Srun Srorn, a trainer for the E-learning project, walks teachers at Koh Kong High School in Cambodia through a new online sexual education curriculum. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS

By Branislav Gosovic *
VILLAGE TUDOROVICI, Montenegro, May 28 2015 (IPS)

The Internet – and the applications that it has spawned – is the single most important technological innovation that has brought together and interlinked humankind in a real, tangible and interactive way.

Among other benefits, it has:While having a universal presence in each country and in the life of the majority of humankind that enjoys its amenities, the Internet is untouchable, controlled by someone somewhere who is invisible and unknown.

• Made possible instantaneous worldwide communication and interaction
• Simplified and facilitated many previously time consuming, onerous and costly tasks
• Enabled a networking that can serve as a means for building a global community, and developing understanding and cooperation
• Created the “Internet dependence” for the well-being and functioning of society, economy, and daily life and existence of individuals, which has generated a common and shared interest in keeping the Internet functioning, in good order, and continuously improving it.

The Internet has meant a “great leap” forward for humankind and made it possible for it to “leap-frog” and “short-circuit” many of the obstacles and challenges that it had faced earlier on its road to a shared but uncertain future.

However, this great technological communication advance has not been accompanied by a corresponding socio-political leap of systemic change, and the Internet has been weighed down by the legacies of the past and the nature of the existing world order.

Rather than aiming to place the promise and capabilities of the Internet at the disposal of enlightened, common global objectives of humankind and to subject it to democratic multilateral governance, some of the key actors seem to view it primarily as their own property.

They want to be in charge of it and use it for their own strategic ends and objectives, for global expansion and dominance, and the exploitation of new technological possibilities to harvest the planet for what amounts to unlimited creation of wealth, including via virtual means, and massive “invisible” transfer of resources to the core countries of the North.

The resulting situation has been depicted aptly in the recent draft, “Tunis Call for a People’s Internet”, circulated at the Workshop “Organizing an Internet Social Forum – A Call to Occupy the Internet”, held at the April 2015 World Social Forum. It merits to be quoted:

“The Internet today has become an integral and essential part of our daily lives, more and more of our activities are organized through and around the virtual spaces, the networks, online services and the technology it comprises.  It has restructured the very way in which we live, work, play and organise our societies. In many aspects, this is so even for people who at present have no direct Internet access.

At the same time, we are alarmed to see how both our private and public spaces are being co-opted and controlled for private gain; how private corporations are carving the public internet into walled spaces; how our personal data is being manipulated and proprietised; how a global surveillance society is emerging, with little or no privacy; how information on the Internet is being arbitrarily censored, and people’s right to communicate curtailed; and how the Internet is being militarized. Meanwhile, decision-making on public policy matters relating to the Internet remains dangerously removed from the mechanisms of democratic governance.”

The Internet has become controversial not only because of the hegemonic attitude of the key country and because of the free hand given to its monopolistic global Internet-based corporations, but also because it is rooted in and fueled by larger controversies, including decades-old, unresolved development issues.

This includes the questions of transfer of science and technology, intellectual property regimes, and international regulation of transnational corporations, all of which have been on the international agenda for five decades without any visible progress having been made.

There is also the question of “ownership” and “participation”. There is a complete dependence on the Internet worldwide, an addiction that cannot be shaken off. While having a universal presence in each country and in the life of the majority of humankind that enjoys its amenities, the Internet is untouchable, controlled by someone somewhere who is invisible and unknown.

This dependencia when it comes to the Internet governance and control exercised by the interlinked centres in the North, which include military and security apparatus as well as cyber-corporations, produces a palpable feeling of discomfort, frustration, helplessness, exposure and loss of sovereignty, especially but not only in the developing countries.

Drawing on past experiences, principles of the U.N. Charter, and the developing countries’ initiatives for the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and New International Information Order (NIIO), one can arrive at some conclusions and recommendations regarding a reform of the Internet and the bolstering of its usefulness to the international community and its common goals, including improved functioning of human society.

The aim should be to defuse the mounting conflict and discontent through political and conceptual liberation of the Internet by making it into a global public good and service within the U.N. framework, with specific objectives and functions directed at satisfying the needs of humankind and helping to overcome problems and challenges, including those stemming from past history and uneven progress and development of the international community.

The Internet should be declared as the common heritage of humankind, a global public good and service embedded within the framework of the United Nations.  This implies and requires, among other things:

• That the Internet becomes part of the U.N. family by creating a UNINTERNET organization in the framework of the U.N. General Assembly, one inspired by democratic governance and solidarity of humankind
• That the Internet management and innovation be shared and participatory, and that they involve both public and private entities in cooperative endeavours
• That current international intellectual property regime undergoes a major review and fundamental modifications
• That income generated by the Internet, including by global taxation of profits made by services that it enables, be used for global causes of public good within the framework of the United Nations and that in this manner the Internet becomes a major source of international funding for public purposes, including those related to overcoming poverty, sustainable development and climate change, food security, education and health, which now get a few drops from these massive global flows via philanthropic gestures of some who have become enormously wealthy thanks to the Internet
• That the Internet global infrastructure be public property of the international community and that international non-profit enterprises be established under the U.N. auspices to provide Internet services, software and applications that would be in the public domain
• That new modes of international accounting and regulation be evolved, as a means to obtain a global overview and control of the financial flows and services via the Internet
• That a set of goals and objectives of the Internet be elaborated and adopted as the U.N. Declaration or Charter on the Internet, which would serve as the basic reference and guide for the Internet’s future development, management and operation.

