Global Voices Advocacy » Sylwia Presley

Imprisonment of blogger and activist Andrzej Poczobut in Belarus

Sylwia Presley — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:29:20 +0000

Gazeta Wyborcza's dedicated website

On 6th of April Andrzej Poczobut, Polish correspondent of Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza based in Belarus and activist blogger respected by Belarusan community for his brave delivery of facts to mainstream media, has been arrested under two sections of Belarusan law – for insulting and slander of Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus.

Earlier on this year, on the 26th of January Poczobut has posted a video update explaining his two arrests conducted by KGB – first informal one – including hearing, verbal and physical insults and a second one initiated by home search and confiscation of bloggers's laptop followed by arrest, night in prison, court hearing and a trial with an advocate asked to represent the blogger. During that trial Poczobut's input was not taken into consideration, court made a note of witness accounts of two policemen instead. The court trial in January resulted in a fine.

On the 28th of March Poczobut has posted on his blog explanation of accusations in which he is referring to his 8 articles posted on Gazeta Wyborcza, one blog post on his personal blog and one blog post posted as a guest post on another blog as a source of president Lukashenko's claimed image damage. Those accusations resulted in his arrest on the 6th of April.

Since his arrest, Poczobut posted four blog posts – letters from prison – updating his readers on reality of his current situation, like in this short update:

One of the most pleasant experiences of my life in prison is a walk. Seven steps to one side and you stop at the wall, turn and seven steps in the other direction. It would seem that it can be pleasant, right? […] That means – you see the sky and there is fresh air. In prison, you start to appreciate these simple and seemingly public things.

After series of appeals Poczobut remains in prison and can be sentenced for up to four years in prison. Journalists of Gazeta Wyborcza are hosting a dedicated webpage for Poczobut counting the days of his imprisonment and containing their official appeal:

We demand that Mr. Poczobut be freed immediately and all charges against him dropped. We protest against the harassment and false accusations against a journalist who performed his duties in an honest manner.

Greenpeace vs. Nestle – on freedom of expression

Sylwia Presley — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:47:00 +0000

Last two weeks mark increased amount of discussions around recent Greenpeace campaign targeting Nestle for their usage of palm oil resulting in highly destructive impact on environment. Campaign started with a viral video uploaded to YouTube and hosted on the main site of the organization featuring office scene during which an employee is eating a bleeding KitKat bar referring to the effect of the brand on orangutans.

Have a break? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

In response to this criticism Nestle has successfully requested the video to be taken off YouTube. Reactions to both original viral as well as to the brand response moved to Nestle Facebook group, where admins made it clear that negative opinions would be deleted and reminded fans that usage of any creatively re-designed company logos is illegal. Block of e-mails sent to the organization was also mentioned.

Entire issue generated a lot of criticism about freedom of expression in general, but also towards Nestle as an organization, including comments from social media specialist suggesting appropriate actions – some of those in mainstream media, some on Nestle Facebook group.

In the meantime Greenpeace has become a case study of how to conduct a successful on-line campaign with the usage of relatively low budget tools, real time responsive strategies as well as creative ideas.

NESTLE KERFUFFLE on Prezi

Additionally last Friday their other on-line campaign, AirPlot resulted in success – UK court has stopped plans for further development of Heathrow Airport.

Poland: Discussions of TOR and Internet Filtering

Sylwia Presley — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:12:45 +0000

The end of 2009 in Poland was marked with the beginning of a public discussion of on-line privacy, the government's potential attempts to restrict access to websites and a growing awareness of TOR software supporting on-line anonymity.

On Nov. 6, Piotr Waglawski [PL], aka VaGla (recipient of the Internet Citizen of the Year [PL] award in 2001, the first person to be awarded for commitment to development of local Internet and its role in communication between citizens and the authorities), posted an article [PL] on his portal dedicated to law and Internet, mentioning Polish government's work on telecommunications law that included an article giving Internet providers the right to block websites with dangerous content (e.g., gambling – hence some refer to it as the ‘gambling law') and giving the police, special services as well as the government an ability to create black lists of websites.

Michal Trojnara, commenting on the post the very same day adds [PL] to the original thread:

Just a minute ago I saw a live press conference with the prime minister on TV, who stated that there are “technical possibilities” to stop illegal gambling on international servers. I understand we are following countries experienced in on-line censorship [link to Wikipedia article in Polish on Chinese Golden Shield Project].

