Nepal: Royal Army launches offensive in cyberspace
Via Reporters sans Frontières.
Reporters Without Borders expressed concern at an escalation in violations of freedom of expression on the Internet by the Nepalese army, under the control of King Gyanendra since 1st February 2005.
Websites have been blocked, bloggers threatened, discussion forums closed and emails increasingly put under surveillance.
"Direct and indirect censorship imposed by King Gyanendra in February 2005 has made freedom of expression on the Internet all the more crucial. But the army and the government have extended their crackdown into Nepal's cyberspace," the worldwide press freedom organisation said. "We call for the end to blocking of websites and the authorities' constant harassment of service providers".
Some 300,000 people use the Internet in Nepal and more than a dozen news sites set up by Nepal's civil society or by the Nepalese community abroad have been blocked by service providers. The most recent, www.samudaya.org and www.insn.org, were made inaccessible, on 30 June 2005, by a majority of Nepal's 16 providers, an error message appearing each time the URL is typed in for one of these sites.
A military spokesman confirmed that these sites had been blocked at a press conference in Kathmandu but said they had been accused of working for the "terrorists".
posted by Fergie @ 7/22/2005 09:44:00 AM
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