Category Archives: Censorship

If youre having trouble with your internet connection, one of the first things tech support will ask you to do is to run a speed test. There are dozens of websites and apps that will, at the tap of a button, measure your network speedbut they cant tell you which sites you can actually access with that bandwidth. Even with a good connection, if youre in a country that censors the internet, whole swaths of the web might be out of reach.

Now, theres an app that will test your internet connection not for speed, but for freedom. The program, ooniprobe, is part of a 5-year-old project called the Open Observatory of Network Interference, or OONI. This project is sponsored by Tor, the organization behind the privacy-preserving Tor Browser.

OONI has made censorship-testing software available for years, but it has until now required downloading a desktop software package using a command-line toola step most computer users arent comfortable taking on. The new app will allow anyone with a smartphone to run a test. Mobile is where the next billion will come online, so this app fulfills a pressing need to put censorship detection in the hands of the people, said Deji Olukotun, the senior global advocacy manager at Access Now, an international digital-rights advocacy group.

I downloaded a beta version of the mobile app to give it a spin. (It will be made available in the iOS and Google Play app stores next week.) For now, the app only includes two of the many tools available on OONIs desktop software: a web-connectivity test and a probe that checks for hardware that censors or alters traffic on a network.

The connectivity test is straightforward. For each website on a preselected list, the test sends to requests: one from my smartphone and one from a server located elsewhere. If both requests return the same result, the URL passes the test and the program moves on to the next one. But if the pages load differently, its a hint that something fishy might be going on. If that happens, OONI will test for several ways that network could censor or block access to a URL.

The list of sites that the probe uses is the product of a collaboration between OONI and CitizenLab, a research group at the University of Toronto focused on technology and human rights. The sites on the list generally provide important services, host controversial content, or are likely to be censored for some other reason, said Arturo Filast, OONIs project lead and core developer.

The other test bundled in the app is simple but clever. It involves sending an invalid request to an echo server, a computer thats designed to send back an identical copy of any data it receives. If the bad request comes back in the same form it was sent, the path between the device and the echo server is likely unobstructed. But if the echo is modified in some way, something on the network might be manipulating the traffic that crosses it.

The tests certainly arent foolproof. When I ran the second test on the wi-fi network here in The Atlantics newsroom, it showed no evident tampering. But the first test found evidence of censorship on five sites: Two religious sites, a sports-betting site, the homepage of the DEFCON hacking conference, and a sex-doll site. When I tried visiting each in a normal browsersorry, IT departmentthey loaded without issue. (There are several reasons why the connectivity test might return a false positive, including when websites look different depending on the country theyre accessed from.)

By default, test results from OONIs desktop software or from the ooniprobe app are uploaded to a website called OONI Explorer, which aggregates the results into a browsable database and an interactive map. According to a page with highlights from OONIs findings, the project collected more than 10 million measurements from 96 countries between late 2012 and early 2016.

The map paints a stark picture of internet censorship around the globe. It doesnt show a single confirmed censorship case in the Western hemisphere, but reveals a rash of censorship across Asia and the Middle East. OONI only shows one confirmed case of censorship in AfricaSudan appears to block a handful of adult sites, according to a 2-year-old scanbut networks in many African countries havent yet been tested.

Perhaps surprisingly, the club of countries that censor their internet also includes several in Europe. Greece appears to block a dozen betting sites, while Sweden, Denmark, and Italy block several bit-torrent sites. Belgium has assembled a long blacklist of both types of sites. France, on the other hand, only blocks two: the homepages of a pair of Islamic terrorist organizations.

When you first download and install ooniprobe, the app warns that in some countries around the world, legal and/or extra-legal risks could emerge. Probing a network could be illegal or considered espionage, the developers write, or a user could get in trouble for requesting data from a site thats illegal in their country: The probe requests data from porn sites, hate-speech sites, and terrorism-related sites. (OONI says its not aware of a user ever facing consequences for running a test in the past.)

Filast says the forthcoming mobile app will allow more people to contribute to the worlds understanding of internet censorship patterns. Access to that information, he says, is a fundamental human right. He pointed to an example from East Africa: Last year, Ethiopians complained that their internet access was being censored in response to a wave of political protests, but there was little evidence to prove it. By running ooniprobe, Ethiopian activists found that the government was censoring media, human-rights, LGBTI-related, and political websites, among others, in addition to blocking WhatsApp.

OONI and Amnesty International collaborated on a report that laid out incontrovertible evidence of systematic interference with access to numerous websites, which was published in December. Today, Ethiopia is in a state of emergency, said Filast. Yet the published findings illustrate that censorship events took place beforehand. This type of information can potentially aid political discussions on an international level.

