Amnesty International launches Website in campaign against online censorship

Ron Brynaert
Published: Sunday May 28, 2006

On its 45th anniversary, Amnesty International has launched a Website to combat online censorship, with the support of The Observer, a weekly British newspaper.

Amnesty chose The Observer to make the announcement since the international human rights organization itself grew from an article published in the paper forty-five years ago.

"Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government," Peter Benenson wrote in that 1961 article entitled The Forgotten Prisoners.

"The 'appeal for amnesty' that he started went on to become Amnesty International, a movement that now has 1.8 million supporters in more than 100 countries around the world and continues to stand up for freedom and justice wherever it is denied," writes Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty International in today's Observer.

At Irrepressible.info net users are asked to sign a pledge "to call on all governments and companies to ensure the Internet is a force for political freedom, not repression." So far, at the time of this writing, the site claims that 6572 users have signed on.

The group is also asking people to write emails to Chinese authorities asking them to free a journalist currently serving a ten year prison sentence.

"In 2004 Shi Tao sent details of an internal government directive instructing journalists how to handle media coverage of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown to a US-based website," Amenesty explains on it's 'Take Action' page.

Shi Tao used a Yahoo account to send his email, and was subsequently charged with "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities."

"Disturbingly Yahoo! China provided account holder information to the Chinese Government which led to his unjust imprisonment," the site notes.

Amnesty is also asking bloggers to "add irrepressible content" to their Websites.

"If you have a website or blog, help us spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by publishing censored material from our database directly onto your site," Amnesty suggests. "The more people take part the more we show that freedom of expression cannot be repressed."

Website owners and bloggers can download html code at the Irrepressible Website which will allow new content to "appear each time a page is loaded."

"China has a competent overseas network of informers that regularly report dissident activities to its intelligence services in Beijing," reads one example of such content.