Banners from Egyptian Facebook groups calling for the May 4 Strike.

After little less than a month following the April 6 strike in support of the textile workers in Mahalla City, during which a number of prominent Egyptian bloggers and internet activists were arrested, preparations for the next round of a planned general strike to mark the 80th birthday of President Hosni Mubarak, on May 4, 2008, are currently spreading all over the blogosphere and the Internet. And like the preparation for the April 6 strike, the internet has a vital role to play in mobilizing for the upcoming protest. SMS, email, blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter: almost all of these outlets are used by Egyptian Internet activists in their campaign the May 4 event. We’ve even seen a Facebookist Movement to Overthrow Mubarak being created. Another group entitled “We don’t want Muslim Brothers” is calling for the strike but without participation of the Muslim Brotherhood, who recently decided to join May 4 protest.

Logo of the Egyptian Facebook group “Facebookist Movement to Overthrow Mubarak“

This approach of politicising the internet is not taking place without concerns being raised not only by pro-government and state-run newspapers (who recently waged a campaign against web 2.0 services like Youtube, Blogger and Facebook used by online activists) but even by opponents of Mubarak’s regime and outspoken bloggers. And while the Al-Gomhuriya daily called for a “boycott [of] Youtube and Facebook websites” and the weekly Rose El-Youssef portrayed the former website as “a secret room aimed at running Egypt”, blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy, an outspoken Egyptian blogger, wrote, in a blog post titled “I do NOT endorse the May 4th General Strike Call” criticizing what he described as a call “coming from the cyberspace by bloggers, “Facebook activists” and the Islamist-leaning Labor Party whose leaders have declared themselves more or less as some “provisional govt” in cyber-exile”, that:

We, the Egyptian bloggers, have always prided ourselves on the fact that we have one foot on the ground and the other in the cyberspace… But this time, it seems some have thrown both their feet as well as brains in the cyberspace and are living some virtual reality, mistakenly believing (helped by the media sensationalist coverage of the “facebook activism“) that they are the ones behind the events in Mahalla…

Blogger and activist Nora Younis was kind enough to agree to this interview over email. Nora shares some of her ideas with us about the role of Internet in Egypt as a platform for political activism.

Sami Ben Gharbia: What was the role of internet in mobilizing Egyptian citizens to participate in the April 6 strike and do you believe that the kind of Facebook Group, with its 71,200 members, has an effect on the street?

Nora Younis: Internet was the main tool in mobilizing for the 6 April strike. It’s true a tiny fringe of Egyptians have access to Facebook but the 70,000+ members of the group acted as strike advocates in the society and took the debate from PC screens to taxis, workplaces, dinner tables and breadlines. This forced the topic on the independent main stream media. The second tool in mobilizing for the strike was SMS. People I have known for years with no relation to politics or public participation were circulating messages advocating the strike. The word “strike” has never been uttered and repeated that much in Egypt during my lifetime. However, we should not forget that what gave April 6 its weight was the labor movement uprising and their struggle for a dignified minimum wage. Internet alone, without the popular base, wouldn’t have led to the successful strike we witnessed April 6.

Sami: we’ve seen an anti-strike Facebook group formed to counter the pro-strike group and it seems that the political battle is taking place on blogs and on social networking websites. How do you describe this new development and do you believe that the Egyptian government or the ruling party is behind the aforementioned group?

Nora: Young members of the ruling party have initiated blogs and Facebook groups to polish the regime’s image and counter the call for dissent. Such pages are probably encouraged by party officials, because when it comes to content they lack the passion. Furthermore, they remain unable to attract members and visitors.

Sami: It seems that the Egyptian regime is trying to calm down the situation. During the last week many of the previously arrested activist and bloggers have been released such as Khaled Hamza Salam the editor-in chief of Ikhwanweb, and blogger Mohamed Sharkawy and Esraa Abdul Fattah. How do you assess the situation in Egypt at this stage?

Nora: The Egyptian regime took preemptive measures to abort the April 6 strike by arresting activists early morning from their homes, and taping their calls days before. After the day was over and with the rising riots in Mahalla measures were taken to contain and calm the situation, as a way to weaken the planned May 4 strike. A government delegation headed to Mahalla, met some 2000 textile workers, and promised bonuses and privileges. Government statements have alienated Mahalla workers from the riots. Popular bloggers-activists have been released. All seems to be in attempt to calm the situation before May 4 - the president’s 80th birthday.

Sami: The use of web tools has caused the arrest of some of those activists, but it also helped release the American student James Karl Buck who was arrested while photographing the 6 April demonstration. His Twittered message ‘ARRESTED‘ through his cell phone alerted the world about his arrest. Who do you believe is going to win this new kind of battle of information?

Nora: On April 5 the number of my Twitter update followers was 90. On April 6 it was 130, and today it is 180. Only because I was Twittering strike and detainees updates. James Buck gained wide support through his Twitter SMS. More people are joining the blogsphere, Facebook, and Twitter by the hour. I don’t think this could ever be reversed. There is a techie, passionate, frustrated generation now on the playground….and one could only expect more to come. In few years time there will be no need for registration of political parties. Like-minded people will organise and will be heard.

The proposal will now pass to the European Council. If adopted as a European Union (EU) law, the proposal could have an impact on future trade negotiations between the EU and governments engaged in Internet censorship. “As the adopted amendment on treating internet censorship as a trade barrier is currently only the wish of the Parliament it is not yet part of EU legislation. We will nonetheless keep on pressuring the European Commission and the Council to formally adopt such a proposal in EU legislation,” Jethro van Hardeveld, the political assistant to Jules Maaten, said in an email.

On November 7th, 2007, a public hearing on “Censorship & cyber-dissidents. Freedom on the internet in authoritarian states” was organized by Jules Maaten and two other MEPs from the Alliance for Liberals And Democrats for Europe (ALDE Group) in Brussels. The hearing included voices from cyber-dissidents from Tunisia and China, Reporters sans frontières (RSF), and the Dutch ISP XS4all, on “the increasing grip of governments in repressive states on the content of the Internet.”

The hearing also called for a European version of the Global Online Freedom Act (PDF) in the United States: “The EU will now have to make supporting journalists and cyber dissidents a priority. Free speech must remain the basis of the Internet. Europe should follow the American example where legislators are working on a Global Online Freedom Act. We urge the European Commission to follow this example and come up with a European version of this Act,” Jules Maaten declared.

In a recent parliamentary question on February 21, 2008, Jules Maaten asked whether the Commission is, “willing to invest 20 million euros in technologies able to develop and distribute anti-censorship tools and services which could help Internet users breach electronic firewalls set up by China, Iran and other closed societies?”

I sent some questions for an interview to MEP Jules Maaten which were answered by his political assistant Jethro van Hardeveld:

Sami: Can you give us a brief background about this Internet anti-censorship proposal?

Jethro van Hardeveld: Since 2006 our office has been active on the issue of internet censorship. We started working on internet censorship with the resolution and debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2006 on ‘freedom of expression on the internet’. The motivation for working on the issue of online censorship is that free speech must remain the basis of the Internet and that human rights should also be protected online.

Sami: Why this focus on the “great firewall” of China? Does China represent the primary target of this initiative or does it also include all other countries engaged in online censorship - even those commonly described by the EU as “moderate Arab regimes” such as Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, etc.?

Jethro van Hardeveld: The proposal is not focussed at any specific country. It calls on the European Commission to deal with censorship in third countries through it´s external trade policy. It is in no way solemnly directed at China. In a press statement (also attached) from Jules Maaten however we did mention the ‘Great Firewall of China’ as it it is a concrete example and one of the most well known cases of censorship.

Sami: The European Union’s association agreement with countries like Tunisia explicitly requires them to observe human rights and political freedom, however, the EU did not establish a well-functioning mechanism to address continuing human rights abuses by those governments, so how you will deal with the online censorship? Are we going to see the EU boycotting products or imposing sanctions?

Jethro van Hardeveld: We are calling for the EU to adopt a European version of the American Global Online freedom Act. This EU legislation should cover and deal with online censorship by European internet companies in third countries. This legislation should also contain provisions obliging European internet companies to place their servers in non authoritarian/western states, in order to guarantee that will we not get another ‘Shi Tao’ case (the arrests of cyber dissidents ). Furthermore, the European Commission more or the less admitted in an answer to written questions by Jules Maaten that the self regulation in the European internet industry has failed. The European Commission answer: …”the Commission welcomes this clear and unequivocal statement and calls for the industry to work in close cooperation with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on a code of conduct to prevent and counteract cyber repression. The Commission regrets that, so far, no progress has been made on this issue.”…

The goals of the “Fouad’s Week” event, as outlined on the blog campaign, are to:

1- Let Fouad rest assured that he WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN, this is the only thing he asked for before his detention.

