Campaign against censorship on the Internet
Amnesty International together with The Observer and Soda Creative launched
a campaign called irrepressible.info against the increasing governmental
censorship of the internet. The campaign asks governments to stop censoring
websites, blocking emails or shutting down blogs and make an appeal to the
big corporations to stop supporting these actions.
The Irrepressible.info website set up for the campaign includes a badge with
parts of censored information and people are urged to send emails including
this badge. Thus the censored information can be transmitted all around the
globe. The website includes also a pledge that will be presented at the
Internet Governance Forum meeting in Athens in November 2006 where
governments and companies from all over the world will discuss the future of
the Internet. The pledge that has been signed by more than 20 000
individuals says: “I believe the Internet should be a force for political
freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive
information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or
interference.”
Amnesty is urging people to petition governments to cease censoring the web.
It also urged technology companies not to facilitate such activities.
Information technology companies “have helped build the systems that enable
surveillance and censorship to take place”, Amnesty claims.
In the campaign-launching article Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty
International, criticised technology companies that allow censorship and
provide information to governments convicting political dissidents.
Irrepressible.info gives Yahoo, Microsoft and even Google as examples of
companies having provided confidential user information to the Chinese
authorities resulting in suppression of freedom of expression, and even
imprisonments.
The big companies defend their position and consider that entering
restricted countries such as China is for the good of the local population
because some information is better than none.
Amnesty – Irrepressible.info campaign
http://irrepressible.info/
Amnesty: we must free the internet (28.05.2006)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1784625,00.html
Today, our chance to fight a new hi-tech tyranny (28.05.2006)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1784643,00.html
Amnesty takes a strike against web censorship (30.05.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/30/amnesty_anti_web_censorship/