Belarus Remains the Only European Country in Baker’s Dozen of Internet Enemies

08.11.2006.

For the second year in a row Belarus is blacklisted as ‘an enemy of the Internet’. The list is created based on the monitoring by journalists’ rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF). This year there are 13 countries in the blacklist. They are: Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Myanmar, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. As Radio Liberty informs, in this sad hit-parade Europe is represented by the only country, Belarus.

The publication of the “enemies of the Internet” is tamed to the campaign against Internet censorship which was launched on 7 November worldwide. According to the monitoring of the RSF, government crackdowns on the Internet and its users violate the right of citizens for free access to information.

It is noted in the report that the state-owned enterprise Beltelekom is the only national Internet provider, which makes it easier for the authorities to control the contents of internet-pages. According to Reporters Without Borders, in Belarusian internet-cafйs a special program for logging information about users’ activities in internet is used.