PNG activist blogger Martyn Namorong protests online in defiance of gag order

PNG blogger Martyn Namorong ... gagged but not silenced. Image: MN Twitter

By Mong Palatino of Global Voices

A Papua New Guinea court has issued a gag order against Martyn Namorong, a prominent political blogger and activist accused of defaming Patilias Gamato, the country’s Electoral Commissioner.

Gamato this week sued Namorong after Namorong compared him to a "fruit" (tomato) on social media, as reported by Pacific Media Watch. When Namorong learned about the court order, he posted this image on Twitter before adding the above blue gag selfie image:

He added that he also needed a lawyer.

Key accused of allowing secret 'spook' cable sensors to spy on NZ citizens

 Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald (left) and Kim Dotcom at the "moment of truth"
political surveillance meeting in Auckland last night. Image: PMW

By ANNA MAJAVU of Pacific Media Watch

NEW ZEALAND Prime Minister John Key has been accused of allowing the secret installation of equipment that would enable spooks to tap into New Zealand's undersea fibre optic cable as part of a covert mass surveillance system of citizens.

This was the word from globally acclaimed whistleblower Edward Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (both speaking via video link), Kim Dotcom and US Pulitzer prize-winner Glenn Greenwald last night at a packed meeting of more than 2000 people in Auckland.

The hall was so full that another 800 people could not get into the venue at the Auckland Town Hall.

In a major political coup for the Internet-Mana alliance which organised the seminar and which is contesting the New Zealand national elections this Saturday, the three speakers painted a grim picture of individual privacy and internet freedom under New Zealand's ruling National Party.

Dotcom told the meeting that there were only two ways to fight mass surveillance - through political mobilising, as the Internet Party was doing and through encryption.

Bad news from East Timor as media faces petro fund 'guided democracy' gag

Timorese students protest over Australian spying in its efforts to manipulate Timor-Leste's oil industry
... free speech at risk under the new media law. Photo: Global Voices

By Tempo Semanal editor/publisher José Antonio Belo

SADLY, I have bad news to report from East Timor. It is not yet clear how long my colleagues and I will be able to freely report the news. But readers should know, things are not what they seem in the glowing press releases from Government Palace in Dili.

The government, through its members in the national Parliament, is taking steps to limit basic freedoms held by Timorese citizens.

East Timor is now a vibrant and peaceful young democracy, but a few weeks ago it took a significant step backwards towards the days of the Suharto regime, when Indonesia occupied East Timor for 24 years between 1975 and 1999.

On May 6, the national Parliament of East Timor passed a law to regulate the media and freedom of expression in East Timor. The law has yet to be promulgated by the President of the Republic, Taur Matan Ruak, although it was sent to him to pass last week.

The law is not only undemocratic but is also in violation of the constitution. The constitution gives rights to the media and citizens for freedom of expression in articles 40 and 41, but the new law seeks to limit, restrict and in some cases terminate those rights.

Timor-Leste raises bar in media suppression with new law

Graphic from the latest edition of Index on Censorship with a profile on the new law.
Image: Shutterstock/Index on Censorship

JOURNALISTS and civil society critical of the flawed Fiji mediascape in the lead-up to the first post-coup general election in September should also be up in arms over the attempts to muzzle the press in Timor-Leste.

A new law passed by the National Assembly in Dili early last month raises the Asia-Pacific bar in suppression tactics against probing media.

The law, not yet endorsed by the president, severely limits who can qualify to be “journalists” and could potentially curb overseas investigative journalists and foreign correspondents from reporting from the country as they would need advance state permission.

It also sidelines independent freelancers and researchers working for non-government organisations in quasi media roles.

In a fledgling country where the media has limited resources, media officers and other researchers working for NGOs have been providing robust reporting and analysis of the country’s development progress – especially over the oil producing industry.

Fighting PNG corruption and social media gags with … outspoken blogs

Graphic: shutterstock.com

THE BLOGGING war is hotting up in Papua New Guinea – just when things are getting riskier with draconian proposals over cybercrime law on the horizon. The state target for Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s government appears to be social media. Trample on any possible dissent.

O’Neill is seen as a proxy for Canberra’s strategic interests in the region. As PNGexposed claimed in one posting, the Australian government “has already assumed the role of regional sheriff and wants to sit astride a region of compliant states and micro-states”.