Given the recent developments on the world scene, the overall context seems to be ripening for advocating the above approach, which implies a major departure from the present practices and would be a serious competitor to the existing North- and private corporations-dominated Internet.

It would also represent a return to the basic values embodied in the U.N. Charter and the decades-long U.N.-based efforts to evolve democratic and equitable world economic and political order.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Somalis have been unable to use the internet on their mobile phones after Islamist group Al-Shabaab banned the biggest telecom company from providing the service to its customers. Credit: Ahmed Osman/IPS

By Ahmed Osman
MOGADISHU, Feb 16 2014 (IPS)

Osman Ali, the owner of an electronics shop in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, has been hard-hit since Al-Shabaab forced the biggest telecoms company to switch off its mobile internet service in this Horn of Africa nation.

“I don’t understand why the government has not done anything to deal with the situation. It could at least try and find an alternative for the people. This has thrown the country into darkness. We are left behind,” Ali told IPS from his shop, explaining that his sales had dropped dramatically since the shutdown.

In January, Al-Shabaab issued a 15-day ultimatum for local giant, Hormuud Telecom, to stop providing mobile internet and fibre optic services because it said they were used by Western spy agencies to collect information on Muslims.Hormuud officials said company staff were forced “at gun point” by Al-Shabaab fighters to switch off the mobile internet service.

According to Internet World Stats, more than 125,000 of the country’s 10 million people use the internet in Somalia. Tens of thousands of people who relied on Hormuud’s services have been unable to access the internet on their mobile phones from Feb. 6. However, fixed broadband services are still available.

The Mayor of Mogadishu, Mohamed Nur Tarzan, told the media that Hormuud officials had said company staff were forced “at gunpoint” by Al-Shabaab fighters to switch off the mobile internet service.

Hormuud, which claims to be the market leader in south and central Somalia “with over 60 percent of market share in both mobile and broadband services”, has not officially commented on the ban.

However, a Hormuud official told IPS on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, that they had no option but to comply.

“I don’t think we had another alternative … we are just business people and cannot confront an armed group’s orders. We tried our best to convince them [Al-Shabaab] that our services do not harm the public in any way, but that was in vain,” the official said.

The company has switched off the service not only to areas controlled by Al-Shabaab but across the centre of the country and in Mogadishu. However, the ban has not affected the northeastern regions of Puntland and the northwestern province of Somaliland where separate mobile networks operate.

Although officials have condemned the move, the government has faced widespread criticism for its “inaction”.

However, following the news of the group’s ultimatum, in a statement on Jan. 11, the then interior minister Abdikarim Hussein Guled condemned the ban and cautioned companies against cooperating with the militants.

But local social media has been awash with criticism of the government, saying that if it had at least provided enough security to local companies it would have had the authority to order the continuation of their services.

Maryan Ali, a 20-year-old student in Mogadishu has not been able to access the internet on her smartphone for nearly a week now.

“I used to follow news and information about the world with my mobile and communicate with family and friends but that is no more,” she told IPS.

Al-Shabaab said in a statement  that mobile internet services were the cause of air strikes that they said were carried out by “the enemy” in areas under their control and “led to the killing and hunting of Jihadists.”

Mohamed Yusuf, an academic in Mogadishu, said that the extremist group’s actions to ban mobile internet services in southern and central Somalia were triggered by the Edward Snowden revelations of widespread U.S. government surveillance programmes it maintained in and outside the country.

In 2013, Snowden, a former technical contractor for the National Security Agency, released secret documents showing how the U.S. government was tapping global internet and phone systems on a massive scale.

“Al-Shabaab has not hidden the fact that their move was prompted by the Snowden revelations and that they feared they could also be a key target for U.S. government spying,” Yusuf told IPS in Mogadishu.

Yusuf also said that the major reason for the group’s decision was the possibility that mobile internet connections could be used to track the leaders and commanders of Al-Shabaab, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist entity and a legitimate target for its drone attacks.

But Mustaf Jama says his mobile internet connection was his sole source of information for his university studies, but now he is unable to access information online from just anywhere and is forced to use internet cafes.

“It was convenient to use the mobile internet to check facts and information as well as news but that is all gone. We are going back a quarter of a century and are being left behind. We don’t know why we are being punished this way,” Jama told IPS.

For months, state-run media propaganda in Uzbekistan has warned about the supposedly detrimental effects of foreign media and culture on young people.

Now President Islam Karimov’s administration seems intent on trying to legislate morality.

On Jul. 9, the Uzbek Agency for the Press and Information, the government body responsible for regulating media outlets, announced that “in cooperation with interested state and non-state organisations” it had drafted a bill that would protect minors from information deemed harmful to their “physical and spiritual development”.

Citing vaguely similar legislation adopted in the United States and in EU countries (mostly relating to pornography), the Uzbek agency’s chairman, Amanulla Yunusov, claimed that adopting laws against the distribution of print, audio and video material, as well as computer games, “promoting violence, cruelty, drugs, pornography and other harmful information” would enable Uzbekistan to comply with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Such a claim raised the hackles of international human rights activists, who quickly pointed out a stark dichotomy in the Uzbek government’s attitude toward the welfare of its youngest citizens.

When it comes to keeping foreign influences out, the Uzbek government seems ready to take a tough, proactive stance. But when it comes to the domestic economy, specifically the use of forced child labour in the country’s cotton fields, the government is far less interested in the best interests of children.

Observers point out Tashkent has been reluctant to allow an International Labour Organisation mission to inspect whether forced child labour is used during cotton harvesting, despite ratifying the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention in 2008.

