10 countries where Facebook has been banned

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Facebook has been banned or blocked in North Korea, Iran, China, Cuba, Bangladesh, Egypt, Syria, Mauritius, Pakistan and Vietnam

Today Facebook celebrates its 10th anniversary. The social networking giant now has over 1.23 billion users, but there are still political leaders around the world who don’t want their country to have access to the site, or those who have banned it in the past amid fears it could be used to organise political rallies.

North Korea

Perhaps the most secretive country in the world little is known about internet access in Kim Jong-un’s nation. Although a new 3G network is available to foreign visitors, for the majority of the population the internet is off limits. But this doesn’t seem to bother many who, not knowing any different, enjoy the limited freedoms offered to them by the country’s intranet, Kwangmyong, which appears to be mostly used to post birthday messages.

A limited number of graduate students and professors at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology do have access to the internet (from a specialist lab) but in fear of the outside world many chose not to use it.  Don’t expect to see Kim Jong-un’s personal Facebook page any time soon.

Iran

In Iran, however, political leaders have taken to social media- despite both Facebook and Twitter officially being extraordinarily difficult to access in the country. Even President Hassan Rouhani has his own Twitter account, although apparently he doesn’t write his own tweets, but access to these accounts can only be gained via a proxy server.

Facebook was initially banned in the country after the 2009 election amid fears that opposition movements were being organised via the website.

But things may be beginning to looking up as Iran’s Culture Minister, Ali Jannati, recently remarked that social networks should be made accessible to ordinary Iranians.

China

The Great Firewall of China, a censorship and surveillance project run by the Chinese government, is a force to be reckoned with. And behind this wall sits the likes of Facebook.

The social media site was first blocked following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots after it was perceived that Xinjiang activists were using Facebook to communicate, plot and plan. Since then, China’s ruling Communist Party has aggressively controlled the internet, regularly deleting posts and blocking access to websites it simply does not like the look of.

Technically, the ban on Facebook was lifted in September 2013. But only within a 17-square-mile free-trade zone in Shanghai and only to make foreign investors feel more at home.   For the rest of China it is a waiting game to see if the ban lifts elsewhere.


Related articles

Facebook’s online shaming mobs
• Five times China has proven it doesn’t value free speech
Under threat: Bangladeshi bloggers daring to speak up for secular values
Iran: Rouhani’s insistence on faster internet has staying power
Cuban artists still condemned to silence


Cuba

Facebook isn’t officially banned in Cuba but it sure is difficult to access it.

Only politicians, some journalists and medical students can legally access the web from their homes. For everyone else the only way to connect to the online world legally is via internet cafes. This may not seem much to ask but when rates for an hour of unlimited access to the web cost between $6 and $10 and the average salary is around $20 getting online becomes ridiculously expensive. High costs also don’t equal fast internet as web pages can take several minutes to load: definitely not value for money for the Caribbean country.

Bangladesh

The posting of a cartoon to Facebook saw the networking site shut down across Bangladesh in 2010. Satirical images of the prophet Muhammad, along with some of the country’s leaders, saw one man arrested and charged with “spreading malice and insulting the country’s leaders”. The ban lasted for an entire week while the images were removed.

Since then the Awami-League led government has directed a surveillance campaign at Facebook, and other social networking sites, looking for blasphemous posts.

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Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that defends people’s freedom to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution. We fight censorship around the world.

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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Egypt

As Egyptians took to the streets in 2011 in an attempt to overthrow the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the government cut off access to a range of social media sites. As well as preventing protestors from using the likes of Facebook to foment unrest, many websites registered in Egypt could no longer be accessed by the outside world. Twitter, YouTube, Hotmail, Google, and a “proxy service” – which would have allowed Egyptians to get around the enforced restrictions- seemed to be blocked from inside the country.

The ban lasted for several days.