“This means other countries markets and resources should be open to foreign capital without barriers such as the muscular protection of landowner rights, or strong environmental laws. Australia is targeting its aid spending to ensure Bougainville fits this model.

“Whatever the future for Bougainville, Australia wants to ensure the island is a subservient neighbor providing a supporting role to Australia’s own economic and political interests. Australia is therefore targeting its aid spending to ensure that outcome, placing consultants in key political and financial roles and neglecting health and other people-centered sectors.”

According to figures released by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (see table here) show that more than 90 percent of $2.9 million a year spent on the salaries or commissions of consultants working for Australia on Bougainville is directed at ensuring Australian political structures, policy priorities, economic models, and security interests dominate in the new Bougainville government and bureaucracy.

Burma’s booming free media big lesson for Fiji

The Burmese regime has decided to "take the bull by the horns and open up the media
arena, with some good results". Why can't Fiji do the same?
Photo: Asian Correspondent.com

FIJI should take note of the recent media transformation in Burma after almost five decades under tight military regime control since the 1962 coup. Apart from dissidents and exiles reporting the "real" stories from within to the outer world, much of the rest of the media had become the docile plaything of the colonels. Not any more. While there is still a long way to go for a free press in Burma, the democratic floodgates have genuinely opened and - surprise, surprise - the media is booming. Café Pacific reckons the Bainimarama regime should open up and encourage a return to a genuinely "free" media (by abolishing the Media Decree) as the country prepares for the lead up to the 2014 general election.

By U Myint Thin in The Irrawaddy

Irrawaddy's U Myint-Thin ... pseudonym for a
Thai columnist. Graphic: Irrawwaddy

MEDIA development is a serious business in Burma. After the government in Naypyidaw decided to open up the country, it picked media as a top priority. For the past 15 months, media development has been the most exciting area which is being closely watched by the international community.

Literally every international media assistance programme has now established a presence inside Burma, offering training and workshops and drafting various media development plans. UNESCO has spearheaded efforts to promote press freedom inside Burma using its vast experience from other developing countries.

For the first time, the country will celebrate World Press Freedom Day on May 3 to herald new media freedom inside the country.

How to make censorship 'obsolete' - a bold new RSF digital strategy

REPORTERS sans frontières (RSF - Reporters Without Borders) has launched a website called WeFightCensorship (WeFC) on which it will post content that has been censored or banned or has given rise to reprisals against its creator.

This original website’s aim is to make censorship obsolete. It is an unprecedented initiative that will enable Reporters Without Borders to complement all of its other activities in defence of freedom of information, which include advocacy, lobbying and assistance.

Content submitted by journalists or netizens who have been the victims of censorship – articles, videos, sound files, photos and so on – will be considered for publication on the WeFightCensorship site.

The content selected by the WeFC editorial committee will be accompanied by a description of the context and creator. It may also be accompanied by copies of documents relating to the proceedings under which it was banned or other documents that might help the public to understand its importance.

There will be French and English-language versions of the site. Documents from all over the world will be published in their original language (including Chinese, Persian and Vietnamese) and in translation.

The site is designed to be easily duplicated and mirror versions will be created in order to thwart attempts to filter or block it. Internet users will be asked to circulate the censored content in order to give it as much visibility as possible.

“Reporters Without Borders is providing a deterrent designed to encourage governments and others to respect freedom of information, the freedom that allows us to verify that all the other freedoms are being respected,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“This website aims to exploit the so-called ‘Streisand effect,’ under which the more you try to censor content online, the more the Internet community tends to circulate it. We want to show that jailing an article’s author, seizing copies of a newspaper or blocking access to a website with a certain video can prove very counter-productive and can result in the content going around the world.”

By accessing a secured “digital safe,” Internet users will be able to submit content for publication anonymously.

The website will also offer a “digital survival kit” with information about Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), encryption software such as TrueCrypt, online anonymization techniques such as Tor and other tools that news providers can use to protect their sources and, in authoritarian countries, their own safety.

Private access to a beta version of the site has already been available since 13 November to those that register. To support the launch, the Publicis Bruxelles advertising agency devised a campaign ad free of charge that shows several heads of State, including Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Assad in their birthday suits with the legend “Totalitarian regimes will no longer be able to hide anything from us.” It will appear in the print media and online.

