers, seven more
2008. However the country has than in 2007. More than 38 news
the region’s most militant blog- websites were censored and in the
gers, four of whom are currently run-up to presidential elections, for-
in prison. eign news websites are also being
censored.
Internet penetration is above aver-
age in the region and in the run-up The Persian-language website of the
to presidential elections due on 12 German media Deutsche Welle
June, the authorities appear to be (www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,641,00.html)
stepping up their control. The main service has been inaccessible since 26 January, as has
providers rely on the state-run Iranian Telecom- the Persian-language site of Radio France Inter-
munications Company (ITC). Despite the exis- national (http://www.rfi.fr/actufa/pages/001/ac-
tence of private companies, the state remains cueil.asp) and the Arabic-language site of
Internet Ennemies
the main actor in the market and instructions al-Arabiya television
given by the Minister of Culture and Islamic Ori- (http://www.alarabiya.net/persian/). Reporters
entation, Mohammed Saffar Harandi, are quickly Without Borders’ tests carried out on 26 and 27
applied. January, found the blocking was affecting the
cities of Tehran, Qom, Ahvaz, Karaj, Tabriz,
The Iranian parliament’s justice commission on Bousher, Meched and Chiraz. Against this back-
3 November 2008, decided to set up a new fil- ground, Esmail Jafari, editor of the blog Rah
tering committee ratifying some articles in the Mardom (Voice of the People -
draft law on “Internet offences”. However, since http://www.poutin.blogfa.com), was sentenced
2003, the government has already had in place on 6 December to five months in prison for hav-
a commission dedicated to establishing a black- ing covered a demonstration in front of the city
list of websites seen as “illegal”, including prefecture by around 20 workers in Bushehr,
YouTube, Facebook and Orkut. Moreover, a south-west Iran, in protest at being sacked, in
draft law dating from 2 July 2008, is in the April. He was sentenced for “publicity against
process of being adopted, that punishes with the regime” and “revealing information abroad”.
the death penalty “the creation of blogs and
websites promoting corruption, prostitution and Since 24 January 2009, several news websites
apostasy”. criticising government policy or belonging to po-
tential opponents of the president, Mahmoud
A special prosecutor’s office makes decisions Ahmadinejad, have also been made inaccessi-
on censorship and is made up of a team of com- ble by various service providers. Farda News
puter specialists. Tehran’s Prosecutor General (www.fardanews.com) and Parsine (www.par-
of Tehran, Said Mortazavi, said that it was sine.com), both close to Tehran mayor, Mo-
planned that “two special inspectors will work hammed Baqer Qalibaf, a rival of Mahmoud
together with the security services”. “This pros- Ahmadinejad, have been closed down. Like-
ecutor’s office has already dismantled two wise, on 22 February two sites were blocked
groups working against the government on the that supported the candidacy of the reforming
ex-president Mohammad Khatami to the 12 June
13presidential elections. They were Yarinews, an Hosseinkhah and Nahid Keshavarz) were sen-
information portal for Khatami supporters and tenced to six months in prison for “publishing
the website Yaari, which collects messages of news against the regime”. The authorities’ ac-
support for the former president. cusations centre on their contributions to the
online newspaper Zanestan (The City of women
Repression not only affects the authors of criti- - http://herlandmag.net/) and Tagir Bary Barbary
cal comments about the outgoing president, (Change for equality - http://we-change.org/).