2- Send a message to those who detained him: “Violating one’s right to speak peacefully and freely, will only support his message, and give it a burst of momentum”.

From their side, human rights organisations expressed concern and called for the release of Fouad Alfarhan. And while Reporters Without Borders condemned the government’s silence on the matter, Amnesty International has expressed fears that he is being tortured. “He is still being held, without charges and without access to a lawyer, a doctor or his wife. For someone to be held in secrecy like this, it is likely he is being ill-treated, interrogated or tortured. Why else would he be held in secrecy?” Lamri Chirouf, a researcher at Amnesty International, told ArabianBusiness.com.

In the meantime, Hands Across the Middle East Alliance (HAMSA) , a non-profit organization that works to connect activist efforts in America and the Middle East, organized a vigil on Saturday 9 February in front of the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C. to draw attention to the Fouad’s case. The rally marked the 60th day of the blogger’s imprisonment. The HAMSA initiative has also launched an online letter-writing campaign addressed to Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal. So far, 1330 people have sent letters.

Image from the C.R.I.M.E. Report a bi-weekly e-newsletter published by the HAMSA initiative.

I spoke with Nasser Weddady, a Mauritanian activist who directs HAMSA’s outreach efforts, about this rally and the effectiveness of mixing offline an online activism:

Sami: Last Saturday Hands Across the Middle East Alliance (HAMSA) organized a vigil in front of the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., why did you felt the need to take to the streets and demonstrate?

Nasser: The issue for us is why we didn’t do it sooner. This rally happened two months after Fouad was arrested. Activism is not only online, it is also on the ground. Here in the US, we have the freedom to organize. In fact, the Saudi embassy security minder tried to intimidate us thinking that he could simply make us go away because his government does not like a protest in front of its embassy. There are a lot of people here who are very concerned about Fouad and want to do more than writing a letter. Besides, I was initially scheduled to come Washington to give a talk about Fouad’s case to Congress so we decided that we should have both events.

Sami:Did you get any reaction from the Saudi embassy?

Nasser: The Saudi embassy security tried to intimidate us at first. They insisted on seeing some sort of permission to be on public grounds — no such thing is required. However, we had gone the extra mile by having filed for a permit to run a demonstration. A totally superficial formality. Then they called for the Capitol Police to monitor the situation. The Police officers were visibly annoyed by having to come keep an eye on a protest. Meanwhile, a Saudi individual of some capacity in the embassy was monitoring the scene and calling back and forth on his cell phone. He then asked through one of the guards to have the name of the organizers and that of the person the protest was done for. All in all, the Saudi staff’s behavior just confirmed the world’s impression of them: intolerant and muzzling.

Sami: We’ve seen dozen of activists rallies in front of Egyptian embassies around the world calling for the release of the detained blogger kareem Amer without any success. How optimistic are you about this kind of actions and why has nothing changed?

Nasser: Grass roots protests typically don’t generate results immediately. It took the US civil rights movement YEARS of grass roots protest to end segregation. The campaign for the Burmese dissident Ang Su Kyi has been going on for a decade. It would be strange to think that US activists in the 50’s and 60’s or the Burmese monks who took to the streets last year are wasting their time. The protests are a key component of a larger campaign. They will not necessarily per se get an activist released, but are rather an element of multi-faceted struggle. Every time a protest happens a report gets sent back by these diplomats to their governments letting them know that these dissidents are not forgotten. It is also a moral statement that we will use the freedom we have here to demonstrate and will exercise it to support dissidents under fire.

Sami: Free Kareem and Free Fouad campaigns are very successful in attracting the attention of the global blogosphere and the mainstream media, though, they didn’t achieve their goal of releasing booth detained bloggers, how can you explain that? Do you believe there is a correlation between a successful media campaign and a failed mission when it comes to the Middle East, a region that is very sensitive to foreign pressures?

Nasser: The decision-making process about handling dissidents is very complex and varies from case to case. the question for activists is not to outguess the dictators. The challenge is to stand up for what is right and take action. A media campaign alone will not necessarily get someone out of jail. It is, however, a vital component of a successful campaign. Harry Truman had an expression: “Sunshine is the best disinfectant”. Generally the best and most effective step to solve a problem is to acknowledge it and spot-light it instead of remaining silent. We are optimistic that Kareem and Fouad and the other bloggers we never hear about and who are behind bars will be released-thanks to grass roots protests, media coverage, diplomatic interventions and letters from thousands around the world who care. What HAMSA is strategically aiming to achieve is fusing online and offline activism. We want to create air cover for dissidents. Ultimately what we need is for lots of people to join these campaigns to succeed. Next time a free Fouad rally happens a thousand people should be there.

Bylaws and Founding Declaration of the China Netizen Party

Preface

1. Preface to the Nature and Objectives of the China Netizen Party
2. The Four Basic Principles of the China Netizen Party
3. The Three Major Tasks of the China Netizen Party
4. Member Registration, Establishment of Party Chapters, and Party Fees and Assets of the China Netizen Party
5. Daily Study and Work for Members of the China Netizen Party
6. Oath for Members of the China Netizen Party

2007 was a year of victory for Chinese netizens, as one-by-one they laid bare and denounced such incidents as the “South China Tiger” to “Ouyang’s Crater” and other which deceived both the Chinese People and the world. This clearly illustrates that in the Internet Age, obscurantist policy no longer has its desired effect on The Netizen. The Chinese Netizens hereby rise up! We are determined to form the Chinese Netizen Party to serve not only as a symbol of the complete abandonment of fanaticism and blind assent, but also as a sign that China has entered the Internet Age and a revolutionary milestone in public opinion within Chinese society, that we have now risen.

1. Preface to the Nature and Objectives of the China Netizen Party:
1. The China Netizen Party both is and isn’t a Party;
2. The China Netizen Party bears the characteristics of humanity only and a political party not at all;
3. The China Netizen Party is of unity and mutual love only and class struggle not at all;
4. The China Netizen Party is of lawful operations only and forced or sly profiteering not at all;
5. The China Netizen Party is of justice and conscience only and violence and deceit not at all;
6. The China Netizen Party swears to take all deceit, forgery and revisionism as its enemy;
7. The China Netizen Party swears hatred at all deletion of posts, censorship and other such forms of violence;
8. The China Netizen Party will hold The People’s leaders to the key principle of The People of “where there’s doubt, we’ll investigate”.

2. The Four Basic Principles of the China Netizen Party:
1. Open;
2. Rational;
3. Non-violent;
4. Unified in action;

3. The Three Major Tasks of the China Netizen Party:
1. Expose all deceitful and hypocritical behavior, restore balance in the world;
2. Put down violence in all its forms, restore perfect harmony to society;
3. Call for an ideology of “all-citizen involvement, speak the truth in unison”, with the ultimate goal of restoring power to the people.

4. Member Registration, Establishment of Party Chapters, and Party Fees and Assets of the China Netizen Party
1. Regardless of nationality, race, gender or age, any netizen on earth who identifies with the objectives, basic principles and basic tasks of the Chinese Netizen Party may declare themselves members of the China Netizen Party, and all party members without exception are not to sign up or register in any fashion;
2. The China Netizen Party collects no party fees or assets.
　　
5. Daily Study and Work for Members of the China Netizen Party
1. Study, practice and speak out in the two main areas of China Netizen Party work, justice and conscience;
2. All members of the China Netizen Party must profoundly understand that righteousness and conscience alone can save China. And the ultimate establishment of an ideal society for all depends on our efforts today.
3. The objective of the China Netizen Party is to expose and denounce lies, with all internet communities, forums and websites in China as our battle positions. Networks are our weapons, netizens are our troops!
　　
6. Oath for Members of the China Netizen Party
　　Realization of the China Netizen Party’s historical mission depends upon the joint efforts of all party members! Together through the good and bad, joined in times of trouble, let us firmly unite the majority of the people and fight for justice! And for conscience! Long live Justice! Long live Conscience! Long live The Chinese Netizen!
　　
China Netizen Party Central Committee
China Netizen Party Acting Chairman, Zhang Buwei
February 4, 2008

　　skype：zhangbuwei1989 gmail：zhangbuwei1989@gmail.com

China Netizen Party means of contact:
Skype: zhangbuwei1989
Gmail: zhangbuwei1989@gmail.com

The birth of the CNP was announced this month by Guo Quan, the former Nanjing University professor now preparing to sue both Yahoo! and Google after recently discovering he’d become victim of the online equivalent of being disappeared, with his name filtered out of search results on the two search engines’ Chinese sites. His chances of really being disappeared look higher now too after Guo wrote an open letter late last year calling for increased democracy and just last month started his own political party to that effect, the New People’s Party, believed to be the reason he lost his teaching job.

