Georgia and Kazakhstan are amid countries with excessive restrictions on using the Internet, according to "Governing the Internet" report of OSCE.
Photo: Nikolay Cyiganov
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OSCE Added Georgia to List of Internet Censors
The recently issued OSCE report, “Governing the Internet,” says that Georgia and Kazakhstan are amid countries with excessive restrictions on using the Internet.
Kazakhstan, the report says, aims at controlling journalism in Internet under the guise of protecting the national security, which reminds of the spy mania of Soviet times. Georgia’s problem is legislation. The laws there spell out a raft of provisions that limit freedom of online expression.
According to the report, online censorship is “a bitter reminder of the ease with which some regimes – democracies and dictatorships alike – seek to suppress speech that they disapprove of.”
That assessment of OSCE obviously distressed Georgia. The Act on Internet had been passed before the Rose Revolution, explained Elena Tevdoradze, who chairs the human right defenders’ committee at Georgian parliament. Georgian users of Internet are really restricted in their rights, Economic Development Minister Georgy Arveladze acknowledged, blaming the limits on poor work of providers and on actions of national commission for communication control.
www.kommersant.com
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