School children were not seen in cotton fields during last year’s harvesting, but human rights activists said that teenagers aged 15 to 17 were forced to work in fields in the autumn instead of attending classes. Anticipating likely criticism of their practices, authorities reportedly coerced parents into signing a pledge agreeing to their children’s cotton picking.

The morality bill is expected to be debated in Uzbekistan’s rubberstamp parliament – where its passage is almost certain – by the end of 2013. It builds on earlier efforts by the Uzbek government to limit public access to independent sources of information, especially on the Internet.

Those efforts have been on-going since the country gained independence in 1991. They were significantly expanded following the large-scale killing of mostly peaceful protesters in the eastern city of Andijan in May 2005.

New life was breathed into the government’s desire to shape public attitudes after the beginning of the Arab Spring in December 2010. A massive campaign was launched in the Uzbek media against social-networking sites, the Internet and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), along with foreign cultural imports – elements that the government feared could be used to foment social unrest in the country.

“We must pay attention to the fact that some destructive forces are seeking to control young minds and use the Internet in their own narrow goals, and this leads to negative consequences,” Karimov said in connection with a holiday celebrating media workers in June 2011.

That was two years ago, but the state propaganda barrage has continued. In July 2012 a documentary aired by the Yoshlar state-run television channel described social networking as a tool used by foreign powers to foment colour-coded revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine back in 2003 and 2004 and, more recently, in some Middle Eastern states.

To counter “destructive forces” on the Internet, Uzbekistan, which has been continuously ranked as an “Enemy of the Internet” by Reporters Without Borders in the past few years, has developed its own social-networking sites, including Muloqot.uz, Youface.uz (now defunct) and Sinfdosh.uz to “improve the moral and physical health of youth and form high morals”.

The campaign against foreign influence hasn’t been limited to the Internet. In the recent past, authorities have declared war against toys that supposedly represent foreign values, censored rap music and banned five musical acts from singing for undermining Uzbek “moral heritage and mentality.”

In addition, authorities have discouraged the observance of Western-oriented holidays, in particular Valentine’s Day and Christmas.

Internet penetration is steadily growing in Uzbekistan: The number of Internet users increased by over 250,000 to 10.1 million during the first quarter of 2013.

Meanwhile, Karimov has acknowledged that it is impossible to completely seal Uzbekistan off from outside influences.

“The Internet cannot be fenced off by an iron wall or banned – this is unthinkable,” he conceded in a speech in April.

Uzbek media outlets are nevertheless keeping up a steady drumbeat against Western culture. For instance, ahead of the announcement of the morality bill earlier this month, two flagship state channels – Uzbekistan and Yoshlar – carried separate shows on the harms of the Internet and Western influence on Uzbek children.

“There are many websites on the Internet that disseminate false information and we can observe websites that aim to manipulate social consciousness. We can also see websites that aim at racism, discrimination, and cyberterrorism, and aim to deprive people of their historical memory and destroy the historical memory.

“Of course, our young people are surfing these websites when they are using social-networking sites,” MP Shuhrat Dehqonov fumed on the “Munosabat” (Attitude) programme, posted on Uzbekistan TV channel’s website on Jul. 9.

Speaking on the evocatively-titled “Bogeyman on the Screen” programme, posted on Yoshlar’s website also on Jul. 9, actor Hojiakbar Komilov joined ranks with those seeking to hold back the Western cultural tide: “We won’t notice it [influence] right now but children are growing. What nurturing are they receiving? … [Foreign] films show violence, blood and murders. What kind of nurturing will children receive after seeing this?”

Armed with the new bill, the Uzbek government appears to be gearing up for a long battle for the minds of its youngest citizens.

Editor’s note: Murat Sadykov is the pseudonym for a journalist specialising in Central Asian affairs. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

The international Informática 2013 Fair, held in Havana Mar. 19-22, 2013. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, May 28 2013 (IPS)

Cuba will continue to prioritise public Internet access over connectivity in private homes, as indicated by a government announcement Tuesday that 118 new public cyber salons would open nationwide as of early June.

The new Internet outlets were reportedly made possible by the “full functioning” of a fibre optic cable laid between Cuba and Venezuela.

The government-controlled press reported on a communications ministry resolution Tuesday that said one hour online in the new outlets would cost the equivalent of 4.50 dollars, payable in 4.50 CUCs or convertible pesos, to which only a small part of the Cuban population of 11.2 million has access.

That amount is equivalent to 108 Cuban pesos, the currency earned by most Cubans. “I cannot possibly afford that on my pension of 270 pesos a month,” retired journalist and university professor Enrique López Oliva told IPS.

Readers of the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, which expanded on the information, had similar complaints. “It looks like whoever set these prices lives in another country or earns a salary wholly in CUCs,” commented one reader who identified himself as J. Pérez.

But the price for surfing the domestic Intranet will be 0.60 CUCs (14.40 pesos) an hour. And access to the international email service will cost 1.50 CUCs (36 pesos) an hour.

Internet, Intranet and email services in Cuba are provided by the state-owned telecoms company ETECSA, which has a monopoly over the informatics and communications sector.

The official resolution specifies that clients cannot use Internet services to carry out actions harmful to “public security, the economy, independence and national sovereignty” – a warning apparently aimed at dissident groups, which the government considers “mercenaries in the pay” of a hostile foreign power, the United States.

Juventud Rebelde wrote that the expansion of connectivity was in line with the Cuban strategy of facilitating growing access to new technologies, depending on the availability of funds and resources, and based on an approach that puts a priority on the social good.

