Amnesty International: Irrepressible
about | irrepressible.info Campaña de AmnistÃa Internacional
Internet repression is reported in countries like China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. People are persecuted and imprisoned simply for criticising their government, calling for democracy and greater press freedom, or exposing human rights abuses, online.
But Internet repression is not just about governments. IT companies have helped build the systems that enable surveillance and censorship to take place. Yahoo! have supplied email users’ private data to the Chinese authorities, helping to facilitate cases of wrongful imprisonment. Microsoft and Google have both complied with government demands to actively censor Chinese users of their services.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It is one of the most precious of all rights. We should fight to protect it.
Amnesty has launched a campaign to free the bloggers jailed for telling the truth about repressive regimes. An initiative that deserves support in my opinion. This week one of the most famous Bahrainian blogs, Mahmood.tv, has been closed, blogging in Tunesia can be troubling and the same in Greece. Although there are usually ways to circumvent censorship, it must be clear that in some countries blogging can be very dangerous.