WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2003-11-26 Posted By: Jan
From the News Archives of: WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org
Date & Time Posted: 11/26/2003 6:44:23 AM
Mugabe cracks down on the internet
[Note. There are no freedoms in Zimbabwe. I heard from someone who had once been in the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation) offices in Harare – that they have an entire floor full of people monitoring internet traffic into and out of Zimbabwe, and reading people’s emails.
Jan]
Reporters sans Frontie(168)¨res has urged Zimbabwean authorities to drop charges against 14 people who were arrested for circulating an e-mail message criticising President Robert Mugabe’s economic policies and calling for his departure.
“Robert Mugabe has already gagged the traditional news media and we must now speak out so that the internet does not meet the same fate,” Reporters sans Frontie(168)¨res secretary general Robert Menard said about the arrests in Zimbabwe.
“The Zimbabwean opposition is increasingly using the internet to distribute information criticising the regime and this right must not be denied them,” he added.
The Herald, a government-controlled daily, said those detained were released after paying bail of Z$50 000 but have been ordered to appear in court on November 26. The e-mail message encouraged Zimbabweans to stage violent demonstrations and strikes to force Mugabe to stand down, the newspaper said.
This is the first time the Zimbabwean authorities have used a law passed last year by Parliament allowing it to intercept e-mail. An employee with a Zimbabwean internet service provider told the BBC that no system for monitoring e-mail has yet been installed. The police therefore intervened after receiving a copy of the message.
“What is happening is that governments are starting to not only wise up to the internet, but to acknowledge it as an important medium of communication,” says South African internet journalist and author Arthur Goldstuck.
“As such it poses a tremendous threat to totalitarian regimes such as those in China and Zimbabwe. If it were still the old South Africa, internet access would probably be rigidly monitored, but unlike these examples, the individuals using it to express their views would be pursued by security police rather than through the open justice system.”
Goldstuck says an emerging trend would be governments avoiding pursuing these matters openly because the nature of the medium means their embarrassment will be compounded.
“The violating e-mails would become part of the online record of discussion of the cases, which is exactly what these kinds of governments want to avoid.”
The Zimbabwean news media use the internet to get around government censorship.
After The Daily News was banned in October, its editors decided to continue publishing on a website hosted in neighbouring South Africa. The Insider, a newspaper that has declared its intention of providing independent news, has been publishing online since September to avoid the prohibitive cost of a paper edition.
In China an unemployed man was tried on Wednesday for “incitement to subvert the state” after he published an article on the internet accusing China’s ruling communist party of corruption, a human rights group said. His message called on the party to “protect the rights and interests of the weaker classes as well as those of retired workers and people expelled from their homes”.
The man on trial — Sang Jiancheng (61) — was charged with subversion for posting incendiary material on the internet. The charge is commonly used by Chinese authorities to punish anyone who is seen as opposing the government.
The subversion trial is the first of its kind in Shanghai since Lin Hai was tried on the same charges in 1999 for expressing his political views, the human rights group said.
China has heightened its crackdown on cyber-dissidents this year, with four people accused of state subversion condemned to between eight and 10 years in prison in May.
Other internet dissidents are likely to be convicted before the end of the month, in southwestern Sichuan and northern Shaanxi provinces, as well as Beijing, according to the rights group. — Sapa-AFP
Source: Daily Mail & Guardian
URL: http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=24087&t…br>