Reporters Without Borders is an NGO with consultative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the International Organisation of the Francophonie. It has its international secretariat in Paris, 10 international bureaux (in Berlin, Brussels, Geneva, Madrid, New York, Rome, Stockholm, Tunis, Vienna and Washington) and more than 150 correspondents across all five continents.

The WeFC project is supported by the European Union’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) and the Paris City Hall.

• We Fight Censorship

Online campaign stops US anti-piracy censorship in its tracks - for now

SO Reuters reports that US lawmakers stopped anti-piracy legislation in its tracks this week, "delivering a stunning win for internet companies that staged an unprecedented online protest". Previously the fast-moving bills had appeared on target to become a draconian new curb on freedom of expression and information on the internet. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he would postpone a critical vote that had been scheduled next week on January 24 "in light of recent events". (See the Hindustani version of a Reuters report). But Jillian C. York of Global Voices gives a pithy account of the world protest blackout this week - January 18. She writes:

Global online community protests US anti-piracy bills

Today, January 18, is an important day for the Internet. Corporate websites, from Google to Twitpic, along with civil society groups and individuals, have all joined together in a common cause: to protest two American bills that could have grave effects for global online free expression.

As Global Voices' executive director Ivan Sigal has written, “there are powerful corporate and government forces who would prefer to see the openness and accessibility of the web restricted". The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) would both force websites to proactively censor potentially copyrighted information, and could, as Sigal wrote, “inflict broad damage on the work of digital activists living under repressive regimes, as well as restrict basic speech freedoms around the world.”

Because these bills have the potential to affect internet users worldwide, members of the global community have joined Americans in protest. From German digital rights group Netzpolitik to Open Media Canada to individual bloggers and social media users, the sentiment is the same: Stop these bills.

Blacking out

French site https://linuxfr.org goes dark against #SOPA

Many sites have chosen to express their opposition by blacking out their sites, either entirely or with an interstitial page. Danica Radovanovic (@DanicaR), writing for Australian blog network DejanSEO, discusses Wikipedia's decision to join the blackout, a decision that affects the site's diverse global community:

Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.

• Pacific Media Watch report on the blackout
• Read the full article on Global Voices

'Pulling the plug' in Burma - new insights into the blackout

Reporters Without Borders has hailed a report by Stephanie Wang of the OpenNet Initiative on the way the Burmese junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), cut the country’s internet connection on 29 September. Founded by the universities of Harvard, Toronto, Oxford and Cambridge, the OpenNet Initiative studies internet filtering issues and the social impact of new technologies. Published on 22 October, Wang’s report, entitled "Pulling the Plug," describes the process of Burma’s isolation. For two weeks, a news blackout was imposed and most Burmese got their news from satellite TV and radio. Excerpt from the RSF report: "Control of the internet was facilitated by the fact that Burma’s only two ISPs, BaganNet and Myanmar Posts and Telecom (MPT), are state offshoots. The OpenNet Initiative report goes into detail about how the shutdown was implemented, with times, ISPs involved and methods used.
"'The junta attempted to sever the flow of information so that the picture of reality for people on both sides of the Burmese border would remain distorted," the report says. "As a result, the targets for censorship expanded exponentially from websites that are critical of the junta to any individual with a camera or cell phone and direct or indirect access to the internet.'
"The report says internet use increased within the country during the crisis because it was always possible to use censorship-evasion techniques. The intranet carried on functioning correctly and MPT provided a connection to the sites of military offices (ko-hite.blogspot.com, myochitmyanmar.blogspot.com and drlunswe.blogspot.com) and to those sites that offered no political news. Some sites such as dathana.blogspot.com and niknayman.blogspot.com did however post news about the demonstrations during the blackout that were not censored.
"'Many believe that the breakthrough uses of the internet over this period have enabled some irreversible gains," the report says. 'Multiple generations of Burmese living locally and abroad have found linkages to each other as blogging became increasingly recognised as a valuable source of information (...) even the vast majority of Burmese without access to or knowledge of the internet may have benefited from the enduring achievement of a small band of citizen bloggers and journalists.'"
Burma was ranked 164th out of 169 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2007 world press freedom index. Since the demonstrations got under way in September, eight journalists have been detained and a photographer has disappeared.

• Pulling the plug - response
• OpenNet Initiative
• Full report - "Pulling the plug: A technical review of the internet shutdown in Burma"