who is determined to protect his political image
ahead of 12 June, Journalist Mojtaba Lotfi was At the end of 2008, Tagir Bary Barbary suffered
arrested on 8 October for posting online re- its 18th incident of blocking in two years and
marks by the ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a http://www.feministschool.com its eighth. The
renowned opponent of the Supreme Guide of blog http://www.zhila.net, run by Jila Bani
the Islamic Revolution, as well as remarks by the Yaghoub, lawyer and director of
ayatollah Ali Khamenei, critical of a statement womeniran.com who regularly defends rights for
by President Ahmadinejad that Iran was the women in Iran, is also inaccessible. Blogger
“world’s freest country” (http://www.amontaz- Shahnaz Gholami, a member of the Association
eri.com/farsi/default.asp). He was sentenced on of Women Journalists (ARZ), who has been par-
29 November 2008 to four years in prison and ticularly involved in the women’s rights struggle,
five years banishment by a special cleric court in spent 69 days in custody. This editor of the blog
the city of Qom, in the central-north of the coun- Azar Zan (http://azarwomen.blogfa.com) was ar-
try. rested because the authorities considered that
“the articles were damaging to national security”
The blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who is often and that “the accused clearly said that she had
invited to speak about the state of the Internet at posted these articles on her weblog”.
international conferences, was arrested on 1st
November 2008. One of the reasons for his ar- Another sign of deteriorating freedom of expres-
rest was posting articles about key figures of the sion in Iran came on 21 December when the Cir-
Shiite faith on his blog (http://www.hoder.com). cle of Human Rights Defenders, providing free
According to his family, he is still being detained, legal aid to Iran’s journalists and human rights
while an investigation into his case is being held. activists, founded in Tehran in 2002 by lawyer
Internet Ennemies
and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi,
Women continue to be targeted for harass- was closed on the order of the authorities.
ment by the authorities
More information :
Crackdowns on Internet users and the Internet
are all the more significant since they are recog- http://www.advarnews.us/ : website of a stu-
nised internationally for their criticism of the poli- dent organisation on human rights in Iran (Farsi).
cies of President Ahmadinejad. http://www.entekhab.org/ : news website of the
conservative party (Farsi).
The Iranian women’s collective behind the cam- http://norooznews.ir/ : news website of the re-
paign, “One million signatures for the abolition formist party (Farsi).
of discriminatory laws against women”, http://www.farsnews.com/ : website of the offi-
launched in 2005, won the Simone de Beauvoir cial news agency (English and Farsi).
prize for the freedom of women on 9 January http://we-change.org/ : Tagir Bary Barbary -
2009, securing themselves a major role in this (Change to equality - Farsi and English): femi-
struggle. Posting the collective’s message on- nist newspaper to which Maryam Hosseinkhah
line ensured high visibility on the international contributes.
scene. But on the other side of the coin, it also http://irwomen.net/ : website of the Association
ensured unprecedented hounding by the au- of Iranian Women (Farsi).
thorities. Women bloggers who took part in this http://www.feministschool.com/ : Iranian femi-
campaign were summoned to a revolutionary nist website (Farsi).
tribunal at least three times in 2009. Five of them http://www.humanrights-ir.org : website of the
(Parvin Ardalan, Jelveh Javaheri, Maryam Circle of Human Rights Defenders (Farsi).
14North Korea Internet at the service of the regime’s propa-
ganda
Domain name : .kp
Population : 23,479,089 Only two websites are hosted under the domain
Internet users : not available name “.kp”: the KCC (kcce.kp), which keeps the
Average price of an hour’s connection in a cy- North Korean network under surveillance, and that
bercafé : 6 euros of the governmental portal http://www.naenara.kp.
Average monthly salary : 20 to 35 euros But government propaganda is not limited to these
Number of private service providers : 0 two sites. The official news agency, the Korean
Number if public service providers : 1 Central New Agency, kcna.co.jp, is supplied by
Number of imprisoned bloggers : 0 North Koreans producing propaganda from Japan.
