[LINK] Report warns against too many 'Net rules

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
The report is available at
http://www.osce.org/item/25667.html?ch=918
</brd>

Report warns against too many 'Net rules
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Associated Press Writer
Fri Jul 27, 7:53 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070727/ap_on_hi_te/internet_restrictions

VIENNA, Austria - Kazakhstan and Georgia are among countries imposing 
excessive restrictions on how people use the Internet, a new report 
says, warning that regulations are having a chilling effect on freedom 
of expression.

"Governing the Internet," issued Thursday by the 56-nation Organization 
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, called the online policing "a 
bitter reminder of the ease with which some regimes — democracies and 
dictatorships alike — seek to suppress speech that they disapprove of, 
dislike, or simply fear."

"Speaking out has never been easier than on the Web. Yet at the same 
time we are witnessing the spread of Internet censorship," the report said.

Miklos Haraszti, who heads the OSCE's media freedom office, said about 
two dozen countries practice censorship, and others have adopted 
needlessly restrictive legislation and government policy.

Among those are Malaysia, where a government official said this week 
that laws would be drafted for bloggers and authorities would not 
hesitate to prosecute those deemed to have insulted Islam.

Haraszti cited separate research by the OpenNet Initiative, a 
trans-Atlantic group that tracks Internet filtering and surveillance, 
which pointed to questionable online restrictions in Belarus, China, 
Hong Kong, Sudan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and elsewhere.

The OSCE report says Kazakhstan's efforts to rein in Internet journalism 
in the name of national security is reminiscent of Soviet-era "spy 
mania," and it says Georgian law contains numerous provisions curbing 
freedom of expression online.

Web sites, blogs and personal pages all are subject to criminal as well 
as civil prosecution in Kazakhstan, and the country's information 
minister, Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, has vowed to purge Kazakh sites of 
"dirt" and "lies."

"Those who think it is impossible to control the Internet can continue 
living in a world of illusions," Yertysbayev told the Vremya newspaper 
in a recent interview.

On Thursday, in a speech at OSCE headquarters in Vienna, Yertysbayev 
insisted his country was committed to democracy and the creation of what 
he called an "e-government" that would expand Internet access and make 
"our information sphere more open and our media more free."

In the most publicized instance of a government crackdown, Kazakh 
authorities took control of .kz Internet domains in 2005. It then 
revoked a domain operated by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, creator 
of the movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit 
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

Baron Cohen since has relocated his satirical Web site, which Kazakhstan 
considered offensive.

The OSCE report warns that Kazakhstan's approach to the Internet has 
produced a hostile atmosphere where "any dissident individual, 
organization or an entire country could be named an 'enemy of the nation.'"

Georgia, the report says, has laws that contain "contradictory and 
ill-defined" provisions "which on certain occasions might give leverage 
for illegitimate limitation of freedom of expression on the Internet."

"It is important to support the view of the World Press Freedom 
Committee that 'governance' must not be allowed to become a code word 
for government regulation of Internet content," the report says.

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Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au