The Rwandan government has announced it may block the website of an independent newspaper if the paper does not obey a six-month suspension of its publishing rights.
Not content to simply ban the printed publication of independent newspaper Umuvigizi, the Rwandan government has announced that if the paper does not shut down its website it will take matters into its own hands by blocking the site.
In Rwanda? Help us track whether Umuvugizi is blocked!
Internet censorship reporting site Herdict allows Internet users to track which sites are blocked in their countries. If you are in Rwanda, please let us know whether you can access Umugivizi.com. You can submit a report via the Herdict reporter or using Twitter or e-mail.
It would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t so terrifying: United Nations security forces confiscated a poster mentioning Chinese Internet censorship at this weekend’s meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, a UN body that promotes open discussion on public policy related to Internet governance.
It would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t so terrifying: United Nations security forces confiscated a poster mentioning Chinese Internet censorship at this weekend’s meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, a UN body that promotes open discussion on public policy related to Internet governance.
The OpenNet Initiative, a research group headquartered at Harvard that studies Internet censorship worldwide (full disclosure: I’ve worked for them on and off since the fall of 2007, including full time last summer), held a reception during the forum to announce their new book. On the wall was a poster mentioning China’s Great Firewall censorship and surveillance project.
UN officials asked ONI to take down the poster to avoid “creat[ing] a political crisis with a UN member state.” When ONI said no, UN security took the poster away.
According to Ron Diebert, an ONI principle investigator who was at the forum, “We were told that the banner had to be removed because of the reference to China. This was repeated on several occasions, in front of about two dozen witnesses and officials, including the UN Special Rapporteur For Human Rights, who asked that I send in a formal letter of complaint.” Deibert has since filed a complaint with the UN Human Rights Commission.
A video taken at the forum shows the discussion between UN security and ONI representatives:
More info, including links to media coverage of the incident, is at the ONI blog.
The summer of 2009 was a hectic one for online social media: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a bevy of other sites fell under the censors’ axe in China and Iran as political events — namely the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the Iranian presidential election — shook both countries.
If you’ve been having a hard time keeping track of whether Twitter is accessible in Tehran or if Fallujah is blocked Facebook, you’re not alone. Luckily, I just completed a project for the OpenNet Initiative to help you out.
Based on testing conducted in 2008-2009, ONI has compiled data on the most frequently blocked social media sites around the world. We are proud to present five new social media filtering maps that serve as easy visual guides to the countries where Facebook, Flickr, Orkut, Twitter and YouTube are blocked.
Visit them now, and lay your social media filtering questions to rest.
Internet censorship reporting site Herdict allows Internet users to track which sites are blocked in their countries. If you are in Rwanda, please let us know whether you can access Umugivizi.com. You can submit a report via the Herdict reporter or using Twitter or e-mail.