Fittingly, one of the few places mention of the CNP can now be found within China is in the midst [zh] of discussions of the offline rescue missions organized spontaneously by netizens this past week for those trapped by the snow, where readers can be seen networking quickly, constantly updating and redirecting efforts accordingly, cooperating with police who alone weren’t able to keep up.

Guo, a historian known for his work on the Nanjing Massacre as well as a harsh anti-Japanese stance in general, while with those credentials alone is fit to represent a large portion of China’s 200,000,000 netizen population, it was probably a smarter move to stick with his political party and name ‘Zhang Buwei’ as the China Netizen Party’s acting chairman. Guo, it should be mentioned, has done scandal-busting work of his own. Zhang himself has not yet written publicly about the CNP, but was willing to answer a few text-based questions:

Q Does the China Netizen Party have a website or blog?

A No

Q When can we see one?

A There is no plan for one at present. We’ll mainly be keeping contact through e-mail and Skype. Most of our activity will be on mainland forums.

Q Not even a microblog, like Fanfou or Twitter? This was a key topic at last year’s Chinese Blogger Conference.

A Not sure about that.

Q It’s not safe to go establishing parties in China; how likely is it that this will prove dangerous for you, Guo Quan and other members?

A The CCP might take Guo or me down at any time. We’re already well-prepared that we might go to jail. Pressure on members of the China Netizen Party will be slightly less, because the bylaws of the China Netizen Party don’t define us a proper political party.

Q How do you plan to confirm membership, or how are members supposed to identify themselves as supporters or members? Badges for their blogs, for example. There’s little information on the China Netizen Party to be found online in China right now.

A Like I just said, the Party isn’t a proper political party, so members don’t need to always need to identify themselves publicly. That’s one; second is that all work is divided internally among party members, and when they receive their respective work assignments, they just go and carry out that work on the bbs forums, so they don’t need to disclose their identities.

Q Will your party carry on the kind of blogging work Hu Jia was doing? And, what is your thought on the kind of work Hu Jia did?

A The nature of of the work of my current party, the New People’s Party, is identical to the work Hu Jia did. I have nothing but admiration for him and his work.

Q I just read a piece on Boxun from an An Jun, who wrote that s/he rejects the China Netizen Party because it itself “rejects class struggle”; how space for growth do you think there is in China for the kind of “one-man human rights organization” work that Hu Jia was doing?

A There’s an extremely large space, because there are so many fields in which rights need to be defended; like laid-off workers, peasants who’ve lost their land, etc. At the same time, upholding rights is something countrywide, with regional elements. This is why there exists absolutely no cases of there being too many people or groups taking part in the rights movement’s (and other democratic movements’) work. Precisely on the contrary, in the face of the CCP at present, the more these kinds of people and groups, the better. We could even advocate for human wave tactics and drown the CCP in a flood of our spit, it’s completely possible.

Q According to my standing, in his academic career Guo Quan frequently took an anti-Japan stance, do you think this will affect mainland urban (ie. most) netizens’ decision to get involved in the China Netizen Party?

A The main aim of the China Netizen Party is to expose and denounce the untrue, and any opposition to anti-Japanese sentiment is irrelevant; our party members haven’t raised this this kind of question as they joined up.

Q And the last questions, what is the China Netizen Party’s stance on net neutrality and Creative Commons?

A The China Netizen Party strongly applauds and supports internet neutrality and Creative Commons, both key tenets and goals of the China Netizen Party.

Q With no blog or website at present, where should those interested go for the latest information in the future?

A The party will circulate announcements through various media.

Released along with the party’s bylaws is a letter from Guo:

Guo Quan: Upon the establishment of the China Netizen Party, a word on the Chinese netizens’ internet revolution

Today (Feb. 4, 2008), Acting Chairman of the China New People’s Party, Changsha Chapter, Mr. Zhang Buwei received instructions from the Chinese New People’s Party Central Committee to form the China Netizen Party, serve as its first acting Chairman, and take the lead in directing the work of the China Netizen Party’s internet revolution. Mr. Zhang is 31 years old, and during his student days sought to advance the process of democratization in China, fighting in recent years for the democratic cause and in raising awareness of civil rights. Last year he suffered persecution from the CCP leading to asset losses already of 50,000 RMB.

Over the year of 2007, Chinese netizens succeeded outstandingly as they acted to seek out and speak the truth, winning widespread respect and esteem from the Chinese people.

Guo’s letter goes on to list three examples, the first being when in June city leaders in Wuxi, Jiangsu, whose main water supply is algae-infested Tai Lake, held a press conference demonstrating the tap water to be drinkable, two claims that Guo says were put to rest by one netizen who did some simple fact-checking and discovered that the “real” water the city leaders were photographed drinking came out from the restaurant faucet filtered first by a German water purification system. The second example is Chang’e, who went up, disappeared, reappeared, and only sent back one photograph, which, as with Guo’s third and most relevant example, the ‘South China Tiger’, netizens quickly proved had been manipulated, despite several very public official protestations to the contrary. In the Tiger case, in case you missed it, the lies went much further and dominated online discussion for months. The general conclusion it seemed was that all official public statements are now up for the most scientific of scrutiny and that no similar future lies will go unpunished, adding at the same time to an already-weakened sense of faith in the government.

I won’t list all the other examples here, but I believe that 2008 stands to be a year of brilliant exploits for the China Netizen Party. China has no real news, it only has propaganda; China’s “news” bears no truth, it contains only lies. Now is the time for the China Netizen Party to unleash its master plan.

I think that in 2008, aside from exposing and denouncing lies, there are many other things the China Netizen Party could also do.

The China Netizen Party could actively investigate the truth behind incidents the CCP wishes not to disclose, the collapsed bridge in Fenghuang, Hunan, for example, where not only were there no basic body counts in the news, but also no basic information about the incident; from the architect’s name to the construction company’s name, the essential news readers wanted most urgently to know did not appear.
[...]
With incidents like this, what the China Netizen Party ought to do is to go and actively investigate the numbers of dead, their names, their ages, their genders, and release the truth of the incident, letting the Chinese people see what they can’t in the CCP news.

As the new year of 2008 began, the south of China was buried under heavy ice and snow, but how many people froze to death? How many starved to death? Where did they die? What were their names? Where they men or women? What did they once do for a living? Recently there’s been news from Guangzhou that one of the stranded travelers was trampled to death. Well, what was his name? The China Netizen Party ought to stay closely united, so labor can be divided, to unleash the advantage of a people’s battle, to restore truth to history, and allow for every common person in this nation to at least leave behind their own names and deeds.

Let not goodness be buried over, and leave evil with nowhere left to hide.

Let every upright Chinese person shout out across the world, and let all those who hope for a strong, democratic China see the bloody battle the Chinese people are fighting in their desire for and pursuit of democracy.

2008, which has already begun, will be a year of internet warfare.

This year, the internet will be our weapon, and the the netizens our troops!

Finally, it is my heartfelt wish that our great nation will see democracy realized soon, allowing our people to live happily and our democratic country to grow strong!

With the CNP communicating over private networks and routine net censorship presumably taking care of the rest, there’s been almost no discussion online on mainland websites of this new party; overseas anti-CCP website Boxun featured one short piece from writer An Jun:

An Jun / To the grassroots netizen party:
1. You write that you don’t want class struggle. That’s great! I recommend that you eliminate class struggle!
2. You write that you will bear only the characteristics of humans and none that of a political party, that’s great! I recommend anti-party-ness and anti-brutality alike!
3. You didn’t write on whether you will establish unions and associations for youth and women. Please don’t pull a one-party power-snatch and turn yourselves into the Dictator Party!
4. You didn’t write on whether or not you intend to turn the country’s news media into your own mouthpieces. I recommend the abolition of “Party-privatized state media”! Cancel outright all party mouthpieces!
5. Logically speaking, if you won’t have class struggle, then won’t be seeing everyone out there. See all groups with views different than yours as hostile forces then! Does that mean you’ll have humans as your enemies though?

What I’ve written here is just a few words because I think you’ve written is weird and silly. Don’t ever think that I’m on your side!

