Not to be bowed down by China's repression of free flow of information over the Internet, Google may be 99.9% sure -- as reported by the Financial Times three days ago -- that it will shut its Chinese operation. Yet, as the largest search engine company sets an example to the world for its fight against freedom of speech, defying even the largest Internet market, the fight for free access to information is being played out to an ever greater extent the world over.The emerging general trend, according to the latest "Enemies of The Internet" report released by Reporters Without Borders on March 12, is that a growing number of countries are attempting to tighten their control of the Net.
However, inventive netizens are also increasingly fighting the repression hard, and are using the power of the Internet to mobilize mutual solidarity. In authoritarian countries particularly, where the traditional media are state-controlled, the Internet is emerging as a powerful tool for information-sharing and an ever more important engine for protests.
A good example of this is the revolutionary website in Iran called, "The Change for Equality" www.we-change.org started by a feisty journalist, blogger and activist called Parvin Ardalan, and 19 other activist Iranian women. According to Parvin, during its initial days of the website, its founders were put under considerable censorship pressure by the Iranian authorities. The alleged charges were that the website was being used for publicly criticizing the regime, undermining its national security and tarnishing the image of the country.
Still, "The website managed to gather 1 million signatures-since its inception in 2006- for a petition calling for change of laws that discriminate against women. It has become a forum for this campaign, relaying news about the mobilization and the women's demands," says Ardalan.
Although "The Change for Equality" may not have been able to bring any radical changes in Iran just yet in terms of women liberalization, the initiative did get Reporters Without Borders' (RWB) first "Netizen Prize". RWB, which is a global organization working to ensure freedom of speech, initiated the award this year along with Google's support.
The prize is a recognition of an Internet user's notable contribution to the defense of online freedom of expression, says RWB.
Like in Iran, the cyberspace is also emerging as a powerful platform for people to denounce the corruption and repression in Russia and Turkey, the two new countries in RWB's latest list.
For instance, despite Kremlin's tight-fisted control on most of Russia's media outlets, the Internet has become a space in which people can denounce the corruption of Russian officials, found the report.
Marina Litvinovitch, one of the leaders of the Civic United Front, an opposition party, posted on her blog an article objecting to the impunity enjoyed by a civil servant's daughter in the Irkutsk region. The appeal that Marina Litvinovitch launched through her blog succeeded in forcing the Russian courts to address the corruption charges that Marina made.
"In Turkey taboo topics dealing with army, the dignity of the nation and the issues of minority," says Lucie Morillon, Head, RWB, new media desk. "Under this excuse thousands of websites have been blocked including You Tube. Bloggers who dare speaking freely about these issues face traditional reprisals."
Yet, the blogosphere there has protested and managed to remove the blocking of YouTube, as well as launch mobilization campaigns against Tukey's legislation-backed censorship.
RWB has noted that taken aback by the proliferation of new technologies and even more by the emergence of a new form of public debate through the Web 2.0, authoritarian countries that control the traditional media, have started targeting Netizens with unprecedented vengeance.
"In 2009 some 60 countries were confronted with some form of censorship which is twice more than 2008. A record number of netizens are in jail; 120 as of today which is the highest figure since the creation of Internet," says Morillon.
The year 2009 also saw China, Vietnam and Iran acquiring the notoriety for being the world's largest prison for netizens, with China accounting for 72 detainees and launching a renewed wave of brutal attacks on websites in recent months.
Among the countries "under surveillance" are several democracies: Australia, because of the upcoming implementation of a highly developed Internet filtering system, and South Korea, where draconian laws are creating too many specific restrictions on Web users by challenging their anonymity and promoting self censorship.
Other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Belarus and Thailand are also maintaining their "under surveillance" status, but will need to make more progress to avoid getting transferred into the next "Enemies of the Internet" list. Thailand, because of abuses related to the crime of "lèse-majesté"; the Emirates, because they have bolstered their filtering system; Belarus because its president has just signed a liberticidal order that will regulate the Net, and which will enter into force this summer - just a few months before the elections.
"The World Wide Web is being progressively devoured by the implementation of national Intranets whose content is approved by the authorities," said the RWB report. [To many governments] "It does not matter if more and more Internet users are going to become victims of a digital segregation. Web 2.0 is colliding with Control 2.0."
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