Censorship. Fighting repression on the worldwide web
What were you doing on such-and-such a website? Why are you sending encrypted E-mails? Do you have something to hide? In many developing countries, bloggers and protestors are faced with questions like these, or worse. Not everywhere is the Internet the safe place it ought to be, the place where people can express their opinions without fear of retribution. Hivos hopes to change that, with its various partners and programmes.
In countries such as Iran, China and Zimbabwe, the regime often intimidates and/or arrests bloggers and protestors campaigning on the Internet. That is why Hivos supports the distribution and further development of NGO-in-a-Box, a CD that allows campaigners, among other things, to protect their identities on the Internet and keep their E-mails secret.
Following the World Summit on the Information Society in the Tunisian capital Tunis in 2005, Hivos launched what is known as the Expression Under Repression programme. Thanks in part to the lobbies of organisations like Hivos, that UN cyber summit dealt not only with the technical aspects of the information society, but also with the issue of human rights on the Internet.
In that connection, Hivos organised an Expression Under Repression workshop, where campaigners and bloggers protesting in repressive societies could swap experiences with one another on the Internet. The importance of such a forum was demonstrated soon after during the UN summit, when the Tunisian authorities tried to curtail and block the activities of Hivos.
Even after the UN cyber summit, Hivos has continued to campaign for human rights on the Internet, both nationally and internationally. Hivos supports partner organisations trying to improve freedom on the Internet in their countries. Together with several human rights organisations, Hivos has also set up an emergency fund for cyber protestors that can quickly transfer funds if money is urgently needed for a lawyer or for an online campaign for the release of a protestor.
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