Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
enforcement has been dubious (Reporters Without Borders 2004). The PTA has
banned dozens of URLs that published Danish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet
Mohammed; indeed, the Pakistani police attempt to register all websites con-
taining ''blasphemous material'' (Ahmed
2002
). Baluchi nationalist and human
rights sites are also blacklisted. The Pakistani cybercommunity responded to these
initiatives with a ''Don't Block the Blog'' campaign (
http://dbtb.org/
), which,
among other things, has exposed the military's numerous civil rights violations.
3.2.4 Southeast Asia
Many countries in Southeast Asia exhibit multiple forms of internet censorship.
Many governments in the region often justify such intervention on the grounds that
they share ''Asian values'' ostensibly at odds with Western notions of democratic
access (Hachigian
2002
). In Thailand, the number of blocked websites jumped
markedly after the military coup of January, 2006. When YouTube posted a silly
video ridiculing King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2007, the government temporarily
banned the website entirely throughout the country and deported the producer, a
Swiss national, back to his country.
Vietnam's Leninist state has long pursued a rigid path of internet censorship
(Pierre
2000
). The country's sole ISP with a license for international connections,
Vietnam Data Communications, is a subsidiary of the government telecommuni-
cations monopoly. Domestic content providers must obtain special licenses from
the Ministry of the Interior and lease connections from the state-owned Vietnam
Post and Telecommunications Corporation. The state uses a complex system of
firewalls, access controls, and strenuously encouraged self-censorship. E-mail is
regularly monitored by searches for key words. Vietnam has imprisoned those who
dare to use the internet to speak out against the government, such as Pham Hong, a
doctor who posted an online article calling for democracy (International Censor-
ship Explorer
2006
). Owners of cybercafés who permit searches of unauthorized
websites by their clients face fines of 5 million dong, roughly US$330 (Kalathil
and Boas
2003
). Despite the liberalization efforts known as doi moi, the Viet-
namese Communist Party keeps a firm grip on cybertraffic, particularly internet
sites considered to be ''offensive to Vietnamese culture'' (Human Rights Watch
2002
). In 2003, the government lashed out at Reporters Without Borders after the
organization listed the country as one of the world's 15 worst censors of the
internet.
The government of Burma/Myanmar, according to the OpenNet Initiative
(
2005
, p. 4), ''implements one of the world's most restrictive regimes of Internet
control.'' The ruling junta, the State Peace and Development Council, bars 84 % of
sites ''with content known to be sensitive to the Burmese state.'' It also excludes
email sites such as Hotmail and Yahoo because they cannot be monitored for
political criticism, and pornography. The 1996 Computer Science Development
Law requires that all network-ready computers be registered with the Ministry of