Syria

Syria, however, dealt with the Arab Spring in a different manner. Facebook had been blocked in the country since 2007 as part of a crackdown on political activism, as the government feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networking sites. In an unprecedented move in 2011 President Bashar al-Assad lifted the five year ban in an apparent attempt to prevent unrest on his own soil following the discontent in Egypt and Tunisia.

During the ban Syrians were still able to easily access Facebook and other social networking sites using proxy servers.

Mauritius

Producing fake online profiles of celebrities is something of a hobby to some people. However, when a Facebook page proclaiming to be that of Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam was discovered by the government in 2007 the entire Mauritius Facebook community was plunged into darkness. But the ban didn’t last for long as full access to the site was restored the following day.

These days it would seem Dr Ramgoolam has his own (real) Facebook account.

Pakistan

Another case of posting cartoons online, another case of a government banning Facebook. This time Pakistan blocked access to the website in 2010 after a Facebook page, created to promote a global online competition to submit drawings of the prophet Muhammad, was brought to their attention. Any depiction of the prophet is proscribed under certain interpretations of Islam.

The ban was lifted two weeks later but Pakistan vowed to continue blocking individual pages that seemed to contain blasphemous content.

Vietnam

During a week in November 2009, Vietnamese Facebook users reported an inability to access the website following weeks of intermittent access. Reports suggested technicians had been ordered by the government to block the social networking site, with a supposedly official decree leaked on the internet (although is authenticity was never confirmed). The government denied deliberately blocking Facebook although access to the site today is still hit-and-miss in the country.

Alongside this, what can be said on social networking sites like Facebook has also become limited. Decree 72, which came into place in September 2013, prohibits users from posting links to news stories or other news related websites on the social media site.

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Cambodia: Human rights defender threatened for opposing hate speech

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Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy, of Cambodia National Rescue Party (Image: Kimlong Meng/Demotix)

Cambodia, a nation once traumatised by the ‘Killing Fields’ of the Pol Pot regime in the 1970s, has come a long way since then in rebuilding the nation from year zero, including the holding of elections and the creation of a multi-party system. But the recent flood of hate-mail and death-threats sent to Mr Ou Virak, the president of CCHR (The Cambodian Centre for Human Rights) in the capital Phnom Penh, points to a society still dangerously divided over ethnic and racial issues.

Attacks on human rights activists in Cambodia and around the world mostly come from the agents and the guardians of the status quo — the police, army, militias and private security companies deployed by major corporations seeking to block workers rights. But the death threats in this case, delivered by phone, email and Facebook to Ou Virak, did not come  from government quarters, but from the virulent opponents of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), led by long-serving prime minister Hun Sen.

The hate-speech was triggered by a CCHR letter to opposition leaders representing the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), urging them to stop using racist language against the Vietnamese, the largest foreign community in Cambodia.

During one election rally long-time CNRP opposition leader Sam Rainsy told a crowd in Pray Lang Kompong Thom province: “The Yuon [The Vietnamese] are taking the Khmer land to kill the Khmer people. So the Yuon come to Cambodia to spread their relatives, to form their families and then spread out. There will be so many Yuon in Cambodia that the Khmers will be the ethnic minority. The Yuon are like thieves stealing from the Cambodian people.”

The group’s letter reads: ”CCHR is disappointed that the CNRP is once again using such harmful language, which can only encourage racism towards Cambodian citizens of Vietnamese origin, as well as Vietnamese people living in Cambodia.” This letter touched a raw and racist nerve among many opposition supporters who had been fired up by rabble-rousing speeches over the “Vietnamese threat” to their nation.

Opposition campaign speeches do not distinguish between the estimated 5% of Cambodia’s population who are ethnic Vietnamese but born in Cambodia, illegal immigrants, Vietnamese companies and citizens of the neighbouring state of Vietnam. Opposition leaders tend to lump them together as the collective “Yuon”, a pejorative word for all Vietnamese, and a convenient scapegoat for Cambodia’s ills.

