Panel on freedom of expression
Together with the internet blogging project Global Voices online, the
Dutch NGO Hivos organised a two day program on 17 and 18 November on
freedom of expression. On the first day two panels and two lectures were
scheduled, the second day was devoted to a workshop on secure
communication tools for NGOs. It was only thanks to the Dutch embassy that
the event could actually take place. The event was the subject of immense
and incredible pressure from Tunisian authorities. They pulled every trick
to cancel the event, including the presence of 20 grey-clothed
unidentified representatives from some law enforcement services in the
back of the room. They threatened to close the doors halfway during the
event, if the announced coffee break was to be held, to make sure nobody
could get back in.
The main argument from the Tunisians was that the summit took place in two
different territories; one was an exhibition hall with presentation rooms
and adjacent was U.N. territory, where the plenary sessions were held with
matching diplomatic protection for participants. Obviously, on Tunisian
territory it was out of the question to debate such a sensitive issue as
freedom of expression, and like the EU, Hivos should have quietly moved
its discussion to U.N. territory. But Hivos was unable to move the panel
on such a short notice, especially because of the impossibility to
advertise the new location to all possible participants.
In the first panel, three speakers from Zimbabwe, Iran and China spoke
about their experiences with the limits of freedom of expression.
Chairwoman Rebecca McKinnon from Global Voices said she had left a
comfortable position as CNN desk chief to join the bloggers movement,
especially because these global citizens voices could compensate for the
over-reporting on the US and Western Europe.
The blogger from Iran, currently living in the United States, Hossein
Derakshan gave a lively description of the explosion of blogs in Iran. A
few months after he started one of the first blogs in Iran in 2001, there
were between 3 and 4.000 blogs. Five years later, there are 700.000 blogs
in Iran.
The blogger from China, Isaac Mao, choose his words very carefully, and
explained the level of control was so strong, in China it was important to
focus on free thinking than on free speech.
The representative from Zimbabwe, Taurai Maduna, said Internet
participation was very low and legislation extremely tough. Under the
Public Order and Security Act for example, it is illegal for more than 5
people to gather without a previous license. He mentioned two other
examples of successful activist communication in the country, One was a
sticker illegally stuck on condoms. Freely distributed by many government
organisations, the condoms suddenly said “Get up, Stand up!” Another one
was a CD entitled “Rock the regime into retirement.” Maduna said he was
unable to detect any specific internet monitoring by the Mugabe
government, since nobody had ever been arrested on an internet related
accusation. But later on, speaker Nart Villeneuve from the Citizen Lab in
Canada said it was likely that a shipload of Chinese censorware
was underway to Zimbabwe.
Nart villeneuve also pointed to a brandnew study on internet filtering in
Tunisia. “To document the extent of Tunisia’s Internet content controls,
the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) tested 1923 sites from within the state, and
found 187 (10%) blocked. Tunisia’s filtering efforts are focused and
effective. The state employs the SmartFilter software, produced by the
U.S. company Secure Computing, to target and prevent access to four types
of material in particular: political opposition to the ruling government,
sites on human rights in Tunisia, tools that enable users to circumvent
these controls, and pages containing pornography or other sexually
explicit content.”
The day ended with a second panel debate with panellists from Malaysia, Iran
and Europe (your editor) about the limits of freedom of expression and a
closing speech from the Dutch minister of Economical Affairs. The next
day, a group of extremely eloquent and funny geeks from Front Line and the
Tactical Technology Collective presented the project ‘Secure NGO in a
box’, all kinds of free software tools to enable NGOs to secure their
internet communication. The tools include software to generate secure
passwords and store them in a secure safe on a hard disk or even
USB-stick; references to anonymising proxies, and an easy to understand
guide to use anonymous communication tools such as Tor, JAP and Freenet.
The audience (minus the Tunisian secret service representatives) responded
very enthusiastically when they mentioned Tor is now also available for
use on a USB-stick, to use in any internet cafe.
Translated highlights from Chinese blogs
http://www.chinabloglist.org/
NB! wrong URL mentioned in newsletter
Weblog Hossein Derakshan
Internet filtering in Tunisia in 2005
http://www.opennetinitiative.net/tunisia
NGO in a box – security
http://security.ngoinabox.org/
Download Tor software for use on USB-stick
http://torpark.nfshost.com/