The headlines of the articles reflect Kim-Jong il’s
North Korea is a model of control of news and schedule and are put out in English, Russian and
information in a country where all forms of Spanish. The same goes for the website Urimin-
communication are at the service of the regime. zokkiri.com, which is devoted to the glory of the
“Dear Leader” Kim Il-sung, praising North Korea’s
The North Korean Internet, which operates like an “Juche” (self reliance) ideology and reporting on in-
Intranet, has been available since 2000 and can augurations and presents received by Kim-Jong il.
provide email, a censored search engine, a
browser and a few news sites that have been care- There are a total of 30 websites of this kind and
fully selected by the government. The only avail- South Korean police have identified 43 pro-North
able Web pages have been approved by the Korean sites based abroad and which they say are
authorities and come from the hostile to South Korea. Constantly vigilant
data banks of the Democratic about his image, Kim Jong-il has in fact set
People’s Republic’s three up websites addressed particularly to
biggest libraries (The Grand Peo- South Koreans. His government on 26
ple’s Study House and the Kim Il- January 2008 even accused its southern
sung and Kim Chaek neighbour of violating its citizens’ right to
universities).The information information since sites reporting on Kim
Internet Ennemies
available is usually connected Jong-il’s activities were inaccessible.
with science and is only accessi-
ble to a few handpicked people like academics Even mobile phone use is regulated
and bureaucrats.
The regime launched its first mobile phone service
To get on the network, cybercafés owners must in November 2002 but soon banned citizens from
obtain permission from the official Korean Com- using it, confining this privilege to the military elite.
puter Center (KCC) which controls all online infor- The regime interrupted the service in 2004 so as to
mation and is the service provider. Cybercafés “protect North Koreans from all foreign news” fol-
allow use of chat rooms and access to a restricted lowing a train accident in Ryongchun on the border
network. Police made several raids on places offer- with China, that left 161 people dead, but also be-
ing more open access during the summer of 2007. cause of the growing black market in mobile
Since 2004, only foreigners and a few members of phones at the South Korean border. Since then,
the government have been able to use a non fil- Pyongyang has retaken control of the phone net-
tered Internet through a satellite link with servers work and on 1st February 2008, the government
based in Germany. signed an agreement with an Egyptian company
Orascom Telecom, allowing it to keep a grip on the
An agreement signed in December 2007 on greater network for 25 years, under KCC management.
co-operation between the two Koreas allowed ac- Since December 2008, it has cost almost the
cess from 7am and 10pm for South Korean em- equivalent of 400 euros to open an account – equal
ployees on the Kaesung industrial complex north to around ten month’s salary. The black market
of the demilitarised zone and at the tourist site at therefore still thrives and Chinese mobile phones
Mont Kumgang-san (Diamond Mountain), in the have reached the border, allowing North Korean In-
east of the country, until 2008. ternet users to go online … on the Chinese Web.
15More information ;
http://www.dprkorea.com/ : website promoting
http://www.dailynk.com/english/ : independent tourism.
North Korean daily produced by former North Ko- http://www.kcna.co.jp/ : KCNA, official govern-
rean journalists. ment news agency.
http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/ : Uriminzokkiri, http://nkay.blogsome.com : collaborative human
website dedicated to Kim Jong-il, created by the rights blog.
government.English version:http://www.urimin- http://www.linkglobal.org/ : Liberty in North
zokkiri.com/Newspaper/English/main.php). Korea, human rights organisation (English).
Internet Ennemies
16Saudi Arabia Easy export of censorship
Domain name : .sa The reach of the Saudi Internet is such that cen-
Population : 27,601,038 sorship affecting the kingdom sometimes spills
Internet-users : 6,200,000 over to other countries using the same networks
Average cost of one hour’s connection in a to get connected. Since the end of 2008, the
cybercafé : not available Saudi Communications Authority has ordered
Average salary : not available the blocking of some websites, because of their
Number of private service providers : 22 (of- content dealing with religious matters or morals,
ficial figure) making access to them impossible.
