[WSIS CS-Plenary] [press] IHT: Tunisia chided over Web censorship - Agreement allows U.S. to control Web names

[Christine Wenzel]

fyi


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http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/16/business/censor.php
see below:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/16/business/net.php


  	 International Herald Tribune

Tunisia chided over Web censorship
By Victoria Shannon International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2005

TUNIS The hundreds of Tunisian flags waving across the capital city are 
like so many miniature red carpets unfurled in welcome for the 10,000 or 
so people, including scores of heads of state, who have come here to 
talk about the Internet this week.

Back in 1998, when Tunisia first proposed playing host to the UN summit 
meeting on communications issues, fewer than 5,000 of its residents were 
online. Today, Internet access in the country has surged to nearly 
790,000 out of a population of about 10 million.

The government says that nearly every public school is connected to the 
Web now, and it has subsidized about 400 low-cost Internet cafés nationwide.

But Human Rights Watch, the New York-based public advocacy group, said 
in a report on Tuesday that the government of President Zine Abidine ben 
Ali censors hundreds of Web sites, jails online writers for expressing 
certain opinions and uses police presence to harass and pressure opponents.

Ever since officials of the summit meeting started gathering here over 
the weekend, several journalists and representatives of public policy 
groups have complained of harassment, the breaking up of meetings or worse.

As with many developing nations, Tunisia's gains in spreading the use of 
the Internet among its citizens have been balanced by its desire to 
control that use, human rights observers say.

Web sites of the French newspapers Le Monde and Libération are among 
those frequently cut off in Tunisia, according to Eric Goldstein, Human 
Rights Watch's regional director. In an editorial, Le Monde recently 
criticized the Tunisian government for its treatment of the press. Most 
of the suppressed sites are those of opponents of the Ben Ali 
government, Goldstein said.

In its report, called "False Freedom: Online Censorship in the Middle 
East and North Africa," Human Rights Watch also cited censorship and 
issues of freedom of expression in Egypt and Iran, and it said the 
Syrian government "tampers with the very fabric of the Internet," 
restricting the use of basic communications tools that allow people to 
send e-mail messages and contact Web sites.

In response to the report, the government of Tunisia told Human Rights 
Watch: "Electronic mail, newsgroups and online discussion forums are not 
subject to any specific regulations. The same holds true for online speech."



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    	 International Herald Tribune

Agreement allows U.S. to control Web names
By Victoria Shannon International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2005

TUNIS Representatives from the United States and from nations that had 
sought to break up U.S. control over the Internet have agreed to leave 
the supervision of domain names and other technical resources unchanged, 
taking instead an evolutionary approach to Internet management.

But the accord, a document of principles agreed to late Tuesday night by 
delegates from more than 100 countries, also established an 
international forum intended to give governments a stronger voice in 
Internet policy issues, including the address system, a trade-off that 
the United States said it was willing to accept.

The document is due to be approved at the UN World Summit on the 
Information Society, which opened in Tunis on Wednesday.

U.S. delegates who had been working on the document celebrated the 
outcome. In September, the European Union proposed putting some of the 
powers currently vested in the United States under the authority of a 
new agency. And in the prelude to the talks that resumed this week, 
increasing pressure had been brought on the United States to share its 
powers.

David Gross, coordinator of international communications and information 
policy for the U.S. State Department, said late Tuesday in Tunis: "I 
didn't think it was possible. We did not change anything about the role 
of the U.S. government. It's very significant."

The United States had said that diluting the authority of the 
organization that now manages the Internet address structure - the 
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as Icann - 
could jeopardize the stability and security of the global network if it 
were to be politicized.

The Internet is dependent on a centralized master file that decodes its 
address scheme. That master file is under the jurisdiction of Icann, a 
California-based nonprofit group that is answerable to the U.S. 
Department of Commerce.

Although many of the Internet's basic infrastructure grew out of U.S. 
government and academic research in the 1960s and 1970s, most Internet 
users are now outside the United States. The computer network has grown 
into a critical international tool for communications and commerce, and 
other governments question why control of certain parts of the Internet 
remains with the United States.

Masood Khan, chairman of the working group, said the process of 
re-examining government involvement in the Internet would persuade Icann 
officials to take the new forum seriously.

The forum, he said, is free to take up any Internet issue, whether 
cybercrime, spam, or freedom of expression - and even domain-name 
address questions. However, it will have no power beyond the ability to 
bring together all the "stakeholders" in the Internet, from consumers to 
governments or businesses.

The group, the Internet Governance Forum, would begin operations in the 
first three months of 2006.