Since RSF is Trying, We Ought to Participate

Right now on the net, Reporters Without Borders are hosting a cyber demonstration against online censorship. More information here. Perhaps if I had a French sense of orientation and logic I would find the campaign site useful. But I don´t. To me, it is just very French. I expected to be able to click on any of the countries on the map that has taken over the front page at www.rsf.org, but it doesn´t work (try Internet Explorer if you care to play around more than I did).

That said, the site offer an opportunity to record a message to Yahoo!´s founder, to protest against Internet Black Holes. The information page also promises the launch of an Arabic RSF site today. Me myself cannot find it. Here is what RSF says about Egypt:

Aside from a few sites linked to the Muslim Brotherhood’s religious movements, Egypt does little online filtering. But President Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981, displays an extremely disturbing authoritarianism as regards the Internet. Three bloggers were arrested in June 2006 and were held for two to three months for calling for democratic reforms. Others have been harassed, such as Coptic blogger Hela Hemi Botros, who was forced to close down her blog in August under pressure from the police. Finally, a Council of State administrative court recently ruled that the authorities could block, suspend of close down any website likely to pose a threat to “national security.” This could open the way to extensive online censorship.

RSF 24 hour campaign