It added that the new cyber salons were made possible by the underwater fibre optic cable running from Guaira in northern Venezuela to Siboney in eastern Cuba, which permits the high-quality, high-speed and stable transmission of a large amount of information.

Authorities in Cuba blame the five-decade U.S. economic and technological embargo for the high local cost of Internet connections, and for the serious problems in web services in this Caribbean island nation.

The newspaper added that “the fibre optic cable, while it improves international communications (up to now carried mainly by satellite) is not a free service, which explains the initial cost of the expansion of the service of navigation on the Internet.”

The cable reached Cuban shores in 2011, and Venezuela’s authorities declared it operational in May 2012, although Cuba’s official media maintained a discreet silence.

Cuba has a minimum bandwidth of 323 megabits per second via satellite, but various sources say the fibre optic cable will increase the current transmission speed by a factor of 3,000 and will cut operating costs by 25 percent, although the satellite services will continue to function.

Cuban authorities have repeatedly made it clear that the country will continue to put a priority on the “social use” of the new technologies – in other words, on connectivity in schools, research and work centres, professional associations or recreational and community centres.

A tiny minority of Cubans have access to the Internet, the Intranet or email service in their homes, basically by dial-up. Another small minority can afford the steep prices of cybercafés, mainly in hotels, which charge around eight dollars an hour.

In its report this year to the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Cuban delegation stated that the country had 783,000 personal computers as of the end of 2011. Of that total, an estimated 18 percent were in homes and more than 33 percent were in the health, education and culture sectors.

“In addition, 2,610,000 users employ Internet services, 622,000 with full navigation,” added the document, which did not differentiate between “social” and private access – the latter of which is limited, by means of payment in national currency, to intellectuals and professionals such as journalists, academics, artists or doctors.

Mahfuza, a mother of three in a small town in the Ferghana Valley, has better things to do than spend her afternoons at crowded, smoke-filled Internet clubs. But as a high-school algebra teacher, she has an extracurricular assignment from her bosses: she must monitor the clubs’ clientele – many of them her students – while they play computer games, surf social networking websites, and watch music videos.

A decree from Uzbekistan’s government last spring obliged teachers like Mahfuza (she asked her last name be withheld to protect her from possible reprisals) to frequent Internet clubs to ensure students do not fall prey to supposedly subversive ideas. She’s not thrilled about the task.

“Students spend so much time playing games featuring violence, such as a (first-person shoot-‘em-up) game called Counter-Strike, and chatting with complete strangers online. Parents don’t seem to care, and the burden falls on us, poor teachers,” Mahfuza told EurasiaNet.org.

But Mahfuza has no choice. “The state pays our salaries, so we must comply with their rules even if we find them distasteful,” said a vice principal at the secondary school where Mahfuza teaches. He also spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation for criticizing authorities.

President Islam Karimov’s administration has long relied on educators to shield Uzbekistan’s youth from what it considers dangerous outside influences, including religious radicalism and independent political ideas. (The government keeps a tight lid on all forms of political expression, and even mainstream opposition groups are banned and operate in exile).

A series of popular uprisings in the Arab world in 2011, which were partly fuelled by social media, have heightened Tashkent’s concerns, prompting authorities to view pop culture and social networking as major potential threats to the Uzbek status quo.

Official rhetoric can sound paranoid and archaic to those unfamiliar with the Uzbek government’s modus operandi.

For example, a Nov. 12 statement on how to raise a “spiritually rich generation”, posted on parliament’s official website, contained the following: “Today we observe efforts to undermine (Uzbekistan’s) national interests, ideology, and spiritual moral principles through subversive ideas distributed on the Internet, by mobile phones, computer games, and video products, which are camouflaged as pop culture…The task of creating a favorable information environment for youth is one of our top priorities.”

Inside classrooms, the SNB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, relies on a far-reaching network of informants to ensure conformity, according to students and teachers. A course required in secondary schools, “The Idea of National Independence and Moral Development,” seeks to instill students with patriotism, the vice principal said, by forcing them to memorise Karimov’s speeches.

Bahodir Choriev, leader of the exiled opposition group Birdamlik (Solidarity), told EurasiaNet.org that thanks to such courses, “many young Uzbeks have little idea what political opposition is about.” Choriev fled to the United States in 2004 when Uzbek prosecutors charged him with fraud. He says the charges were designed to silence him.

With classroom discussions observed and controlled, authorities have turned their attention to other areas they deem vulnerable to infiltration by pop culture. Hundreds of webpages are blocked and video games are regularly lambasted on state television as “poison.”

Last January, the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary Education – responsible for students aged 16 and above, and not to be confused with the Ministry of Public Education – introduced a 23-page behaviour code obliging students to abstain from criticising school authorities, eschew flashy clothes, and avoid cultural events (including rock concerts) that are deemed alien to Uzbek national values. The code also encourages students to report unsanctioned religious activity.

Fund Forum, a charity run by Karimov’s jet-setting daughter Gulnara Karimova, is reportedly spearheading the efforts. According to its website, the organisation is funding activities “promoting development of national online content and expanding use of the Uzbek language on the Internet.” Several Tashkent-based observers, including some government officials, believe the Ministry of Culture is following Karimova’s directions.

Critics scoff at the idea that Karimova can serve as an effective publicist for Uzbek values. In recent years, Karimova has adopted a bewildering variety of personas, including that of fashionista and music diva (using her stage name Googoosha). To her critics, these various identities are associated with Western decadence, not modesty.