Ou Virak drawing attention to the universal nature of human rights that covers all groups, including the Vietnamese minority living in Cambodia, should not provoke such rabidly violent reactions in the eyes of international human rights organisations.

Virak and the CCHR have received support from abroad, but little or no encouragement from other Cambodian human rights NGOs. Virak explained to Index: “ I think there is definitely a fear by the other NGOs that they will be attacked if they express concern regarding anti-Vietnamese rhetoric, and that they won’t be able to continue doing the work that they’re doing.”

Pung Chhiv Kek, president of local rights group Licadho, has stated “I don’t like to comment on the campaign against Mr Ou Virak. I’m not at all interested in this campaign against or for.” Yet back in the early 1990s Ms. Kek told this correspondent how she was bitterly disappointed that so many of her NGO staff at Licahdo harboured resentment towards any application of human rights principles to cover discrimination against Vietnamese residents in Cambodia.

“Sadly, many of these NGOs have shown themselves to be clearly aligned with the CNRP,” said Virak, and added “a lot of people are confused between fighting repression and just fighting the CPP”.

Thun Saray another well-known NGO leader was quoted in the Phnom Penh Post: ”I worry that if we damage one political leader, it could damage their reputation. Now it is a sensitive moment, we have to be careful.”

Cambodia, sandwiched between the two far bigger nations of Thailand and Vietnam, has suffered a substantial loss of territory during the past 600 years as a result of periodic invasions from their neighbours and the decline of the Angkorian Empire. There is a perennial fear among some Khmer people that Vietnam has evil designs to swallow Cambodia, based on a mixture of folklore, paranoia, political agitation and a jaundiced grasp of history.

The burgeoning anti-Vietnamese constituency is bolstered by their reading of Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia from 1979-1989, as proof of a Hanoi-orchestrated plot to colonise Cambodia. Vietnam is often depicted as the hidden power behind Hun Sen, the longest-serving prime minister in the region, who enjoys special historical links to Hanoi dating back 30 years.

On the other hand millions of Cambodians share a different memory of Vietnam’s intervention in 1979, which rescued them from the genocidal grip of the Khmer Rouge regime and the “Killing Fields” at a time when Sam Rainsy was living comfortably as a banker in Paris. An United Nations-backed special tribunal has been conducting trials in Phnom Penh since 2006 to hold the former Khmer Rouge leaders accountable for crimes against humanity and genocide.

Much older generation of Cambodians, who survived the “Killing Fields”, view Sam Rainsy’s vitriolic attacks as deeply divisive. Hun Sen and the CPP government have exploited these sentiments to the hilt in their electoral campaigns. Using the “Vietnamese card” did not mobilise votes for the opposition only — it can also be a double-edged sword.

In the first democratic election in 1993, under the auspices of the UN peacekeeping mission (UNTAC), Sam Rainsy was required to delete countless references to the “Yuon” in his prepared speech. Khmer-speaking UN official Tim Carney judged these to be inflammatory and offensive. In the 1998 election, however, Mr Rainsy was again criticised by UN experts for resorting to the same tactic. “Opposition leaders are inciting hatred and racism against the ethnic Vietnamese,” complained Thomas Hammarberg, the UN human rights envoy to Cambodia in 1998.

Rainsy, a former finance minister in the Cambodian coalition government in 1994 has always denied the many accusations of racism levelled at him, claiming that he is only expressing “legitimate patriotic concern that has nothing to do with stoking racial nationalist sentiment.”

Since the September 2013 election there has been major controversy over possible election irregularities and the opposition’s demand for a fresh election. The opposition has boycotted parliament, despite winning an impressive 55 seats, with the ruling CPP gaining 68 — a loss of 24 seats.

At the same time unrest has intensified with a nationwide strike of garment workers who are demanding a living wage and are also backing the political opposition calls for Hun Sen to resign.

