As well they should. What state power and capitalism really fear is the people themselves. Thus the constant push to restrain both behavior and expression, even thought itself. Secrecy and isolation are the lifeblood of tyranny. Let’s make sure they continue to fear it and us. –WG
Via IPS News
By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 6, 2011 (IPS) – The global reach of the internet, and its ability to transmit information in real time and mobilise populations, creates fear among governments and the powerful, says Frank La Rue, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
This has led to increasing restrictions on the use of the internet, by means of sophisticated technologies to block content, and to monitor and identify activists and critics, as well as to the criminalisation of legitimate forms of expression, says La Rue, a Guatemalan human rights lawyer.
During the presentation of his report to the U.N. Human Rights Council Jun. 3, La Rue mentioned information filtering systems used in China that block access to websites containing key words such as “democracy” and “human rights.”
Full access to contents means plurality and diversity when receiving or disseminating information through the internet. It also means a complete absence of censorship, the expert said.
The strength of the internet and the popular uprisings in recent months in North Africa and the Middle East, especially in Tunisia and Egypt, “scares politicians,” he told a press conference.
The special rapporteur stated that these uprisings were not “internet revolutions, but revolutions by the people of Tunisia and the people of Egypt, using internet.”
“So it depends on the population of a nation to change their style of government and development, but it is very clear that with internet, they have a faster means of denouncing human rights violations, struggling against impunity and letting the world know what is happening in real time,” he said.