“Gulnara has complete disregard for Uzbek cultural values; she is all over Uzbek media with her gaudy music videos, she shows up in mosques in skimpy dresses,” said Shahida Tulaganova, an Uzbek journalist based in London, referring to a provocative music video Karimova released in September.

“How can she be a role model for millions of Uzbek youngsters when she has little regard for things (many) Uzbeks view as sacred?”

Education officials, tasked with implementing the new rules in small towns and villages, have quickly discovered how unpopular the ideological directives are. Internet café owners complain the “teacher raids” are bad for business. And parents have reportedly been angered by punishments imposed on students for wearing clothing deemed inappropriate.

Given the level of popular distaste for the government directives on youth behaviour, teachers in many cases are quietly looking the other way when it comes to enforcement, said Dilnoza, a student of Uzbek literature in Tashkent.

“They often delegate the task of monitoring students to Internet café employees,” Dilnoza said.

The vice principal in Ferghana said few, if any, students report suspicious activities. He added that forcing poorly paid teachers to police student behavior outside of classrooms is having unintended consequences.

“Teachers’ salaries are very low. As a result, there are many cases of teachers extorting bribes … for better grades,” he said. Teachers have also been accused of seeking payoffs for not inventing moral infractions. “Students’ moral upbringing is something parents must deal with,” the vice principal added.

Authorities in Tashkent are aware their ideological injunctions are routinely flouted. Parliament is now preparing a new law – “On protection of youth from subversive ideologies and aggressive information” – that is expected to stiffen punishment for non-compliance with ideological directives.

For the vice principal, this just shows how out-of-touch central authorities are. He complains that rather than ensure compliance, state inspectors spend much of their time extorting bribes from school directors and teachers.

“Tashkent needs to get input from various segments of society before devising new policies. Otherwise, they will not be implemented,” he said.

*This story originally appeared on Eurasianet.org.

Kashmiri journalists at a rare protest against a government clampdown on freedom of expression. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Athar Parvaiz
SRINAGAR, Oct 18 2012 (IPS)

Fayaz Ahmad’s Faim Internet Café in the Sopore township of Indian Kashmir was booming until a year ago, when police entered his premises without warning and seized all his computers.

Fayaz himself was taken into custody after being told that someone had sent a “suspicious” email from his café.

Fayaz told IPS it is “impossible” for a café owner to control the actions of his customers.

“All I could do was note down the names and addresses of my visitors, maintain a record of their identity cards and list the times (of their arrival and departure from the café),” said Fayaz.

He is not the only person to have his life seriously disrupted by the government’s clampdown on Internet users throughout the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Rayees Ahmad, owner of Hughes Internet Café, was also harassed by the police and forced to pack up his business.

Kashmiri youth at an internet cafe in central Srinagar. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

Now, not a single Internet café operates in Sopore, a town of 300,000 people.

In the towns of Sringar – the economic capital of Indian Kashmir – Anantnag and Baramulla, many young boys have been picked up from their homes for expressing their personal views on Facebook and Twitter. Popular sites like YouTube have been blocked. Text messaging services have been jammed.

Yet when Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde visited Lal Chowk, a city square in Srinagar that has served as a meeting point for rights activists since the 1980s, he failed to mention the attack on freedom of expression in the Valley.

“With 500 security personnel present in and around Lal Chowk, and mobile phones jammed, the minister claimed that everything was (fine) in Kashmir,” Khurrum Parvez, a renowned human rights activist and convener of the Coalition of Civil Society (CCS), told IPS in reference to the two-day official visit last week.

The Indian minister’s silence did not come as a shock to many civil society activists here, who have long expressed concerns about the government’s consistent efforts to curb freedom of speech and the right to access social media and online communications.

“Every time a high profile (official) visits Kashmir, and every time Kashmiris try to express their political aspirations or protest about the violation of their rights, Web sites like Facebook and YouTube are blocked while the mobile phones are jammed for days on end,” Hameeda Nayeem, a social activist with a long involvement in Kashmir’s human rights movement, told IPS.

Local newspapers in Indian Kashmir have also been drawing attention to these violations, which the government claims is a response to a surge of protests across the Valley.

Kashmiris say both India and Pakistan have illegally occupied their territory following that region’s independence from British rule in 1947. For over six decades now, residents of the disputed Valley have been demanding freedom from both India and Pakistan, who control two-thirds and one-third of Kashmiri’s territory respectively.

In August and September of 2010, at least 110 civilians were killed and thousands injured during demonstrations that lasted 50 days and spawned strict curfews.

“The government’s response to (popular opposition) – blocking access to the Internet – is a very unhealthy development,” according to an editorial in Greater Kashmir.

“The move is not only undemocratic in spirit but is also uncalled for under the circumstances. Except for the recent three-day protests (on Sep. 16, 17 and 18) over the anti-Islam movie, the Valley has been experiencing unprecedented peace for almost two years now.”

Internet blockade ‘counterproductive’

Columnist and political commentator, Sheikh Showkat, told IPS that the government is choosing a dangerous path by blocking every outlet of expression.

In times of crisis, Kashmiri youth find solace in music. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

“In a place where the space for street protests has shrunk in recent years, social Web sites have emerged as the (primary) medium for the peaceful expression of individual and collective opinions,” said Showkat.

“The attempt to curb (such communication) will not only violate the principle of freedom of expression but also be counter-productive in nature.”

According to Showkat, this is not the first time the government has muzzled free speech. “(We) have (been) experiencing an SMS ban since 2010,” he claimed.