Against this backdrop Ou Virak is deeply worried that “anti-Vietnamese sentiments are becoming more widespread as the population becomes increasingly frustrated with the political deadlock. “

During protests outside of the Canadia factory on Veng Sreng road on 3 January 2014, there were many reports of Vietnamese shops being targeted, looted and completely destroyed by protestors.

“These actions are being left un-condemned by the leadership of the CNRP,” says Virak  “which brings up clear concerns as to what the CNRP would do if in power.”

But a deepening vein of racism tainting the opposition’s campaign to unseat the entrenched ruling elite around Hun Sen is likely to prove counter-productive in the long term. At a time when the opposition is buoyed by unprecedented popular support at the polls and is getting closer to achieving power, Vietnamese-bashing is not the best way for them to convince the sceptics and the international community that they could do a far better job than the CPP of running the country.

This article was posted on 20 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org

The EU and free expression: Human rights dialogues


This article is part of a series based on our report, Time to Step Up: The EU and freedom of expression


Beyond its near neighbourhood, the EU works to promote freedom of expression in the wider world. To promote freedom of expression and other human rights, the EU has 30 ongoing human rights dialogues with supranational bodies, but also large economic powers such as China.

The EU and freedom of expression in China

The focus of the EU’s relationship with China has been primarily on economic development and trade cooperation.  Within China some commentators believe that the tough public noises made by the institutions of the EU to the Chinese government raising concerns over human rights violations are a cynical ploy so that EU nations can continue to put financial interests first as they invest and develop trade with the country. It is certainly the case that the member states place different levels of importance on human rights in their bilateral relationships with China than they do in their relations with Italy, Portugal, Romania and Latvia. With China, member states are often slow to push the importance of human rights in their dialogue with the country. The institutions of the European Union, on the other hand, have formalised a human rights dialogue with China, albeit with little in the way of tangible results.

The EU has a Strategic Partnership with China. This partnership includes a political dialogue on human rights and freedom of the media on a reciprocal basis.[1] It is difficult to see how effective this dialogue is and whether in its present form it should continue. The EU-China human rights dialogue, now 14 years old, has delivered no tangible results.The EU-China Country Strategic Paper (CSP) 2007-2013 on the European Commission’s strategy, budget and priorities for spending aid in China only refers broadly to “human rights”. Neither human rights nor access to freedom of expression are EU priorities in the latest Multiannual Indicative Programme and no money is allocated to programmes to promote freedom of expression in China. The CSP also contains concerning statements such as the following:

“Despite these restrictions [to human rights], most people in China now enjoy greater freedom than at any other time in the past century, and their opportunities in society have increased in many ways.”[2]

Even though the dialogues have not been effective, the institutions of the EU have become more vocal on human rights violations in China in recent years. For instance, it included human rights defenders, including Ai Weiwei, at the EU Nobel Prize event in Beijing. The Chinese foreign ministry responded by throwing an early New Year’s banquet the same evening to reduce the number of attendees to the EU event. When Ai Weiwei was arrested in 2011, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton issued a statement in which she expressed her concerns at the deterioration of the human rights situation in China and called for the unconditional release of all political prisoners detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression.[3] The European Parliament has also recently been vocal in supporting human rights in China. In December 2012, it adopted a resolution in which MEPs denounced the repression of “the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, press freedom and the right to join a trade union” in China. They criticised new laws that facilitate “the control and censorship of the internet by Chinese authorities”, concluding that “there is therefore no longer any real limit on censorship or persecution”. Broadly, within human rights groups there are concerns that the situation regarding human rights in China is less on the agenda at international bodies such as the Human Rights Council[4] than it should be for a country with nearly 20% of the world’s population, feeding a perception that China seems “untouchable”. In a report on China and the International Human Rights System, Chatham House quotes a senior European diplomat in Geneva, who argues “no one would dare” table a resolution on China at the HRC with another diplomat, adding the Chinese government has “managed to dissuade states from action – now people don’t even raise it”. A small number of diplomats have expressed the view that more should be done to increase the focus on China in the Council, especially given the perceived ineffectiveness of the bilateral human rights dialogues. While EU member states have shied away from direct condemnation of China, they have raised freedom of expression abuses during HRC General Debates.

