Rejoiced Bloggers Back to Blogging in Blogosphere

Ban on blogging lifted, bloggers rejoice

BY: Y Bala Murali Krishna

Panaji, July 21-2k6:  With the Indian Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) lifting the ”total blockade” imposed on blogs since July 14
on the directive of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in
the wake of the recent serial blasts on Mumbai suburban trains,
thousands of bloggers are rejoiced over the decision.
The DoT sent a directive to the ISPs yesterday seeking
explaination for the blanket blockade instead of blocking specific
listed unintended websites/web pages as per its July 13 circular.
Blogs — a type of website where entries such as in a journal or
diaries are made often providing commentary or news on a particular
subject and may also contain text, images and links to other blogs
or websites pertaining to the said topic — were banned by the DoT
to prevent the bloggers from venting their ire against the blasts.
The DoT also asked the ISPs why no action should be taken
against them for not adhering to its circular. This was followed by
a furore over the issue with the ISPs blocking sites like the
Google’s blogger.com, yahoo’s geocities.com and typepad among others.
Country’s main information technology trade group National
Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) president
Kiran Karnik observed that the blockade was neither desirable nor
possible to impose censorship on the Net.
The bloggers had formed a group called ‘Bloggers Against
Censorship’ (BAC) and also considered of moving a public interest
litigation (PIL) against the Centre for the ‘arbitrary ban’ which it
said was an infringement on the freedom of speech and expression
under Article 19(1) of the Constitution.
Significantly, the www.censorship.wikia.com which champions the
cause of the victims of censorship world over, had become a resource
base for documenting the internet restrictions in India and voices
of the BAC community highlighting various aspects of the blockade.
The organisation is known for its readiness to sense the
censorship of any kind in any part of the world and highlights it in
its publications including the website. It had even documented the
infamous 1975 Emergency in India and the happenings.

Human Rights organisation Amnesty International also launched a
fresh global campaign against such blockade as reported in India and
China which, it feels, is violative of the fundamental rights of
citizens.
The campaign aims to claim back the web as a force for change in
the face of an increasing willingness on the part of technology
companies to aid censorship and repression.
From Iran to the Maldives and Cuba to Vietnam, governments are
both cracking down on the internet users from communicating their
views and denying them access to its wealth of information. Web
users are locked up, internet cafes are shut down, chat rooms are
policed and blogs deleted. Websites are blocked, foreign news banned
and search engines filter out sensitive results, the Amnesty
International averred.
”The internet can be a great tool for the promotion of human
rights — activists can tell the world about abuses in their country
at the click of a mouse. People have unprecedented access to
information from the widest range of sources,” said Amnesty
International statement.
Sun Microsystems, Nortel Networks, Cisco Systems, Yahoo! and
Google are among the companies implicated in helping governments
censor the internet or track down individual users.
In 2004, Microsoft released information about Israeli nuclear
whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to the Israeli authorities without
his knowledge or consent. The data was initially used to prosecute
Vanunu for having contact with foreign media.
”We are calling on internet users across the world to go to
http://irrepressible.info and sign a pledge calling on all
governments and companies to respect internet freedom,”  the AI
said.
”Internet companies often claim to be ethically responsible –
these pledges will highlight how their co-operation against
repression will make them complicit in human rights abuses and may
cause damage to their credibility,” the agency said.
The online pledges will be collected and presented to a key UN
meeting on the future of the internet in November 2006, it added. //EOM//