Youth have borne the brunt of this particular strand of repression.

Back in 2010, an 18-year-old student from Srinagar, Faizan Samad, became the first person to be arrested for posting pro-freedom slogans on Facebook.

This year alone, police have identified 24 youth for disseminating political messages on Facebook. Four have been arrested on these same charges.

The reputed English daily ‘Kashmir Times’ noted, “It is clear that the establishment has scant regard for free speech and free ideas. Like in George Orwell’s famous novel ‘1984’, free thinking itself is becoming a crime and individuals and groups targeted for ‘thought crimes’ (in Kashmir).”

The opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) says that frequent bans on social networking sites and jamming of mobile phones could agitate Kashmiri youth further.

“The young boys and girls use the Internet to stay connected and express themselves. If they can express themselves (online) instead of coming onto the streets, that should be encouraged,” PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said during a recent session of the Legislative Assembly, which ended earlier this month.

“We may not be using (the Inernet) much but the youth are dependent on it,” said 52-year-old Mufti.

A student named Majid Rashid told IPS, “I am part of many (online) networks that give me fresh insights about politics and current affairs. I am connected to sources of information that I am not able to track otherwise.”

Fayaz’s popular café, which used to draw over a hundred netizens everyday, has now been reduced to a place where tutors get their notes typed.

From a dozen computers, the café now operates just two machines, for Fayaz and his co-worker.

“Following my release after a year’s detention I had to take a bank loan to re-start my café. But now I don’t allow anyone to browse. I simply don’t want to get into trouble again,” he stressed.

(END)

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jul 18 2012 (IPS)

Mexican advocates of internet freedom are mobilising to protest their government’s decision to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a multilateral treaty whose stated aim is to protect intellectual property right through enhanced international cooperation and enforcement.

These activists will pressure president-elect Enrique Peña, who is scheduled to take office on Dec. 1, and the new senate due to be inaugurated on Sep. 1, to reject ratification of the treaty, which, they say, has provisions that threaten user privacy, freedom of expression, and universal internet access.

On Wednesday, Jul. 11, the outgoing conservative government of Felipe Calderón announced unexpectedly that the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property had signed the ACTA.

Negotiations for the treaty began in 2006 and signatories so far include Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States.

“We’re going to demand that the senate vote against ratifying (ACTA) as it is an attempt to control the internet,” Irene Levy, president of Mexican Telecommunications Observatory, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), told IPS.

“And we’re also going to insist that the input of artistes and authors be heard in  drafting a national initiative to reform intellectual property laws to protect their legitimate rights,” she added.

ACTA has also met with strong resistance outside Mexico. On Jul. 4, the European Parliament rejected it on the grounds that it violated fundamental rights. An overwhelming 478 legislators rejected it while 39 were in favour, and 165 abstained.

The treaty seeks to establish an international legal framework for targeting counterfeit goods, generic drugs and copyright infringement online. If it comes into force it would create a new intergovernmental body parallel to the World Trade Organisation, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the United Nations.

The scope of ACTA covers intellectual property, copyright, trademarks, geographical indications or denominations of origin, industrial designs, patents, layout-designs of integrated circuits, protection of undisclosed information and trade secrets.

The treaty includes surveillance measures to control the movement of information across borders, and imposes obligations on internet service providers to filter and censor data shared over the internet.

“We need to resume the debate on this issue, focusing on an agenda that includes all the stakeholders involved, to create a legal framework that protects everyone and not just the industries that hold a cultural monopoly,” Antonio Martínez, head of communications of the Mexican chapter of Artículo 19, an NGO that promotes freedom of expression, told IPS.

The Mexican government ignored the input from the discussions of the Plural Working Group for Monitoring ACTA Negotiations, which engaged senators, business representatives, academics and civil society organisations.

Mexico’s senate had already rejected the treaty in June 2011 because it violated national laws and contravened regulations in force. It could also affect internet access, thus widening the digital divide, and be used to censure online content.

Earlier, in November 2010, the Federal Telecommunications Commission had warned that ACTA could hold back internet growth, threaten user privacy and slow down progress on the digital agenda.

By now signing on ACTA, Calderón is forcing the newly-elected executive and legislative branches to resume debate on the relevance of the treaty.

According to the Mexican Internet Association, there are more than 30 million internet users in this Latin American country of 112 million people.

Representatives of the music, film and software industries have been calling for Mexico to toughen regulations to protect their products.

The Business Software Alliance estimates that software piracy is a business worth some 1.25 billion dollars.

In the fourth survey of Pirated and Counterfeit Goods Consumption, published in 2011 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Mexico (American Chamber/Mexico), eight out of every 10 respondents admitted to buying counterfeit goods.

Piracy and sale of counterfeit products are already considered offences under the criminal code, as is unauthorised access to computer systems and equipment.

The industry’s views have permeated forums such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is debating future political and technical standards for the internet.

Even if ACTA is not ultimately ratified in Mexico, its content could filter into other conventions and treaties under consideration such as the Trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP), signed in 2005 by Chile, Singapore, Brunei and New Zealand. Current negotiations for an expanded version include Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the U.S. and Vietnam.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the U.S. will try to implement this any way it can, dressing it up in other mechanisms, whether the TPP or the ITU. So we can’t fall for the false argument that it’s only about copyright protection, when it’s an issue that affects the freedom of the internet,” Levy said.

The tenth round of negotiations of the TPP were held Jul. 2-10 in the U.S. city of San Diego.