Number of public service providers : 1
Number of imprisoned bloggers : 0 As a result, the hosting and web design site
Onix.com has been inaccessible since Decem-
The Saudi authorities have not made official ber in Saudi Arabia and in the United Arab Emi-
their filtering of websites but they do crack rates, along with the blog of Eve, a Saudi
down on bloggers who challenge their woman who deals with the rights of women and
morality, whatever the nature of the de- religious affairs in the country. Onix.com hosts
mands. A highly dissuasive policy in a coun- blogs including that of Ali al-Omary, the first
try which does not have a criminal code and blind Arab blogger, whose site is highly popular
which arrests authors of “content that is of- in the region.
fensive or violates the principles
of the Islamic religion and social But the Saudis also protect their
norms”. “friends” in the region. In January
2008, a Syrian organisation got a site
In the first such move, Saudi au- on the Saudi network that was criti-
thorities in 2008 imprisoned the cising Syria shut down. This very
blogger Fouad al-Farhan for more popular website, Elaph, has however
than four months for posting on been accessible again in Saudi Ara-
his blog (http://www.alfarhan.org), bia since 19 February 2009, without
any explanation from the authorities. The wide-
Internet Ennemies
an article describing the “advantages” and “dis-
advantages” of being a Muslim. Nicknamed “the ranging website al-hora (http://al-hora.com/)
godfather”, Fouad al-Farhan is one of the king- has been inaccessible since 25 December 2007.
dom’s best known bloggers. His arrest was a It deals with all subjects, from politics to culture
message of intimidation to the blogosphere. and allows Internet users to post their own com-
Saudi authorities arrested the blogger Hamoud ments.
Ben Saleh on 13 January 2009 for having used
his website to describe his conversion to Chris- Online exchanges are considered to be a factor
tianity. His site, http://christforsaudi.blogspot.com, in immorality. Posting a comment on a website
was added to the list of more than 400,000 that deemed “immoral” by the authorities can lead
are officially blocked to “protect Saudi society”. to arrest. This is all the easier since the kingdom
does not have a written criminal code. Security
Net filtering was initially carried out by the Inter- services and courts base judgements on vague
net Service Unit, which comes under the De- and extremely broad notions of criminal law.
partment of Science and Technology at the King
Abdul Aziz University, but was entrusted in Social networks lead to immorality
March 2007 to a specialised commission linked
to the government. This commission stepped Because of this, websites that promote ex-
up filtering to combat terrorism, fraud, pornog- changes between bloggers, such as virtual so-
raphy, defamation and “violation of religious val- cial networking sites, MySpace and Tagged, are
ues”. Steps in this regard were taken at the start inaccessible in the kingdom. Certain sites allow-
of 2008 making legally responsible service ing users to get round online censorship are also
providers or distributors of computer equipment blocked, as is the Arabic version of the online
who failed to observe the rules. So, a cybercafé encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Censorship is very
owner is liable to a prison sentence for posting broad, going from websites of political organi-
on his premises of an article contrary to these sations to those of non-recognised Islamist
“religious values”. movements, and including any publication with
17anything to do with sexuality, so as to “protect vember 2008. He was accused of blasphemy
citizens from content that is offensive or violates over poems posted on his website
the principles of the Islamic religion and social (http://rushdie.mkatoobblog.com). Al-Ghadir
norms”. was interrogated for eight hours by police in
Dammam in the east of the country and was
In fact, Saudi women, who are not allowed to forced to promise not to write any more such
work in shops or to drive cars, have enthusias- poems. The blogger laid a complaint against the
tically taken to the Internet, making up two- CPVPV the next day.
thirds of users in 2000. The appearance of blogs
has allowed them to express themselves freely More information :
about their daily lives. That is why sites dealing
with the feminine condition are very widely fil- http://www.saudihr.org/ : human rights website
tered. For example, the site “The voice of in Saudi Arabia (English and Arabic).
women” (http://www.saudiwomen.net) has been http://www.gulfissues.net/ : news website on
blocked since 15 October 2008 by the Saudi Gulf countries (English).
Communications Authority, which considers it http://saudijeans.org/ : blog by a student in
to be contrary to official policy. But censorship Riyadh (English).
also bars any consultation of health advice http://arabictadwin.maktoobblog.com/ : web-
(breast cancer checks for example), because of site of the Saudi Union of bloggers (Arabic).
the use of key words. http://www.saudiblogs.org : aggregator of Saudi
blogs (English).
