Hillary Clinton: State censorship in Internet inacceptable

• 22.01.2010, 9:17

The US Secretary of State delivered a speech I Washington supporting freedom of expression on the web.

As said by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Internet should be one and common for all users, and each user should have equal access to it, “Radio Svaboda” reports.

At the same time Hillary Clinton condemned cyberattacks in the internet ad called upon all the countries to cooperate in counteraction to these attacks.

Countries or people that "engage in cyberattacks should face consequences and international condemnation," she said. In the interrelated world an attack against communicational networks of one state should be viewed as an attack against all, she stated.

Hillary Clinton made the statement after Google company accused Chinese authorities of organizing a cyber attack against accounts of Chinese human rights activists at Gmail domain. MRs Clinton called upon China to make a thorough and transparent investigation of cyber attacks.

In her speech Hillary Clinton also charged three countries, China, Tunisia and Uzbekistan, of state-sponsored censorship which is wider than in other countries.

We remind that on December 14, 2009 Belarusian media received a draft decree “On measures for revising use of the national segment of the World Wide Web”. The decree makes authorities control over internet users significantly more strict, and imposes a number of new conditions of ByNet functioning.

The scandalous document includes blocking of websites under a decision of state authorities, identification of internet users, responsibility for dissemination of information on the web, as well as state registration of online media.

According to the initial version of the decree, hosting of Belarusian web resources should be transferred to Belarus compulsorily, and in order to browse the web even in dial-up mode, Belarusians would have to go to a provider with a passport.