On intellectual property, the TPP proposes legal incentives for internet service providers who hinder the storage or free sharing of protected content, and who identify users of copyright-infringing websites. It would also grant economic compensation for complainants affected by such practices.

In addition, it provides for the establishment of sanctions for commercial and non-commercial infringement of intellectual rights, the creation of a legal surveillance scheme and the introduction of patent rules to protect surgical procedures or medicines derived from biological processes, such as vaccines.

“These same sectors operate in different fronts with the same intention of controlling the distribution of tangible and intangible goods, which should be treated separately,” Martínez said.

When Thai police raided the headquarters of the popular alternative news portal ‘Prachatai’ and arrested its executive director, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, back in 2009, the 46-year-old media worker was completely in the dark about her crime.

Premchaiporn claims she had never heard the expression “intermediary liability” before that fateful day.

“I had difficulty pronouncing and spelling this term correctly,” she recalled to IPS in a noisy canteen. “It was not easy to explain to people what it meant and I could not find the proper translation in Thai to explain its actual implications.”

Now she has had a harsh lesson in one of the more insidious aspects of censorship laws in the country. Intermediary liability falls under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act (CCA), approved by a parliament selected after the military coup in 2006, which threatens jail terms for those who allow the distribution of “prohibited” information in cyberspace.

A landmark verdict by the criminal court on May 30 found Premchaiporn guilty of neglecting her role as an “intermediary” by failing to monitor the comments on Prachatai’s online message board.

Her oversight resulted in a violation of the notorious lese majeste law, which threatens long jail terms for the publication of comments or actions deemed insulting to the royal family.

In justifying the verdict of a one-year suspended prison term for the media worker, presiding judge Kampol Rungrat brought into sharp focus the new responsibilities managers of websites, blogs and Facebook pages will now have to bear – to immediately censor “prohibited” comments posted on message boards.

As a webmaster, Premchaiporn was expected to bear the “liability of an intermediary,” the judge pointed out, adding that the she should have reviewed all messages on the website and removed any comments that were “prohibited by the CCA.”

It did not matter that the offending message had appeared at a time when Prachatai, then only five years since its launch and operating with a skeleton staff, was attracting between 20,000 to 30,000 users to a message board registering 2,800 comments daily, covering about 300 topics.

Since the country’s 18th coup in 2006, and the military’s ongoing domination of politics, scores of netizens were drawn to the website’s critical coverage of politics and forum for intense debates.

“This case was a test of how the criminal courts will interpret the CCA,” Teerapan Pankeere, Premchaiporn’s lawyer, told IPS. “This verdict should put all Internet service providers on (guard): they will have to seriously control and check messages posted on their website.”

The ruling comes at a time when Thailand is witnessing a rise in Internet traffic, with over 18 million of the country’s 66 million people online. The registered 14.2 million Facebook users partially explain why 27 percent of this Southeast Asian nation’s citizens are spending long hours surfing the net.

Thailand’s online business sector is also growing, with the global multinational Google helping 80,000 small and medium Thai companies “come on line to help improve their business” in the past year alone.

Many experts and press freedom advocates are growing increasingly concerned about the “chilling effect” draconian censorship laws are having on Thailand’s vibrant Internet community. Particularly worrying is a new wave of self-censorship that will likely gather speed as fear seeps into online fora.

“The guilty verdict for Chiranuch Premchaiporn, for something somebody else wrote on her website, is a serious threat to the future of the Internet in Thailand,” remarked Taj Meadows, spokesman for Google’s Asia-Pacific division.

“Telephone companies are not penalised for things people say on the phone and responsible website owners should not be punished for comments users post on their sites – but Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act is being used to do just that,” Meadows told IPS from his Tokyo office. “The precedent set is bad for Thai businesses, users and the innovative potential of Thailand’s Internet economy.”

The case has already created a “chill” on the message boards of many websites, and this self-censorship is going to worsen, warned Gayathry Venkiteswaran, head of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), a Bangkok-based regional media rights watchdog. “Thai websites that hosted web boards and forums have begun to take them down.”

Premchaiporn’s case came as yet another blow to the country’s netizens, who, aside from struggling under the military’s severe press regulations since the 2006 coup, have had to contend with efforts by a military-backed government to black out websites as part of a clamp-down on freedom of expression during bloody street protests in Bangkok in 2010.

Netizens have also had to endure the ministry of information and communication technology seeking court orders to shut down websites that supposedly violated the CCA.

According to Freedom Against Censorship, Thailand, a Bangkok-based media rights lobby, government officials have blocked close to 878,196 web pages since the 2006 coup, among them 90,000 Facebook pages.

The new burden on Internet intermediaries here places Thailand in the same league as other Asian countries such as Malaysia and India, which have passed laws that demand close scrutiny of online dialogue in response to the growing power of independent media. Some Asian governments such as China, North Korea, Singapore and Vietnam have been even harsher, authorising direct and often violent interventions against press freedom.

In Europe, by contrast, intermediaries are not held responsible for content posted on websites of which they are not the authors – an argument used by an international witness who appeared in the trial to bolster Premchaiporn’s defence.

One explanation for this difference is that Internet intermediaries here are mistakenly viewed as newspaper editors, who are subject to national press laws. “Thailand’s CCA is being used very much like the country’s press laws that hold editors liable for the content of their publications,” remarked Pirongrong Ramasoota, head of the journalism department at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, at a seminar on Internet freedom.

“You cannot treat intermediaries and web service providers as if they were newspaper editors,” she argued. “Till this difference is recognised, laws like the CCA will be used as roadblocks to slow down Internet traffic.”

