Report handed in to “Internet Enemy” embassies on eve of Online Free Expression Day

Reporters Without Borders yesterday handed in copies of its 2009 “Internet Enemies” report at the Paris embassies of the 22 countries identified as an “enemy” or source of concern in the report, issued to mark Online Free Expression Day today. The Tunisian and Burmese embassies refused to take its copy. “Online censorship today concerns every kind of user of the Internet, from the person who posts a comment on a website to journalists and other content producers,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Any attack on this space is an offence against free expression.” The report identifies 12 countries as “Enemies of the Internet.” They are Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. For the first time, the report also includes two democracies in the 10 other countries that are “under surveillance” for adopting or considering measures that could open the way to abuses of online freedom of information. (Download in PDF). To mark Online Free Expression Day, Reporters Without Borders today also released a film illustrating the situation that some users face when they connect to the Internet. One of the Internet's founders, Google vice-president Vinton Cerf, also talks about the way the Internet is evolving in an interview during the LIFT 2009 Conference of new technology experts held in Geneva from 25 to 27 February.