ONI-Asia

2008-02-10T00:29:00.000-08:00

来源: ONI

Building on the pioneering work of ONI, the ONI-Asia project is extending and intensifying that model of collaborative local engagement to the Asia region as a whole from 2006 to 2009. Since 2002, the ONI has performed comprehensive studies on Internet filtering in forty countries, including eleven in Asia, where state-directed Internet filtering occurs regularly. Nevertheless, censorship and surveillance have thus far not been taken on as a public policy or legislative issue by governments and civil society in the Asia region. ONI-Asia will therefore engage academic, policy, and civil society stakeholders in each of the countries of the regions concerned by surveillance and censorship to build institutional capacity and networked resources to conduct research and public policy advocacy around those issues.

Objectives

Investigate internet surveillance and censorship in Asia by country and themes
Engage stakeholders on public policy issues in governments and civil society
Build a sustainable community of practitioners

Outcome

Better understand internet surveillance and censorship in Asia
Bring those issues to the policy debate in each country
Build capacity and a community of researchers public policy advocates

Outputs

Annual ONI-Asia regional reports
Chapters on individual countries and regional analyses
Ad hoc reports
Annual policy conferences in the Asia region
Several smaller workshops on research methods and technical issues

The ONI-Asia project in paced in three phases. The project will first identify and engage research and advocacy partners in all sub-regions, conducting assessments and developing comprehensive work plans with each of them. Phases two and three will implement the research and advocacy agendas, while networking all partners to strengthen capacity and take over project objectives upon completion of funding.

For more information, please contact:

François Fortier
Director, ONI-Asia
ffortier at citizenlab.org

Insurgency against Internet filtering: Yemen’s electronic media’s reaction to crackdown on Web sites

2008-01-26T21:03:00.000-08:00

来源：OpenNet Initiative Blog

Yemen’s major news aggregator and portal calls for “insurgency against Internet filtering” after the government of Yemen blocked the portal and at least 7 other news Web sites. The portal, yemenportal.net, warned in a press release (Arabic) that, unless the government unblocks the news sites, the portal will provide space for banned websites to display their content in full.

ONI confirmed the inaccessibility of several news Web sites from Yemen this month and found out that this new wave of political blocking is not transparent. Users who attempt to access these news Web sites encounter error messages instead of the standard explicit blockage which the filtering regime returns for attempts to access objectionable content such as sex.

A screen shot of the error message returned to users who attempt to visit news Web sites

A screen shot of the error message returned to users who attempt to visit blocked content such as sex sites

Political filtering in Yemen is not new but this new crackdown on news Web sites comes amid political turmoil and social unrest. There have been renewed clashes between the army and religious Shiite groups in the north, and demonstrations organized by former army members in the south who demand political reforms.

The Committee to Protect Journalists interviewed Walid Al-Saqaf, founder of yemenportal.net, and reported that,

Al-Saqaf said he believes his site may have been blocked after it posted citizen videos of a January 13 protest in the southern port city of Aden. The videos show security forces firing unprovoked at the crowd, he said, in contradiction of the government’s account.

GFW BLOG（功夫网与翻墙）

ONI-Asia

Objectives

Outcome

Outputs

Insurgency against Internet filtering: Yemen’s electronic media’s reaction to crackdown on Web sites