The Common Foreign and Security Policy and human rights dialogues

The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) is the agreed foreign policy of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 allowed the EU to develop this policy, which is mandated through Article 21 of the Treaty of the European Union to protect the security of the EU, promote peace, international security and co-operation and to consolidate democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedom. Unlike most EU policies, the CFSP is subject to unanimous consensus, with majority voting only applying to the implementation of policies already agreed by all member states. As member states still value their own independent foreign policies, the CFSP remains relatively weak, and so a policy that effectively and unanimously protects and promotes rights is at best still a work in progress. The policies that are agreed as part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy therefore be useful in protecting and defending human rights if implemented with support. There are two key parts of the CFSP strategy to promote freedom of expression, the External Action Service guidelines on freedom of expression and the human rights dialogues. The latter has been of variable effectiveness, and so civil society has higher hopes for the effectiveness of the former.

The External Action Service freedom of expression guidelines

As part of its 2012 Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy, the EU is working on new guidelines for online and offline freedom of expression, due by the end of 2013. These guidelines could provide the basis for more active external policies and perhaps encourage a more strategic approach to the promotion of human rights in light of the criticism made of the human rights dialogues.

The guidelines will be of particular use when the EU makes human rights impact assessments of third countries and in determining conditionality on trade and aid with non-EU states. A draft of the guidelines has been published, but as these guidelines will be a Common Foreign and Security Policy document, there will be no full and open consultation for civil society to comment on the draft. This is unfortunate and somewhat ironic given the guidelines’ focus on free expression. The Council should open this process to wider debate and discussion.

The draft guidelines place too much emphasis on the rights of the media and not enough emphasis on the role of ordinary citizens and their ability to exercise the right to free speech. It is important the guidelines deal with a number of pressing international threats to freedom of expression, including state surveillance, the impact of criminal defamation, restrictions on the registration of associations and public protest and impunity against human right defenders. Although externally facing, the freedom of expression guidelines may also be useful in indirectly establishing benchmarks for internal EU policies. It would clearly undermine the impact of the guidelines on third parties if the domestic policies of EU member states contradict the EU’s external guidelines.

Human rights dialogues

Another one of the key processes for the EU to raise concerns over states’ infringement of the right to freedom of expression as part of the CFSP are the human rights dialogues. The guidelines on the dialogues make explicit reference to the promotion of freedom of expression. The EU runs 30 human rights dialogues across the globe, with the key dialogues taking place in China (as above), Kazakhstan,  Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Belarus. It also has a dialogues with the African Union, all enlargement candidate countries (Croatia, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Turkey), as well as consultations with Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and Russia. The dialogue with Iran was suspended in 2006. Beyond this, there are also “local dialogues” at a lower level, with the Heads of EU missions, with Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Vietnam. In November 2008, the Council decided to initiate and enhance the EU human rights dialogues with a number of Latin American countries.

It is argued that because too many of the dialogues are held behind closed doors, with little civil society participation with only low-level EU officials, it has allowed the dialogues to lose their importance as a tool. Others contend that the dialogues allow the leaders of EU member states and Commissioners to silo human rights solely into the dialogues, giving them the opportunity to engage with authoritarian regimes on trade without raising specific human rights objections.