Fragments of related commentary could be found on the snow disaster thread on Tianya where the bylaws were first posted:

-Mainland netizens, stand up! Form the China Netizen Party with determination!

-Grassroots activities that get politicized end up getting aborted
What I’m saying doesn’t sound very nice
Hehe

-It may not sound nice, but it’s realistic….

-The hope and conscience of China is on the internet.

Numerous Yemeni websites have been blocked recently by government-controlled ISPs. Among them is the popular YemenPortal (English version of the site here), Yemen’s first multi-source news crawler and search engine, which extracts headlines from news sites that are being blocked by the authorities. YemenPortal is inviting Yemeni internet users to access the website through a mirror they build at yemen.arabiaportal.net.

According to Reporters Without Borders access to at least seven other Yemeni websites have been blocked since October:

Access to YemenPortal from within Yemen was blocked two days after Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar and other government officials accused the press on 17 January of “jeopardising the country’s national interest” and “promoting incitement to secession.”

In May of the last year, Yemen’s Ministry of Telecommunications blocked access to two opposition news websites (www.al-shoura.net and www.aleshteraki.net) because they reported on the humanitarian situation and the fighting between the army and Shia rebels in the northern province of Sa’ada.

In this interview I speak with YemenPortal.net administrator Walid Al-Saqaf, who talks about the threats to the freedom of online expression in his country:

Sami: what kind of websites that are being blocked in Yemen and how do you explain the recent move by Yemeni government-controlled ISP’s to ban your website and others?

Walid: I believe RSF made an excellent and thoughtful assessment in their release when they said the regime is suffering from a number of setbacks and challenges and decided to target the media instead of resolving them. Indeed, news websites have started to gain popularity and influence public opinion more than any other time in the past. YouTube videos of the ruthless attacks by security forces against protesters in Aden were posted online in YemenPortal.net and news, views and discussions on the separatist movement in the south along with the rebel war in the north have all had strong influences on the local press, which are increasingly picking up and rerunning stories and news from online media sources.

In other words, the government is fearful of new media’s influence on public opinion and would like to suppress it, just as it did for broadcast and print media through monopoly and licensing restrictions.

Sami: Who is responsible for the block? Was it a governmental decision to bar access to YemenPortal?

Walid: It is definitely the government, but it is not clear to me which part of it. I heard from reliable sources that it is the national security apparatus that prompted this ban. This also came after harsh comments by the Minister of Information (as reported in the above RSF release). But it is 100% clear that the government was the one behind the ban.

Sami: How would you assess the general filtering situation in Yemen?

Walid: One word: ‘alarming’. This is because we are supposed to be in a democratic country where freedom of the press and expression are guaranteed in the constitution. This is a serious blow to all the pledges the regime gave to the public and the world. It is particularly alarming to see that the government is careless about complaints from international advocacy groups and organizations in the face of such oppression. The more the world criticizes the regime, the more it insists on it, noting that it is a ‘domestic’ issue that other nations or organizations should not interfere in. The censorship of pornographic websites has been tolerated by the society, but the government’s resorting to censorship of websites merely for news and opinion marks a dangerous tendency towards dictatorship.

Sami: What has been the response of Yemeni Internet users to the the ban?

Walid: The response was positive to a very large extent. I received solidarity messages and hundreds of requests for membership. Readers are expecting the alternative domain (yemen.arabiaportal.net) to be blocked any time, so they would like to stay in touch and learn the second alternative domain that we will use if/when the first alternative domain is blocked.
There are however certain elements on the net that seem to support blocking websites. This is a minority and in my own opinion, they are either misguided or actually elements paid for by the authorities to give the impression that readers want this ban to ‘protect national interests’ and other rubbish.

What I would like to point out here is that the nature of YemenPortal.net as an umbrella and source of information on thousand+ sources makes banning it equivalent to banning information coming from all those sources. The search engine had already tracked more than 200,000 items and is growing rapidly. It has an English section as well and strives to cover the widest array of sources on Yemen as possible. It started in Yemen but was planned to extend to the Arab world through the arabiaportal.net project. But this ban held us back.

The aim is to liberate people from restrictions on what they can see and read. In a solidarity meeting with more than a couple dozen news website managers and workers in Sana’a on Jan 23, a decision was taken to fight this ban by applying new technologies and techniques to allow blocked websites to have a prominent location on the front page of YemenPortal.net and renew the website’s DNS whenever one is blocked. This way we hope to neutralize the impact of censorship because it is virtually impossible for the government to keep on blocking each and every website that has a link to the dynamic DNS that will be created.

Moroccan Internet users launched several online petitions and other initiatives to protest this violation of their right to free access to information. I spoke with professor and researcher Mohamed Drissi Bakhkhat, the leading Moroccan blogger who is running MoTIC blog and EcoMaroc. Mohamed is doing an amazing job of documenting the Internet filtering situation in Morocco and raising awareness about the Moroccan Media and the impact of new information and communication technologies (NTIC). 

Sami: Mohamed, how do you explain the censorship that is targeting top websites such as like Google Earth, Google Maps, Youtube and Livejournal?

Mohamed Drissi Bakhkhat: Your guess would be as good as mine… Unlike what is happening under the worst authoritarian regimes, where Internet censorship is most of the time official and censored content is generally publicly known, Internet censorship in Morocco is meant to be hidden. This clearly serves one main purpose, that of allowing this censorship to be arbitrary and to remain at the discretion of the Makhzen. Otherwise, banning any website or service would have to be justified and follow a judicial procedure. Websites would not be blocked for absurd reasons as it is the case today. The Makhzen tries to avoid being held accountable for these decisions. It has its own laws that have nothing to do Moroccan law.

As you said, the blocking of Live Journal in Morocco dates back to early 2006. It is one of the main and first blocking decisions taken in the ADSL era. Live Journal is surely not banned because of its innocuous blogging feature. Its combination with other social networking features is probably what embarrasses more the Makhzen, or, should I say, embarrassed. I am sure that this decision is outdated. With the current development of social networking services, Morocco can not afford to block them all. I think that Live Journal’s ban has not been lifted because nobody questions the Makhzen’s decisions, particularly when these seem to be motivated by the defense of Morocco’s interests, since Live Journal hosts some separatists blogs. No one can tell if this is really what motivated the ban, or if the Makhzen targeted social networking. As for Google Earth, I am almost certain that its ban in Morocco is not a security issue. Again, it is the community feature of Google Earth that is clearly being targeted. Google Earth’s satellite images remain easily accessible to anyone who wants to get them. But Google Earth community can be used to easily and efficiently share or coordinate information, for example, about some places that are meant to remain secret. The Makhzen is apparently playing «hide and (don’t) seek». And finally, nothing indicates that YouTube’s four-day ban was the Makhzen’s decision. That is why Maroc Telecom backed down so quickly. Interestingly, Youtube’s IPs remained unblocked during that period. Someone in Maroc Telecom just messed up with DNS servers for an unknown reason. It might well be a personal reason. It becomes a possibility when censorship is arbitrary and when it violates the law. Officially, no one recognizes Net censorship in Morocco!

Sami: The ONI report on Morocco concluded that “relative to the region, Moroccan Internet access is relatively free”. However, compared with other North African countries like Tunisia and Libya where the censors are targeting the websites of political opposition groups, anti-government news and views, Morocco seems to be more interested in blocking access to major websites. How would you describe that? And how do you assess the general filtering and censorship situation in your country? 

Mohamed: The least one can say is that Morocco’s Internet censorship decisions are awkward. They are spectacular and target viciously some great services that are not banned in the worst Internet black holes! Besides Morocco, how many countries block access to Google Earth or Google Maps? This is indescribable and a shame for a country that is claiming to be implementing democratic reforms.

This being said, Internet censorship in Morocco seems to be nonetheless generally lighter than that in Tunisia because of the rather big difference in political freedom or when one compares freedom of speech situations in the two countries. I do not hear or read a lot about Net censorship in Libya or Algeria, probably because Internet access (mainly broadband) penetration rates there are lower.

Sami: What was the reaction of the Moroccan Internet users in general and the blogosphere in particular vis-à-vis the censorship? Is there any kind of cyberactivism providing circumvention tools to the Internet users?