On Nov. 19, Gazeta.pl, a Polish daily, posted an article [PL] in which a connection was drawn between TOR software's ability to provide web users with anonymity, paedophile activities on-line and helplessness of the police in tracking those criminal offenses. Comments to it appeared under a post on TechnoNews.pl, reacting to the accusations.

Gość 4 states [PL]:

Is the cost of our privacy too high? I think that tools like TOR should be publicly available.

Massad points out [PL]:

First we will add filters you are mentioning, and then we can add any other filters, so, for instance, a human rights activist from China will not be able to inform the West about what's going on there.

Also on Nov. 19, Radio TOK conducted an interview with Piotr Waglawski, which was later published on Vimeo [PL]. It features Piotr and another specialist, Krzysztof Młynarski, explaining what TOR is and discussing inconsistencies of the argument used by the police that allowing anonymity on the web causes increase in paedophile crimes, and thus the police find it impossible to solve those.

In response to this video posted also on Wykop [a Polish version of Digg], Glosnik mentions [PL]:

It's amazing how the topic of TOR started to appear in various media starting with this digg: http://www.wykop.pl/link/253302/czy-wiesz-ze-internet-ma-podwojne-dno-efekt-wczorajszych-poszukiwan

Wykop itself exposed TOR to people, and now it is accused of paedophilia.

Wykop became a venue where the public decided to express their protest [PL] against the accusations and propositions to restrict access to Internet.

Silencer starts it, saying [PL]:

Let's show our power to fight stupidity of the authorities. Let's initiate connecting knots!

Baniol explains [PL] why he joins the protest:

I am 17, so I myself could be a victim of a paedophile :( I am joining this action not to help people connect but because I do not like the way of fighting paedophilia by targeting innocent people…

wm84 does not agree [PL] though:

I DO NOT WISH that a bunch of anonymous teenagers claim themselves to be the Internet community. Mainly because for most of them Internet started when Wykop, demotivating sites and other services appeared – they serve nothing else than wasting of time. I will not support – even in theory – harm of any child.

On Dec. 15, another leading voice in this case, a specialist in on-line security, Paweł Wilk (who, back in May 2009, posted about the TOR project [PL] and has been its advocate since then), posted an article [PL] updating on the government's propositions dated from Nov. 13 to introduce the law allowing Internet providers gather personal data of web users (like, for instance, name and surname, ID number, address), creation of the so-called Registry of Banned Websites and Services. He also mentions laws which this proposal would break and human rights that the Polish citizens would be deprived of.

A governmental press release [PL] from Dec. 17 confirmed that the Registry of Banned Websites and Services would indeed be created, but that the police would not receive personal data from Internet providers.

Help‘s first reaction [PL] to this statement is:

Is there an organisation similar to EFF in Poland which deals with following of those cases? If not maybe it's time for one, otherwise they will make us look like fools and introduce an Orwellian vision.

Simianus home opposes [PL] it:

You behave like real criminals! Do you have something to hide? Everything is known about everyone because they have accounts on NK [Nasza-Klasa] and Śledzik and they describe there on-line everything they do, in their family and private life.

Later on, on Dec. 18, Pawel Wilk posted an insightful article [PL] focused more on the role of TOR software in general, including an interview with TOR's executive director, Andrew Lewman. Pawel Waglawski also commented on it in a post [PL], pointing out the lack of governmental transparency.

Gime agrees [PL] as to the process:

It is chaotic indeed, the idea behind it is unclear, the speed of work is surprisingly fast, a large amount of mistakes and ignorance on the way.

Arnold Buzdygan adds [PL]:

In a normal, democratic country similar ideas would not even enter the mind of the authorities.

On Dec. 22, the Observatory of Media Freedom in Poland posted the opinion of Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights [PL] on the topic:

Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights expresses its concern about the legislative work on the draft law from Dec. 7, 2009, amending the law on gambling and other acts, and earlier a bill from Nov. 17, 2009, on the same issue. The proposed solutions introduce a number of fundamental changes to the sphere of rights and freedoms of individuals, and, moreover, they raise, in our view, reasonable doubt about their constitutional nature.