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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 22 Jul 2009
It’s not clear that the son of Chinese President Hu Jintao has any direct involvement in separate African and European investigations into allegations of wrongdoing at a company he used to run. But one thing that is clear is that for Chinese Internet censors, this story about as sensitive as it gets.
Hu Haifeng’s former company, Nuctech Co., is under scrutiny from anti-corruption officials in Namibia investigating a deal in which the local government purchased cargo scanners from Nuctech. Investigators say he isn’t a suspect. The European Union is investigating whether Nuctech engaged in unfair trade in its sales of X-ray scanners, following a complaint it was selling the products at abnormally low prices. It isn’t clear when the younger Mr. Hu left his position at Nuctech. He’s now a senior official at its parent company.
The cases, which don’t appear related, are extremely sensitive in China, where relatives of top leaders keep a very low profile and where officials fear that any link to corruption in a top leader’s family could lead trigger widespread public anger.
So it’s not surprising that censors have been scrubbing the Web of any trace of the story in China.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 22 Jul 2009
The update issued by etisalat to its BlackBerry subscribers on July 8 is not designed to enhance performance but intercept communications, Research in Motion, BlackBerry's parent company has said.
An update etisalat termed as a "performance enhancing patch" that was issued earlier this month led to excessive battery drainage in BlackBerry phones, which experts attributed to a communications interception software pushed on to subscribers' devices by the operator.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 22 Jul 2009
Pakistanis who send jokes about Asif Zardari by text message, email or blog risk being arrested and given a 14-year prison sentence.
The country's interior minister, Rehman Malik, announced the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had been asked to trace electronically transmitted jokes that "slander the political leadership of the country" under the new Cyber Crimes Act.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 21 Jul 2009
Several Chinese Internet sites and parts of popular Web portals went offline Tuesday amid tightening controls that have already left mainland Web users without access to Facebook, Twitter and other well-known social networking sites.
China stepped up its crackdown on social networking sites in March over online allegations surrounding the treatment of Tibetans, and the blockages continued through the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the recent ethnic riots in Xinjiang.
The harsh measures are also thought to be part of efforts to ensure social stability ahead of the 60th anniversary of communist rule on Oct. 1, when Beijing will mark 60 years of communist rule.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 21 Jul 2009
Iran has passed a new internet law that experts fear will make information on internet users more readily available to the authorities.
Press TV, a news channel funded by the Iranian government, said on Monday that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country's president, has issued an order for the implementation of the law.
According to Press TV, the cyber law would provide internet users with "more security", as internet service providers are required to save all data sent and received by their clients for at least three months.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 20 Jul 2009
The European Commission is threatening to brandish the new roaming regulation or antitrust rules in order to block plans by major EU telecoms operators to restrict the use of Internet calling services like Skype via their mobile networks.
Replying to a written question by a Socialist MEP, Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding made clear last week that the new roaming regulation, which entered into force at the beginning of July, is also aimed at avoiding any discrimination between technologies.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 20 Jul 2009
Reporters Without Borders condemns today’s Baku appeal court decision confirming a two-month detention order for bloggers Adnan Haji Zadeh and Emin Mili pending their trial on trumped-up charges of hooliganism. They have been held since 8 July.
“There are absolutely no grounds for this decision, which bodes ill for free expression in Azerbaijan,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We reiterate our call for the release of Zadeh and Mili, who are being held for political reasons, not because they committed any crime. They have been paying a high price for the dishonesty of the authorities ever since their arrest.”
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 20 Jul 2009
It seems many Pakistanis have been enjoying forwarding text messages poking fun at President Asif Zardari because the backlash against the Cyber Crime Act (CCA) has focused largely on the FIA’s intention to crack down on indecent SMS.
But a more interesting problem — both for the authorities and the public — is emerging online thanks to the act. Once again, an official campaign threatens to undermine civil liberties while failing to achieve anything productive.
The CCA — under which people who send ‘ill-motivated’ texts and emails can face up to 14 years in prison — also claims to target organisations that have been using the Internet to disseminate propaganda and rally against Pakistan’s security forces. Many in the blogosphere interpreted this to mean that FIA would target extremist and terrorist websites, an effort that would be consistent with the broader fight against militant groups in the northwest.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 20 Jul 2009
Ten years after a government crackdown drove it underground in China, Falun Gong is trying to position itself to get U.S. government funds to help defeat Internet censors worldwide.
The spiritual group's efforts to stay in contact with its members in China spawned a sophisticated effort to evade Chinese censors, which has now expanded enough that it was used by Iranian protesters to get around government controls in June.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 20 Jul 2009
The Afghan government has blocked access to four Web sites with President Hamid Karzai's name in the address that are critical of the Afghan leader or have links to sites advertising locally taboo subjects such as online dating and mail order brides.
The shutdown order comes ahead of the country's Aug. 20 presidential election. An Information Ministry spokesman initially said the original complaint about two of the sites came from the Karzai campaign. Karzai's campaign spokesman agreed, but later called back to deny involvement.