Mohamed: Moroccan Internet users or bloggers are mainly and clearly against Net censorship, if we judge by the number of posts and comments. MoTIC access stats showed that the number of visitors nearly doubled in the wake of the news about YouTube’s ban in late May 2007. This demonstrates that Moroccans care a lot about censorship. They reacted very quickly and started discussing ways to heighten the pressure on Maroc Telecom and on the Moroccan government, or whoever is behind these decisions. Many looked to be convinced that previous censorship decisions were, or at least looked to be, security related. This was obviously not the case for YouTube. That was what triggered the reaction of Internet users and most of the bloggers, even those who were rather lenient toward other unjustifiable censorship decisions. YouTube’s ban generated a large wave of protests against Net censorship in Morocco, not only that of YouTube, but also that of Google Earth, Live Journal, and other sites. Some bloggers provided some easy ways to bypass censorship. Given the current situation, I personally prefer denouncing censorship and showing that it can easily be bypassed. I let Internet users look for ways to achieve that.

We are just at the beginning. The best is yet to come for cyberactivism in Morocco, when Internet will be more widespread and people more aware of what is really being censored and for what reasons.

Sami: On the MoTIC blog you document the Internet filtering situation in the country, raising awareness of its consequences on the development of Morocco among Internet users. Does the information disseminated on your blog and elsewhere somehow help in attracting the attention of mainstream and/or citizen media inside and outside the country?

Mohamed: Absolutely. The discussions and the coordination of the actions on MoTIC, maghrebism.com, and other blogs resulted in the creation of petitions, two of them continue to raise awareness and get new signatures almost every day since five months now.

The unprecedented reaction throughout the Moroccan blogosphere inspired many articles in almost all of the Moroccan independent press: Al Massae, Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, Al Ayyam, Le Journal Hebdo (see also here ), Telquel… to name a few. Many of MoTIC’s posts inspired articles by Al Massae or Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, the two most popular Moroccan newspapers.

AMDH (Association Marocaine des Droits de l’Homme) wrote officially to Maroc Telecom asking for clarifications about YouTube’s inaccessibility for its subscribers. magharebia.com, the US European Command portal, wrote about YouTube’s ban.

Internationally, the mobilization against Net censorship in Morocco was covered in Associated Press newswires that were published in the most famous and prestigious US and British newspapers or media (The Washington Post, The New York Times, USAToday, CBS News, BusinessWeek, Forbes, The International Herald Tribune, …). There were also articles by The Guardian, The Times (London, England), and the BBC. John Oates of The Register wrote about YoutTube’s ban in Morocco. Ogle Earth, one of the most popular blogs about Google Earth also wrote about Google Earth’s ban in Morocco, once citing MoTIC.

For mysterious reasons, the French press remained and remains almost unanimously silent when it comes to Net censorship in Morocco, except for Marianne and Le Petit Journal. Maroc Telecom, the first actor of this censorship, is controlled by French media group Vivendi. Draw your own conclusions… Merci la France!

I would like to recognize here the great role played by Global Voices Online in helping us make this censorship known worldwide. Jillian York posted several times about Net censorship in Morocco which helped a lot in publicizing internationally this censorship and how Moroccan bloggers and Internet users are denouncing it.

Sami: Are you collaborating with other cyber activists and blogger from neighboring countries facing similar situations?

Mohamed: I do sometimes contact privately other bloggers, but collaboration is generally achieved publicly through blog posting and commenting. I would certainly encourage any collaboration with bloggers from other Arab countries. Our governments are not able to achieve strong Maghreb and Arab relations. I see no reason why this would not be possible to achieve among bloggers, who generally are open minded and willing to collaborate.

Sami: We’ve seen three (and maybe more) different petitions contesting the online censorship in Morocco (censureinternetaumaroc.com, stop-censure.org and petitiononline.com/morocco). Why the apparent lack of collaboration among those different initiatives?

Mohamed: We are talking about events that took place in just four days and without prior notice! YouTube’s ban began a Friday afternoon, a viciously chosen timing that is generally privileged by the Moroccan administration when it wants to take actions that are meant to take effect silently. But this did not work with such a popular site. The news about the ban spread very rapidly the same afternoon. Some popular bloggers started a strike the next day. Take a look at this post and the subsequent ones to have an idea of the scope of the reactions to YouTube’s ban.

As for the petitions, there was a lack of collaboration at the beginning. www.petitiononline.com/morocco was specifically against YouTube’s ban. It was Youssef’s (maghrebism.com) initiative. The other two petitions are against Net censorship in general and are spontaneous initiatives by MoTIC readers who coordinated their actions through comments posted on the blog. I gave them some advice and let them do all the work by themselves.

Sami: Have any bloggers or online writers in Morocco been jailed for their online activities? Are you witnessing a crackdown on online freedom of speech?

Mohamed: None that I am aware of. Compared with most Arab, African or Asian countries, we do have a great deal of free speech in Morocco, online and offline (despite some paper press cases). Bloggers probably enjoy free speech even more than paper press who generally censors itself.

There might be blogs or websites against the Moroccan regime that are censored for political reasons. I do not have a list of them, but there were reports in the press about continuous and dynamic blocking of separatist or extremist sites.

I won’t use the word “crackdown”, but we did notice since 2006 an important increase in the number of blocked websites and in the scope of Net censorship. Since 2006, Morocco started censoring important websites or services: Live Journal (since March 2006), Google Earth (since August 2006), Google Maps (since Summer 2007), and YouTube (May 25-29, 2007). Anonymization or DNS services like anonymizer.com, Multiproxy, and OpenDNS are also blocked. The question now is: what’s next?

Sami: Let’s talk a little bit about Morocco’s new hero, “Targuist Sniper“, who is using his video camera to shoot images of the daily corruption in the country, filming police officers, one after another, accepting baksheesh from drivers? What more can you tell us about this new phenomenon and what is the impact of such cyberactivism on the battle against corruption in the country?

Mohamed: It is sad to realize that it is probably a short-lived phenomenon. Moroccan police (Gendarmerie royale) conducted what the media described as a brutal search for the people behind Targuist Sniper videos. Four young Moroccans will appear in court as witnesses in the trials of the corrupt police officers. But they might well face charges of humiliation of the police institution because of the bad publicity it got from these videos. Nonsense! What is certain is that those truly responsible for the corruption will never have to worry about any consequences. Therefore, I don’t really think that Youtube snipers can significantly help in curbing corruption.

When the Belarusian activist Dzianis Dzianisau was detained for nearly two months on charges of “taking part in manifestations which disturb public order”, the Belarusian blogsphere successfully organized an online (and offline) campaign to raise the bail (15.500.000 Belarusian roubles or $7,300) and got the young political prisoner out of jail. According to Belarusian blogger and activist Zmieter Soltan (listen below to our podcast interview with Zmieter), the campaign involved several Belarusian online communities on LiveJournal: “There were multiple posts with photos of Dzianis, updates on the investigation of his case, on the likely charges which would be put against him, photos of his mother and girlfriend, reports about the event when he was arrested, regular updates on the money raised to date, accounts from visits to the prison.”

The most recent episode of the Belarusian cyberactivism is much more creative and cynical. This time, it came in the form of birthday gift to the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, after he complained about the anarchy of the Internet. During a visit to the state-owned newspaper Sovietskaya Bielorussiya, President Lukashenko announced his plan to tighten restrictions on Internet and said: “It is time to stop the anarchy on the Internet. We cannot allow this great technological achievement of man to be turned into an information garbage heap.”

The use of the Internet is already restricted in Belarus. According to the OpenNet Initiative report on internet filtering in Belarus, most cybercafés require users to show identification and keep the logs of their online activity. In reaction to Lukashenko’s comments, Belarusian activists from the online community “Third Way” have joined forces and launched the LuNet campaign to raise awareness about the threats to the online free speech that a new media law (please find attached below the Draft Law on information, informatization and information protection and International Expertise ) presently in the works could represent. The LuNet campaign comprises the following: the LuTube video-sharing website, LuJournal blogging platform, Lundex search engine, and a web portal tut.lu.

In this interview with Pavel Marosau of LuNet, we talk about the campaign, Belarusian cyberactivism and the threats to the freedom of online expression in Belarus.

Sami Ben Gharbia: In an interview reported by Reuters, President Alexander Lukashenko said: “It is time to stop the anarchy on the Internet. We cannot allow this great technological achievement of man to be turned into an information garbage heap“. What measures has he taken to stop “the anarchy on the Internet”?

Pavel Marosau: President Lukashenka said that about anarchy in internet during the meeting with his loyal journalists from Sovietskaya Belorussia propaganda newspaper. Despite the fact that he controls all TV, FM and wire radio stations, and most of newspapers, he is still not satisfied. He views the Internet as threat, as neither he nor his men have succeeded in putting the Internet under total control. I think he can’t fully understand what the Internet is, as he’s a man with old Soviet mentality. And of course, he’s afraid of what he can’t understand.