The blogger Hamoud Ben Saleh is not the only http://www.elaph.com : news website on the
victim of online religious censorship. The blog- Arab world (Arabic).
ger and poet Rushdie al-Ghadir was arrested http://www.menber-alhewar.com : website dis-
by the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue cussing human rights in Saudi Arabia (censored
and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) on 4 No- in the kingdom).
Internet Ennemies
18Syria entered everyday language. Before arresting an
Internet user, police officers say they are going
Domain name : .sy to “drink a coffee”, meaning to interrogate
Population : 19,747,586 someone about their online activities.
Internet users : 2,132,000
Average price of an hour’s connection in a At least five cyber-dissidents have been sen-
cybercafé : de 50 centimes (euro) tenced to prison terms of six months to four
Average monthly salary : about 140 euros in years since 2000. Some, like Mohammad Badi
the public sector Dak al Bab and Homam Hassan Haddad,
Number of private access providers : 4 have been harassed by the authorities for con-
Number of public access providers : 2 tributing to online publications “damaging state
Number of imprisoned bloggers : 1 prestige”, under Article 287 of the Syrian crimi-
nal code. The first of them was held in prison in
After China and Vietnam, the Syrian Arab Re- Adra (about 20 kilometres north-east of Damas-
public is one of the world’s most repressive cus) for six months, from 2 March to 17 Septem-
countries towards Internet users. Five cyber- ber 2008. The second, a sociology student at
dissidents are behind bars for having gone Damascus University, was arrested by the intel-
online. ligence services on 27 January 2009. Nothing
has been heard of him since. He previously
At the outset, the government allowed the mar- served three months in detention after being ar-
ket to develop, using rivalry among rested on 4 May 2008 because of his
access provider competitors to online activities. He is in trouble over
help Syrians to get online more contributions to several editions of
easily. Six operators have shared the magazine Boursates wa Aswak
the market since 2005, STE (The (Stock exchanges and markets) and
Ministry of Telecommunications), several online publications.
the state-owned Syrian Computer
Society (SCS) and four private ac- Others, such as Kareem Arabji, an
cess providers Aya, Cec-Sy, ZAD accountancy graduate from Damas-
and SyriaTech. It is no longer necessary to have cus University and Habib Saleh, a contributor
to the censored website Elaph.com
Internet Ennemies
a particular professional reason to get an Inter-
net connection, just a matter of producing an (http://www.elaph.com), have been held for
identity card or a passport. more than a year without trial.
Internet use continues to rise in Syria, even if Writer and poet Firas Saad was sentenced to
only 10% of the population use it. The price of four years in jail on 9 April 2008 for posting
connection has gone down and Internet cafés “false information” online. He is currently being
have flourished in poor neighbourhoods, often held in Saydnaya prison, north of the capital, ac-
connected through broadband. There are 40 cused of damaging “state integrity” and weak-
times more users now than in 2004, an upsurge ening “national feeling”. Saad was arrested in
that has prompted the authorities to control November 2006 for articles he posted on Syrian
news put out online. Surveillance and censor- websites, many of them banned within the
ship are commonplace on the Syrian Web. The country. In them, he criticised the “defeatism” of
Syrian Computer Society, the country’s leading the Syrian regime in the Lebanon war of July
access provider, can intercept emails and there- 2006 and called government officials as “thor-
fore monitor dissidents. oughly corrupt, keeping down rather than de-
fending Lebanon”.
However, under the Syrian constitution adopted
in 1973, “every citizen has the right to freely and Security before service
openly express opinions, orally, in writing or by
any other means of expression [...].The state Telecommunications minister, Amr Salem, de-
guarantees freedom of the press [...] under the creed on 25 July 2007 that website owners
law” (Article 38). should keep personal details of authors of arti-
cles and comments. The following month he
The Syrian “café” sent a circular to the same people telling them to
make public the names of authors and com-
Arrests linked to online activities are becoming mentators contributing to their sites, under
ever more frequent – a practice which has even threat of closure of their site. He added that
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