While in China and Central Asia the EU’s human rights dialogues have had little impact, elsewhere the dialogues are more welcome. The EU and Brazil established a Strategic Partnership in 2007. Within this framework, a Joint Action Plan (JAP) covering the period 2012-2014 was endorsed by the EU and Brazil, in which they both committed to “promoting human rights and democracy and upholding international justice”. To this end, Brazil and the EU hold regular human rights consultations that assess the main challenges concerning respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law; advance human rights and democracy policy priorities and identify and coordinate policy positions on relevant issues in international fora. While at present, freedom of expression has not been prioritised as a key human rights challenge in this dialogue, the dialogues are seen by both partners as of mutual benefit. It is notable that in the EU-Brazil dialogue both partners come to the dialogues with different human rights concerns, but as democracies. With criticism of the effectiveness and openness of the dialogues, the EU should look again at how the dialogues fit into the overall strategy of the Union and its member states in the promotion of human rights with third countries and assess whether the dialogues can be improved.


[1] It covers both press freedom for the Chinese media in Europe and also press freedom for European media in China.

[2] China Strategy Paper 2007-2013, Annexes, ‘the political situation’, p. 11

[3] “I urge China to release all of those who have been detained for exercising their universally recognised right to freedom of expression.”

[4] Interview with European diplomat, February 2013.

Four places where social media could land you in jail

(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)

(Photo illustration: Shutterstock)

Facebook has nearly 1.2 billion monthly active users –that’s nearly 20% of the total global population. Yet, in some countries harsh sanctions and time in jail can be imposed on those who comment on social media, in the majority of cases for speaking out against their government.

China

China is infamous for its stance on censorship but September 2013 saw the introduction of perhaps one of their more bizarre laws: post a message online that the government deems defamatory or false and if it receives more than 500 retweets (or shares) or 5,000 views and the person responsible for the post could receive up to three years in jail.

For the post to be of concern to the government it must meet certain criteria before a conviction can occur. This includes causing a mass incident, disturbing public order, inciting ethnic and religious conflicts, and damaging the state’s image. And to top that off the post could also be a “serious case” of spreading rumours or false information online.

According to the Guardian one Weibo user, China’s largest microblogging site, wrote: “”It’s far too easy for something to be reposted 500 times or get 5,000 views. Who is going to dare say anything now?” whilst another claimed: “This interpretation is against the constitution and is robbing people of their freedom of speech”.

Vietnam

Decree 72 came into effect in Vietnam this year, a piece of legislation which makes it a criminal offence to share news articles or information gathered from government sites over online blogs and social media sites. The new law was criticised globally when it was announced in September as the latest attack on free expression in Vietnam adds to the list of censorship tactics already in place in the country; websites covering religion, human rights and politics have been blocked along with social media networks and some instant messaging services.

There are also fears that Decree 72 will risk harming international relations, with a direct impact on Vietnam’s economy, as well as internal restraints on the development of local businesses. Marie Harf, Deputy Spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, said in a press statement: “An open and free Internet is a necessity for a fully functioning modern economy; regulations such as Decree 72 that limit openness and freedom deprive innovators and businesses of the full set of tools required to compete in today’s global economy.”

Burma

Going to jail merely for receiving an email would seem absurd to much of the world. In Burma this is written into law.The Electronic Transactions Law 2004 allows imprisonment of up to 15 years for “acts by using electronic transactions technology” deemed “detrimental to the security of the State or prevalence of law and order or community peace and tranquillity or national solidarity or national economy or national culture”. Put into layman’s terms that could mean a hefty jail sentence for being on the receiving end of an email the government isn’t so fond of.

Despite talks to remove the lengthy jail terms many feel the changes don’t do enough to tackle a problem with censorship the country has faced for several decades.

Gambia

Those who intend to critics the Gambian government online should only do so if they have a stack of money to spare, $82,000 to be precise, or be willing to spend 15 years in jail. Under the recently passed Information and Communication (Amendment) Act anyone accused of spreading “false news” about the government or public officials online will face these heavy sanctions. Other ways in which Gambians can find themselves behind bars includes producing caricatures or making derogatory statements against public officials online, inciting dissatisfaction via internet posts or instigating violence against the government online.

Article 19 condemned the Act, criticising it for being “a flagrant breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), as well as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), both of which Gambia is a party to”.

This article was posted on 11 Jan 2014 at indexoncensorship.org