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Foggy details surrounding Europe’s anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) have divided pubic opinion, with activists on one end of the spectrum claiming it to be the end of Internet freedom and the generic drug market, while proponents continue to defend the act as a “modest” agreement to protect Europe’s intellectual property.

Such polar opposite opinions shed light on the essential controversy surrounding the ACTA: the lack of detail in the text leaves broad room for interpretation.

The importance of protecting European Union intellectual property is acknowledged by a broad sector of civil society but whether or not the ACTA is the answer remains to be seen, especially given concerns over how the agreement was negotiated and how it will be enforced.

Currently, the draft text is in the hands of the European Court of Justice, which will rule whether or not the agreement is aligned with the rights and freedoms ensured to EU citizens via various treaty standards.

Controversy over the ACTA has unfolded with much drama, including masked protestors taking to the streets in cities all across the continent, culminating in a week’s worth of meetings and forums at the European Parliament during the week of Feb. 27.

When the ACTA’s rapporteur, French parliament member Kader Arif, threw his support behind protestors in late January, it sent a very clear message about the ambiguity of the agreement.

Arif resigned with bold claims that he no longer wished to be part of the “masquerade” of the ACTA, adding that he had encountered political manoeuvres designed to rush the agreement through without due consultation of civil society and limited transparency.

The legislation, he said, would not be effective in its intended purpose of tracking those who profit from counterfeiting, and instead open the door to a host of violations of individual freedoms.

Still, the legislation pushed on.

Karel De Gucht, the EU’s commissioner for trade, said turning the ACTA to the European Court of Justice was a necessary step in order to quell rumors and enter a period of informed debate over the agreement.

De Gucht stressed that the ACTA was designed to protect intellectual property, calling it Europe’s ‘main raw material’.

“The ACTA will change nothing about how we use the Internet and social websites today – since it does not introduce any new rules. The ACTA only helps to enforce what is already law today,” De Gucht said.

But a French citizen online advocacy group, La Quadrature du Net, insists De Gucht is lying to parliament members and downplaying the ACTA’s far-reaching effects.

“By pretending that ACTA is inoffensive, Commissioner De Gucht is trying to hide the European Commission’s immense responsibility in initiating a negotiation process circumventing democratic arenas,” Philippe Aigrain, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net said.

Implications for generic drugs

Amnesty International is urging the EU to reject the ACTA, lamenting that it would infringe upon generic drug distribution by allowing officials to seize drugs with labels similar to trademarked brands.

Similar labels are used in order to communicate medical equivalence, according to Amnesty, and are an integral component in maintaining faith in the generic drug trade.

Scottish parliament member David Martin voiced his concern over the future of generic drugs as well. Though patents themselves are not included in the text, the ACTA leaves room for border patrols in any given country to mistake generic drugs for counterfeit drugs and seize them, which has happened in the past, Martin said.

De Gucht countered this argument by pointing to the very real threat of the distribution of counterfeit drugs; he said that more than 10 percent of generic drugs are counterfeited, placing people in acute danger of consuming drugs with harmful ingredients.

Widney Brown, the senior director of international law and policy at Amnesty International, called the ACTA a “Pandora’s box of potential human rights violations,” with additional mention of concerns over privacy, freedom of information, and freedom of expression.

Besides NGOs, active citizens have taken a firm stance against the ACTA. On Feb. 28, the European Parliament received a petition representing more than 2.4 million people opposed to the agreement.

Sponsored by Avaaz, an online organisation that works to connect civil society with the political decision-making process, the petition called for Parliament to reject ratification of the ACTA, effectively killing the agreement.

“This is not 1984”

In an address to the European Parliament’s committee for international trade, De Gucht stressed that much of the opposition to the ACTA was unfounded, based on false assumptions about the ACTA and an exaggeration of its harmful effects.

“This is not 1984; this is 2012. The ACTA is not about ‘Big Brother’, it is about solving our economic problems in 2012 and beyond. And in 2012 we have real economic problems that we must take action to solve. The ACTA is part of the solution,” De Gucht said.

But the agreement’s current rapporteur isn’t ready to express similar support. Martin, who calls himself the “accidental” rapporteur, appointed after Arif’s resignation, has labeled himself the ideal man for the job, as his indecision over the agreement allows him to view the whole situation with clarity.

Shadow rapporteur Christofer Fjellner also has hesitations about the public’s response to the ACTA, saying that at least “50 percent” of protests against the ACTA are “myths” while the other 50 percent are legitimate concerns worth examining.

Fjellner pointed specifically to a commonly held fear of unwarranted searches of personal devices, such as computers and MP3 players, which he refuted as “ungrounded”.

Though the Avaaz petition labeled the ACTA the “new threat to the net,” the agreement has actually been on the table since 2007.

Formal negotiations were launched in June 2008, and went through 11 rounds of negotiations before being finalised in November 2010. The EU and 22 member states signed the ACTA on Jan. 26 in Tokyo; but in order to take effect the agreement must be universally ratified by all member states and approved by Parliament.

So far, Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Slovakia, and Cyprus have withheld support for the pact.

Countries that have pledged support include the United States, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, spoke at an ACTA workshop on Mar. 1, where he argued that open discussions about the ACTA should have taken place years ago, at the conception of the agreement, instead of at a juncture where Parliament only has the power to approve or reject it altogether.

Uncertainties have been enough to halt the decision making process for now. Neither the European Court of Justice nor the European Parliament has been given a deadline, and the process could be stalled for a year or more.

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