Report Lists 'Enemies Of The Internet'

The international journalists' advocacy group Reporters Without Borders has released its annual list of countries that "systematically violate online free expression."

The French-based organization's "Enemies of the Internet" list includes 13 countries in 2006, with three being dropped from the previous year and one new addition: Egypt.

The group said in a statement that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, "displays an extremely disturbing authoritarianism as regards the Internet," but points out that only select websites seem to be targeted for filtering, and those are largely sites linked to radical Islamic groups.

The report claims that Egyptian bloggers have come under intense scrutiny in 2006, with several being arrested for urging economic reforms on their sites and others facing police harassment. It also said the Egyptian government now has the power to shut down any site deemed a threat to the nation's security.

"This could open the way to extensive online censorship," the statement said.

Remaining on the list from 2005 are: Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Reporters Without Borders said that China remains unchallenged as the world's "most advanced country in Internet filtering."

The Chinese government makes no attempt to hide the fact that it closely monitors everything allowed online in the country.

However, due to Beijing's huge economic and geopolitical importance to the Western world, it has been relatively successful at absorbing criticism about its non-existent freedom of the press without affecting any real change.

That rule does not apply, as the group points out, to Vietnam.

While the communist nation of 84 million remains on the group's blacklist, their position there may be destined to change in the not-so-distant future.

Vietnam was formally invited Tuesday to join the World Trade Organization, and the country's booming economy is bringing it inevitably closer to the Western world.

This changing relationship is forcing Vietnam "to soften its control over news and information," Reporters Without Borders said, adding that Hanoi also seems now to "hesitate to crack down on dissidents."

For the three countries removed from the list; Libya, the Maldives and Nepal, it has been a combination of a quiet, unpublicized lack of arrests in the first two, and a noisy military coup in the second that earned their removal.

The group said that while the leaders of both Libya and the Maldives are still considered "press freedom predators," neither country has jailed "cyber-dissidents" during the last year, and both seem to be relaxing policy on website policing and censorship.

In Nepal, a May military coup which resulted in King Gyanendra being stripped of most of his actual power and democracy being restored to the tiny Himalayan nation also seems to have restored press freedoms, according to the group.

"The Internet is no longer censored and no harassment or arbitrary detention of any blogger has been reported," the report said.

Coinciding with the release of their 2006 Enemies of the Internet list, Reporters Without Borders launched a 24 hour appeal Tuesday, asking people to visit their website and register their name in support of freedom of cyber-expression, and to chose one of the nations on the list to publicly denounce.