His advisors proposed him several ways “to stop anarchy on the internet”. The most evident and dangerous for us is adopting a new law on media in his “pocket” parliament which would oblige all owners of “harmful” websites to register them thus constraining freedom of its owners and authors by equaling websites and press. It would make the repressions and persecutions of websites’ owners and authors much easier.

Belarusian authorities have been combating for years with unwanted opinions in internet by persecuting specific people. However, they used some very exotic punitive articles and methods of punishments and it was never done on a regular basis. For instance, me together with my colleagues, Andrei Abozau and Aleg Minich, are still persecuted for slandering Lukashenka by cartoons (www.multclub.org) which is why we have to live abroad at the moment. In August 2007 Andrei Klimau, a notorious Belarusian dissident, was found guilty of calling for overthrowing Lukashenka’s regime and sentenced to 2 years of prison for his publication in internet. A famous and harsh critic of Lukashenka, Andrei Suzdaltsev (www.politoboz.com) was possibly poisoned, which resulted in diabetes and partial eyesight loss. Owners of United Civil Party of Belarus website were sued by one Belarusian official claiming damage to his reputation because of an article the website had published accusing his son of abuse of law. As you can see Belarusian authorities are quite creative in persecuting internet dissidents. However, all that methods are no longer enough for them so they need an instrument of mass repressions.

It would be reasonable to put another example of Belarusian civic associations’ liberties cut. Before presidential elections in 2006 Belarusian parliament adopted a law which severely increased punishment for being a member of so called “unregistered organizations”. Both in that time and now most of oppositional organizations are not registered as the government simply doesn’t want to register them. Just after the adoption of law a campaign against independent observers, youth activists, and politicians was unleashed. People were sentenced to up to two years terms of imprisonment. Belarusian internet community can face the same. This is why we are protesting so actively against those punitive measures inspired by Lukashnka.

Sami: Why did you choose Lukashenko’s birthday to launch LuNet?

Pavel: We have chosen that date because Lukashenka is the main initiator and inspirer of repressions against independent internet in Belarus. It would have been just if Lukashenka experienced by himself all amenities of tightly-controlled, no alternative information environment, which is Lunet as we understand it. That’s why we gave him Lunet as a birthday present. The Lunet campaign was firstly designed as a small action of protest against regime’s repressions toward internet. However, it gained much attention and support in internet community with many different people joining it. That’s why we decided to turn it into a constant action with new undertakings in support of independent internet in Belarus appearing all the time.

Sami: Are social networking websites like YouTube and LiveJournal being targeted by censorship? If no, why did you choose them as example to build this funny and original Lukashenko-friendly customized version of Internet? And apart from YouTube and LiveJournal, you’ve also built a Lundex and tut.lu. What are these websites?

Pavel: Challenges our digital century provides are not easy for Belarusian regime. The authority representatives as I said can’t completely understand the essence of internet as their mentality is still of that of a Soviet man. That is why they are examining closely (as they admitted themselves) experience of other states repressive toward internet, such as China and Iran. Especially since Lukashenka has got good relations with them and large arms supply contracts. But I’ll repeat it one more time: it is much easier for the regime to put to jail or intimidate certain author of internet publication, to hack or restrict access to a certain website than to introduce a large-scale system of content filtration, especially if it is intended to be applied to such huge communities as Youtube or Livejournal. We have chosen them as well as Yandex search engine and tut.by, the most popular Belarusian web-portal, because they are very popular among Belarusian audience. Belarusians have become attached to them. And, by showing in a satirical and a little bit hypertrophied form what model of internet Lukashenka is about to introduce, what changes they may face if government attempts to put internet under control, we wanted to raise awareness of Belarusian internet users. There’s a good saying: “The only thing evil needs for a complete triumph is good people doing nothing”. We wanted other Belarusians and our colleges from abroad to stand for our freedoms and we are sure that it will help to protect them.

Sami: Can you tell us more about the Internet-community “Third Way” and the Bеlarusian cyberactivism, did you also launched other spectacular campaigns like Lunet? Are you providing circumvention tools to the Belarusian internet users? And what is the relationship between activists and the belerussian blogsphere?

Pavel: Third Way internet community (www.3dway.org) is a group of young Belarusians and their colleagues from abroad living in 9 different countries, whose mission is to transform Belarus into a successful and able to compete country with the priority of liberal values, open society, and democratic civil system. We work together by actively using modern web technologies in order to provide Belarusian with information alternative to state propaganda, to look for and involve into cyberactivism talented Belarusian from different countries of the world, to educate them, to create a network of partnership and cooperation with their help, to present our country abroad, and to lobby not Lukashenka regime’s interests but those of Belarusian society.  

We are related to Belarusian cyberactivists from the very beginning, we are a part of them, and we are helping each other all the time. Most of Belarusian cyberactivists are concentrated in Belarusian blogsphere, as well as in such projects as Pozirk, Pavetra, BelMov, Moladz.org, Gart, Initsiativa, Bunt… They are not only active in internet but also in offline where they conduct flash mobs and actions of protest.   Since 2005 we have conducted various internet campaigns together with Belarusian cyberactivists communities and youth initiatives: protection of Minsk history (against renaming streets) in 2005 and Hrodna (against demolition of historical center) in 2007, in support of Actions of Solidarity in 2005 and Belarusian satirists in 2006, for freedom of Belarusian political prisoners in 2006. Since May 2007 we have been acting together in the framework of Together For Freedom! Manifesto (www.peremen.info). Both activists of Belarusian NGOs and internet activists are engaged in these campaigns. The Third Way is providing coordination and technical support of these enterprises. As for security measures for Belarusian cyberactivists, we are actively propagating Skype as a convenient and multi-purpose tool. Also we have conducted several workshops on information security for Belarusian civic activists together with our Ukrainian partners and shared our own experience. But progress goes on and Skype is not that safe nowadays so in 2008 we are going to introduce new solutions in the sphere of internet security to our Belarusian partners. The Third Way community is in friends with Belarusian blogsphere from the moment of its coming into life, many notorious bloggers are in friends with us and are active members of our internet community. We have good relations and close cooperation with Pozirk blogging project, Minsk_by blog-community.

Sami: How do you assess the general filtering and censorship situation in your country ?

Pavel: There is a system of content filtering in Belarus. This system based on Chinese technologies was installed into state internet provider Beltelecom’s equipment not a long time ago. However, the main purpose of this system is not preventing people from accessing free information but a surveillance for Belarusian internet users. Limiting access to certain websites is not done on a regular basis. During elections, referendums, and other occasions crucially important for the authorities, Belarusian opposition websites are being temporally blocked for Belarusian users, they are hacked and put under some other destructive actions.

Sami: What was the reaction of the Belarusian regime to the Lunet campaign?

Pavel: I think they didn’t knew how to react to that internet performance. That is why they have chosen to keep silence. Nevertheless the authorities are continuing preparation of new repressive laws justifying it by “protection of common people’s interests”, and are also likely to be preparing show trials against Belarusian cyberactivists.

Sami: What is your next move?

Pavel: We would like to cover this topic during all period the new law on media is being discussed and adopted. Not only in a satirical form of LuNet though we have some fresh ideas in that sphere as well. We would like to cooperate with Belarusian politicians and public figures in order to motivate them to address global community so it would influence the situation with freedom of internet in Belarus. We would like to show some examples of censorship and restrictions of internet in other countries to Belarusian users so they would completely understand what exactly is waiting for them. More than that, we are enforcing cooperation and solidarity between social and political internet projects and blogsphere in Belarus. In the framework of Time to Win civil activists alliance we provide safe and free hosting in Germany and USA to new internet projects on social and political issues, we consult and help new initiatives to make their own websites. Together with our German partners we are preparing new tools of safe communication, anonymization, and filters-avoiding for Belarusian cyberactivists.

Belarusian Draft Law on Information

Sami: Why did the General Directorate for Combat against Organized Crime target Michel Bozgounov for blogging about the Strandja issue even though other Bulgarian bloggers were doing the same thing? And can you explain why this has been treated as “Organized Crime”?

Milena: This is a big mystery. So far the Bulgarian police authorities didn’t give a relevant explanation on these questions. We can only make a guess. One of the reasons might be the fact that Michel is an average citizen without any political, financial or other protection. The other might be the fact that he is a BlueLink employee - a network that gives an alternative opinion and in some cases contradicts to the governmental one (like for instance a campaigning site BeleNE against the construction of a second NPP in Bulgaria). It might be an attempt to deafen our voice. Or it might be a random selection, we don’t really know.

