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Censorship 'changes face of net'
Burmese child
Burma is among countries accused of repressing net freedoms
Amnesty International has warned that the internet "could change beyond all
recognition" unless action is taken against the erosion of online freedoms.
The warning comes ahead of a conference organised by Amnesty, where victims of
repression will outline their plights.
The "virus of internet repression" has spread from a handful of countries to
dozens of governments, said the group.
Amnesty accused companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo of being
complicit in the problem.
Website closures
When challenged on their presence in countries such as China in the past, the
companies accused have always maintained that they were simply abiding by local
laws.
Amnesty is concerned that censorship is on the increase.
"The Chinese model of an internet that allows economic growth but not free
speech or privacy is growing in popularity, from a handful of countries five
years ago to dozens of governments today who block sites and arrest bloggers,"
said Tim Hancock, Amnesty's campaign director.
"Unless we act on this issue, the internet could change beyond all recognition
in the years to come.
More and more governments are realising the utility of controlling what people
see online and major internet companies, in an attempt to expand their markets,
are colluding in these attempts," he said.
Google's Chinese homepage
Amnesty has criticised Google's presence in China
According to the latest Open Net Initiative report on internet filtering, at
least 25 countries now apply state-mandated net filtering including Azerbaijan,
Bahrain, Burma, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
Egyptian blogger
Filtering was only one aspect of internet repression, the group said. It added
that increasingly it was seeing "politically motivated" closures of websites
and net cafes, as well as threats and imprisonments.
Twenty-two-year-old Egyptian blogger Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman was
imprisoned for four years in February for insulting Islam and defaming the
President of Egypt.
Fellow Egyptian blogger Amr Gharbeia told the BBC that the internet was
allowing people to express themselves: "The web is creating a more open
society, it is allowing more people to speak out. It's only natural that upsets
some people."
The Amnesty conference - Some People Think the Internet is a Bad Thing: The
Struggle for Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace - will have some well-known
speakers including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.
It marks the first anniversary of Amnesty's website irrepressible.info, which
is being relaunched to become an information hub for anyone interested in the
future of internet freedom.