The fight for free access to information is being played out to an ever greater extent on the Internet. The emerging general trend is that a growing number of countries are attemptimg to tighten their control of the Net, but at the same time, increasingly inventive netizens demonstrate mutual solidarity by mobilizing when necessary.
The Internet: a space for information-sharing and mobilizing
In authoritarian countries in which the traditional media are state-controlled, the Internet offers a unique space for discussion and information-sharing, and has become an ever more important engine for protest and mobilization. The Internet is the crucible in which repressed civil societies can revive and develop.
The new media, and particularly social networks, have given populations’ collaborative tools with which they can change the social order. Young people have taken them by storm. Facebook has become the rallying point for activists prevented from demonstrating in the streets. One simple video on YouTube – Neda in Iran or the Saffron march of the monks in Burma – can help to expose government abuses to the entire world. One simple USB flashdrive can be all it takes to disseminate news – as in Cuba, where they have become the local “samizdats.”

Reporters Without Borders urges the Propaganda Department to lift the censorship imposed on a joint editorial in 13 Chinese daily newspapers calling for the elimination of the internal passport system known as the “hukou.” The press freedom organisation has learned that journalists working for news media that published the editorial have been threatened with punishment.

“Initiating a debate about the hukou on the eve of a session of the National People's Congress in Beijing was a very positive move,” Reporters Without Borders said. “But, as usual, the Communist Party's Propaganda Department reacted with censorship and repression. This insult to common sense is yet another example of the tension between Propaganda Department conservatives and pro-reform media.”

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the Chinese government latest attempt to tighten its grip on the Internet. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced today that anyone wanting to operate a website would have to meet with regulators in person and bring identity documents.
“These new regulations represent a very disturbing step backwards for the Chinese Internet,” Reporters Without Borders said. “No one is fooled. The pretext of combating pornography does not hold. The aim is to tighten political control and get Internet users to censor themselves by bringing them face to face with their censors or their agents. What netizen will dare to criticise the regime after meeting the person who could put them behind bars for one wrong word?”

As Vancouver prepares to inaugurate the 2010 Winter Olympics tomorrow, China continues to detain human rights activists, journalists and bloggers who were arrested for speaking out before, during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“Dozens of Chinese families continue to suffer the awful effects of the last Olympics because a loved-one is still in jail for using the fundamental right to free expression,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Unfortunately, the International Olympic Committee and its president, Jacques Rogge, are doing nothing to obtain the release of these innocent people, whose ordeal is a stain on the Olympic movement’s reputation.”
Reporters Without Borders has sent a petition to Rogge asking him to intercede with the Chinese authorities and seek the release of the “Olympic prisoners” during the Vancouver Games. Signed by more than 1,600 Internet users, the petition urges Rogge “to speak up and to act in defence of free expression.”

Reporters Without Borders condemns the long jail sentences that judges in Chengdu (in the southwestern province of Sichuan) have imposed on two human rights activists and netizens in the past 48 hours. A three-year sentence was upheld for Huang Qi yesterday while Tan Zuoren was given a five-year sentence at a hearing today during which police arrested and manhandled nine Hong Kong journalists.
“Bloggers and human rights defenders who dared to contradict official reports about the victims of the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan are being treated like criminals,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We deplore the severe jail sentences that have been passed without due process and we appeal to the supreme court and justice ministry to review these two cases and to investigate the use of violence against the Hong Kong journalists who wanted to cover Tan’s hearing.”
The press freedom organisation added: “After convicting human rights activist Liu Xiaobo on Christmas Day, the authorities are now using the Chinese New Year period to announce very harsh sentences for dissidents who are well known in China and abroad.”