Sami: Does this investigation against your colleague Michel Bozgounov set a bad precedent for politicians to control what you can and cannot blog about?

Milena: It definitely does. The problem is that all these reflects on them badly. The case became really very visible in Bulgaria with its absurdness. The police absolutely has no right do tell people what they can and can not blog about. It is in violation of the Bulgarian Constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression.

Sami: What was the role of the Internet in general and the blogsphere in particular in organizing the flash-mobs and the environmental protests that some like to describe as “the largest since those against the Socialist government in 1997″?

Milena: The main tool for organizing flash-mobs was through discussion mailing lists (many of which BlueLink maintains and provides to users to communicate between each other). The organizers used these tools as a fast and direct way to reach many people at their private e-mail addresses. They also used SMS-s through the mobile operators. At most of the flash-mobs there was a ban on publicizing it until one or two hours before the events, in order to guarantee that authorities will not have enough time to prevent the events. Actually the blogsphere was mostly covering the flash-mobs after they really happened, not prior the events. There was one specially created site for publishing information about the upcoming flash-mobs (http://savestrandja.ludost.net/). The information there was usually published about 2-3 hours prior to each flash-mob.

I wouldn’t say that these environmental protests are the largest since those against the Socialist government in 1997 - it is pretty much exaggerated, since the biggest protest gathered not more then 2000 people and it was not a flash-mob, but one that was previously announced at the municipality. But this is not the most important thing. The most important is that a very little group of people managed to make such a great impact on the media, government and the whole population of Bulgaria.

Sami: Do you think that the Strandja Mountain Nature Park is now safe and that the Bulgarian internet community has achieved its goal in protecting Strandja Nature Park?

Milena: I am afraid that it is just temporarily safe. Unfortunately the Parliament took a decision in changing the law for protected areas in a way which many jurists define as judicially inconsistent and might be attacked in court. Also jurists say that other Bulgarian parks are not protected either. But this is not the main issue here. Many of the laws in Bulgaria are quite good and strong and they envisage measures for nature protection. The problem is the implementation of the laws. There comes the authorities’ corruption, there are the doors ‘gray’ business uses to avoid the law and to benefit from it unpunished.

Sami: From an environmental e-network created and run by green activists, we are witnessing, with the launch of the Freenet Campaign, how the BlueLink network is becoming involved in defending online freedom of expression. What is the reason for the switch and what are your future plans regarding this issue?

Milena: Actually it is not a switch at all. BlueLink, apart from being an environmental network, works on the field of information and communication policy since its establishment. We are a part of the international movement contributing to the WSIS process and lately to Internet Governance Forum. We even created a special portal ‘Bulgarian ICT policy monitor‘ . The issue of freedom of expression on the internet is something that we have been working on establishing it in Bulgaria since 1998. BlueLink is the Bulgarian member of the Association for Progressive Communication (apc.org) through which network we are able to connect with like minded people from all around the world.

Sami: Did the Bulgarian blogsphere and the environmental web-led movement get any support from other European communities or blogspheres? Does the dissemination of the information about the Strandzha issue via video and photo sharing sites like Youtube and Flickr helped somehow in attracting the attention of mainstream and/or citizen media outside the country?

Milena: The EU and world communities of blogsphere started to support us just after BlueLink started the FreeNet campaign. I have no info for any support before that. The dissemination of information about the Strandja and other environmental cases in Bulgaria via video and photo sharing sites helped a lot in attracting the attention of the Bulgarian mainstream media. So far we have no info on interest expressed from foreign media

To date, Thailand’s ICT Minister, Dr Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, has not kept his promise to unblock the popular video-sharing site, YouTube. YouTube, which is owned by Google, was blocked by the Thai government in April 2007, following the appearance on the site of material critical of the country’s king. Last month, Sitthichai declared to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SAPA) “When they decide to withdraw the clip, we will withdraw the ban.” Despite the removal of the video that mocks King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the ban on Google’s YouTube website is yet to be lifted. The Minister is requesting the removal of a single video frame which, according to him, still remains on YouTube. “That’s not enough. We want the picture removed, too, before we unblock it,” Sitthichai said. And in a recent interview with the International Herald Tribune Sitthichai declared that “YouTube is not a very essential Web site“.

But another Google-owned website has been reported to have been blocked by number of Thai ISPs: the popular blogging platform Blogger. According to an email from Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT), this ban was “due to a single blog critical of Thailand’s military coup, Saturday Voice.” Now Blogger “seems to be accessible using True ISP but not Telephone Organization Thailand TOT Public Company Limited,” FACT adds.

In addition to censoring websites, Thailand’s military government is introducing legislation that will criminalize the use of circumvention tools (see a draft of the Cybercrime Bill) like circumvention software and anonymous proxies, to access blocked websites. The legislation, which has been approved by the National Legislative Assembly and will become law after it receives approval from the King, also carries a penalty of up to five years in prison “and/or a fine of up to 100,000 baht (US$2,700)” for disseminating “improper” content over the Internet. “The new cybercrime law, waiting for Royal assent will, 30 days following, come into effect. If the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) has been as sneaky as we suspect, the law can be applied to anyone using circumvention software, anonymous proxies or any other method which conceals one’s real IP,” said FACT coordinator CJ Hinke in an email exchange.

Since the coup d’état of 19 September 2006 against the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra – whose many supporters’ website have also been blocked since last May due to “security concerns” - “the Internet censorship has risen 500%, up now to more than 45,000 websites are blocked by several government agencies,” said Hinke. A blocklist from the MICT (secret May 28, blocklist) available from FACT includes 11,329 websites that have been banned in the past four months a total of 17,793 in total. According to FACT, “this is an increase of 90 political websites blocked in April alone.”
“MICT’s blocklist shows a frightening increase in thought control and abrogation of civil liberties and human rights in Thailand (…) the new military government of Thailand has taken all of us to a new dimension of repression. 2007 may well be the 21st century’s 1984 in Thailand,,” writes FACT, comparing the Thai situation to that described in the famous novel by British writer George Orwell, which popularized the phrase, “Big Brother is watching.”

According to the Open Net Initiative, “the current official approach toward filtering is in flux”. However, and while Thailand’s military-backed government is undermining online freedom of speech by blocking critical websites and censoring Web discussion boards, FACT activists are doing a brilliant job fighting back and increasing public awareness of the issue. FACT is maintaining a very active and constantly updated [blog] campaign, reporting on censorship, running petitions, providing circumvention tools and guides (in Thai and English) for anonymous blogging and bypassing censorship. FACT publishes the government’s secret block lists with detailed analyses and has mobilized a street demonstration at the country’s premier computer venue described as “nonviolent civil disobedience”. In a demonstration held on June 9, 2007, at Pantip Plaza, FACT activists distributed “a gift of freedom” to Thai Internet users, ”T-shirts! buttons! stickers! and…thousands of copies of a free CD-ROM, “Beat the Censors–Unblock ICT!”

The “Beat the Censors–Unblock ICT!” CD “features 41 software applications to circumvent Website-blocking by Thai censors, anonymous proxy servers and MICT’s secret blocklists, in both English & Thai. Many international websites and NGO’s are offering to host the CD on their servers for download. FACT activists have also made “Beat the Censors” available on BitTorrent peer-to-peer networks with cross-platform versions (Windows, Linux and Macintosh).

FACT likes to call the CD its first “weapon of mass instruction”. “In fact, the disk is applicable for use in any censored country. Only the Thai-specific information needs to be deleted and the English needs to be translated into a local language. Unblock the world!” said Ajarn CJ in our email exchange.

I spoke with CJ Hinke, FACT founder and coordinator, about the FACT campaign, the filtering situation in Thailand and its implications and consequences as a result of the new cybercrime law:

Sami: On Bangkok Pundit I learned that number of Thai ISPs have blocked the entire blogspot.com subdomain. Can you tell me more about this new development?

CJ Hinke: Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) activists are quite certain the entire domain was blocked due to a single blog critical of Thailand’s military coup, Saturday Voice. Blogger.com seems to be accessible using True ISP but not TOT Public Company Limited. Blogs are not so easy to block separately and the Thai government has shown no sense of discretion. If a site provides public spaces for individuals to post websites and some of those sites turn out to be pornographic, the entire domain gets blocked.

They have not yet blocked Wordpress, where FACT is located, although we’ve been getting clear warning signals. They are especially upset that FACT posts their secret blocklists along with access to circumvention software and anonymous proxies
However, FACT is making sure the whole world is watching.

