Sunday, Jul 29, 2007    Text size: 

The report, titled "Governing the Internet," called online regulation "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.

The report said about two dozen countries practice censorship, and others have adopted unnecessary restrictive legislation and government policy. The report was presented by Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE representative on freedom of the media.

Among the repressive states 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.

The report quoted research by the OpenNet Initiative 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." 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."

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

The Borat website has been relocated.

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

"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.

For more information, visit the OSCE website.