Sami: Can you provide us with a brief overview of the Freedom Against Censorship Thailand campaign? Is the site of the campaign blocked? And what about the Thai blogsphere, are the Thai bloggers highly politicized? Are they using blogs to contest the military government?

CJ Hinke: FACT was formed in November 2006 as a campaign to petition the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand against Internet censorship. The NHRC has not yet handed down its ruling but this will have no force in law; it is merely a recommendation.

FACT has also petitioned the Official Information Commission to attempt some transparency and accountability in government.
The censorship climate has deteriorated greatly since Sept 19’s coup. Internet censorship has risen 500%, up now to more than 45,000 websites blocked by several government agencies. The previous government had plans to block 800,000 websites and this number is surfacing again here.

Yes, Thai bloggers are very political, focusing, exposing and fighting many different aspects of Thai politics.

Sami: Can you tell us more about the consequences for freedom of expression of the new ‘Internet’ law and the filtering situation in the country? It seems that the bill will outlaw any attempt to get around government censorship to access blocked websites deemed amoral or offending the country’s monarchy. How can you describe that and what are the reactions of the Thai blogsphere in particular and the Internet users in general vis-à-vis the new Law?

CJ Hinke: The new cybercrime law, formally the Computer-Related Crimes Act, was proposed by the “Official Censor of the Military Coup” before the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly. Its original draft included the death penalty and life imprisonment for some computer crimes.

The bill sat in committee for five months composed of senior police, old judges and long-term bureaucrats, mostly digital dinosaurs. (It is typical in the Thai government for officials and employees to not even do email.) There were scant few open-minded and forward-looking members, but the law made some progress in revision–only 20 years maximum.

Internet censorship is not legal in Thailand and is specifically unconstitutional. Thailand’s principal law drafters and interpreters, the Council of State, decreed ‘net censorship illegal as did the Administrative Court in the ruling against the blocking of Midnight University.

Government has been waiting for the right climate for this law since 1997, when I first opposed censorship here. Curiously, however, the new law made no mention or attempt at censorship. Most of us were considerably relieved by this. However, some of the law’s provisions are being interpreted in order to criminalize a computer user for simply viewing a Web page with unspecified questionable content, even if it has not been blocked. It further criminalizes ISPs by making them responsible for any such content transiting their servers, however briefly. Turning ISPs into cybercops is a big incentive for them to censor indiscriminately, just in case. Furthermore, all IP log data must be retained by ISPs for at least 90 days; government now knows where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing. Concealing one’s IP address is also now illegal as is access to anonymous proxies. In addition, it appears that circumvention software is now in the same class of “illegal instructions” as worms and viruses.

The very fact that the law was passed by overwhelming assent, 119-1, has given the censors, already out of control with their own power, huge confidence. When Thailand has a Constitution again and when the first ‘cybercrime’ case goes to court, these issues may be better defined.

For an excellent analysis of the situation, look for Article XIX’s recommendations and, in another context, read EPIC’s comments on the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime; none of these recommendations were considered or adopted.

Sami: Have any bloggers or online writers in your country been jailed for their activities? Are you witnessing a crackdown on cyber activists? Are you collaborating with other cyber activists from neighboring countries facing similar situations?

CJ Hinke: No, at present, we have no imprisoned citizen journalists nor an obvious “crackdown”. However, with the rise of voices decrying the violent situation in Thailand’s Muslim South and blaming the coup government for our democratic vacuum, I think it will be only a matter of time before some government bureaucrat with an itchy trigger finger will want to try to flex the muscle of the new law. FACT may well become the prime target because we post the government’s secret blocklists as well as links to circumvention software and anonymous proxies. The government recently changed blocking methods. Until recently, the blocklist was circulated to Thailand’s 54 ISPs and FACT posted it regularly. Government switched to blocking directly at Thailand’s four ‘net gateways and… FACT still publishes the blocklist!

FACT is hoping to make use of circumvention software and anonymous proxies so common throughout every strata of Thai computer life that it will be difficult to call it civil disobedience. Nevertheless, such criminal activity can get one two-four years in prison.

FACT is largely alone out here, though we have sought the vocal support of many major international human rights, civil liberties and good governance organizations, largely without success. We currently have more than 600 signers and a core group of activist coordinators, spokespersons, and tech team. Living under martial law and emergency decree with a military government and no Constitution make FACT’s situation challenging.

It seems that the persecution faced by the anti-military Fijian Freedom Bloggers - who are using blogs to protest against the coup of December 5th, 2006- has subsided following a decision by the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) to stop hunting for anti-military bloggers and abandon its efforts to block the popular blogspot blogging platform. However, Lieutenant Colonel Pita Driti still insisted that “if bloggers were eventually found they would be taken to the camp to be questioned”. Last week, he admitted that Rowland Fenton was arrested and released after interrogating him over anti-military blogs deemed a “threat to national security”.

Intelligentsiya reported on May 14th that the army’s Land Force Commander has a list of about 20 people who will be arrested in connection with anti-military blogs. It has also been reported that the Fiji Military Forces (FMF) have pressured FINTEL, Fiji’s only ISP, to block blogspot.com blogging platform, which is nearly exclusively used by the Fijian “Freedom Bloggers”. Previously, on Friday May 11, the prominent businessman Ulai Taoi was arrested and then released after being held in custody for 24. The FMF suspected him of being an anti-military blogger. It has been reported that he was “physically abused while in custody”. According to an email from “Bainivore,” a member of the Fijian Freedom Bloggers, the military claimed that Ulai Tao was Fijian Black - the blogger who ran the May Day protest and called on people to boycott work in protest against the interim administration. (see the video below). But the irony in that is the fact that the Fijian Black is not a person but a blog. As described by Intelligentsiya: “FIJIAN BLACK is the blognym for the blogsite Good Men (and Women) Doing Something and is calling on the public of Fiji to passively resist the interim regime by staying home on Tuesday, 1st of May, 2007.”

And while the Fijian military junta has reportedly been hiring Indian “hackers” from Bangalore to track the identities of the Freedom Bloggers, the cyber-activists have been gaining support over the last few days as bloggers from around the world condemn the military crackdown on blogging. Two days ago, a group composed of prominent bloggers from New Zealand offered its support to provide hosting on their servers to the Fijian blogs. The group called on the New Zealand government to condemn the Fijian interim government crackdown on bloggers. “Blogs are one of the few news sources outside of the control of the military regime in Fiji, representing a vital channel of uncensored information for both Fijians and the international community. Any Fijian bloggers wishing to make use of this offer should make contact through one of the above-listed websites,” the statement said referring to a list of prominent blogs offering access to their own websites for Fijians.

But the question of why the Fijian military junta decided to crack down on this group of “Freedom Bloggers,” composed of independent citizens without political affiliations exercising their constitutional rights to free speech, remains. Can blogging drive political action in “a nation where Internet access is far from ubiquitous and far from affordable by local standards”?

The answer may be found in the reaction of apolitical Fijian bloggers to the approach of the “Freedom Bloggers”. As a member of Fijian Black described in an email exchange: “Now the political blogs are the most vocal, visible and visited of the blogs in Fiji. Not only do our posts get read, they get emailed all over the world, to people who are interested in our country, they get printed out (I’m talking reams of printouts here) in totality for the consumption of the Fiji public who don’t have internet access, and now, they are getting widespread media coverage, in Fiji and regionally.” For Discombobulated Bubu, a female Fijian blogger and a mother: “the reaction of the average Fijian has been overwhelming - people that have access to computers download and print out stuff on the blogs. This then gets sent out to the remote villages by bus, boat and fax (those who have it) and by [what we call] “coconut wireless” - people talking to each other. The military has grossly underjudged this means of communication - hence I think [the reason for] their panic now to shut the “people’s voices” up.”

The Fijian blogsphere which, according to Fijian Black, was “fairly dormant until this coup last year”, has turned political. “Blogging from Fiji was pretty much a thing for the techies/nerds/researcher/scientist. Since February, the average citizen has now become more familiar with the term ‘blog’ and would have a rough idea of how to set one up. Mostly, thanks to the Fiji TV station and the Military for drawing attention to it. Whilst some blogs are about life in Fiji, Fijian citizens overseas reminiscing about their homeland/home, food in fiji, research in fiji I’d have to say that the majority of blogs on Fiji are somewhat political in nature - in that they attack the coup perpetrators and supporters.” said Bainivore who started blogging at Intelligentsiya and then on his own blog. There is a consensus that Intelligentsiya was the initiator of the Fijian political blogging phenomenon: “I didn’t have any idea about blogging until the military brought the nation’s attention to Intelligentsiy