Read this article:
Mapping Countries That Censor the Internet - The Atlantic

A stack of Uzbek newspapers. Censorship is in theory proscribed by law in Uzbekistan. In reality, those few reporters that have been foolhardy enough to flout the rule on self-censorship have been subjected to intimidation and harassment. However, some news outlets in this Central Asian state have recently started dabbling with easing their policy of self-censorship on sensitive topics. (Photo: EurasiaNet)

As headlines go, this one might not look especially exciting; What Can We Expect from the Liberalization of the Foreign Currency Market? But the article, by respected economist Yuliy Yusupov, became an instant sensation when it was published January 17 by the Uzbekistan-focused online business news outlet Kommersant.uz. Tight official controls over currency and trade and the flourishing of a black economy in both these areas had made the subject off-limits for any local media in the days of the late President Islam Karimov. Thus, it is no surprise that the January 17 article touched off a flurry of social media chatter among Uzbek news consumers. The appearance of the piece offers evidence that, slowly and tentatively, some news outlets in Uzbekistan are dabbling with easing their policy of self-censorship on sensitive topics. Yusupov said he was initially approached by Kommersant.uz to write the article, but that they were surprised by the boldness of what they got back. They wavered over [the article] for a long time. Nobody has yet written such a candid piece in the press. Especially since they have experience of senior comrades telling them what they could and could not write, Yusupov told EurasiaNet.org. Eventually, the website relented and even published two more similar articles by Yusupov. Kommersant overcame the self-censorship, good for them. We will definitely continue, this is just the beginning, Yusupov said. So far, the higher-ups are quiet. Lets hope for the best. Yusupovs most recent article, published on February 6, is titled; About the Danger of Protectionism. The piece is, in effect, a frontal assault on a policy long favored by Karimov. Such articles would struggle to stand out in a Western business publication, but critical analyses of economic policies in particular, discussion of how badly the government has handled the economy have long been a no-go area for reporters in Uzbekistan. Censorship is in theory proscribed by law in Uzbekistan. On paper, existing legislation provides for expansive editorial freedoms. One passage in the law regulating media activity states that nobody has the right to demand prior approval for published material, or to demand changes to a text, or its removal from circulation. In reality, those few reporters that have been foolhardy enough to flout the rule on self-censorship have invariably been summoned to prosecutors offices, where they have been subjected to intimidation and harassment. Controls tend to be even stronger on reporters in the regions, and will likely remain so for some time. In the city of Samarkand, reporter Toshpulat Rakhmatullayev recently wrote a piece on news website Nuz.uz titled; Who Will Free Samarkand of the Powers of Darkness? The article examines the spate of power shortages that has been afflicting his region of late, and, on the face of, is quite standard, if heavily opinionated. In addition to describing the routine blackouts occurring in Samarkand carefully tabulating how many times the power went out Rakhmatullayev also recounts his exchanges with government officials. It is not difficult to note that between the power going out and going back on again, there would be intervals of one to three minutes. You can imagine how this grates the nerves. My friend, who has a generator at home, says that as soon as he gets to his device, they turn the light back on, Rakhmatullayev wrote. The report duly earned Rakhmatullayev a summons to the prosecutors office. But, undeterred, the journalist penned another piece on February 1 headlined; Why Should Journalists Suffer for Telling the Truth? I had to tell this person from the prosecutors office that it is necessary to distinguish between complaining and journalism. I did not complain, but I just raised the problem of electricity supply to Samarkand, which is a problem that is of concern to thousands of people, Rakhmatullayev wrote. Letters from Samarkand residents to the presidential website, which recently introduced a function allowing citizens to write in directly with complaints, have proven of little use in alleviating the problem, Rakhmatullayev noted. He added that when he complained to local officials, they did nothing but try to gather incriminating information about him. Since President Shavkat Mirziyoyevs ascendancy to power, articles have appeared in the Uzbek press detailing the everyday problems affecting citizens. These concern primarily shortages of electricity, gas, water and employment. It is Mirziyoyev himself who has encouraged this sudden surge of emboldened criticism by publicly urging officials to pay more heed to the pleas of ordinary citizens, and to discuss them in newspapers and Internet publications. You too should act from below and demand solutions to your problems, the president told an audience during a meeting with members of the public in January in the semiautonomous republic of Karakalpakstan. Mirziyoyev has also been effecting some changes at the top. On February 3, he appointed a new head of the national television and radio broadcaster a former minister for information technology and communication development, Hurshid Mirzahidov. The outgoing head of the broadcaster, Alisher Hadjaev, who had filled the position since December 2005, was a high-ranking officer in the National Security Service, or SNB. The SNB has in the decades since independence amassed a vast army of operatives and extended its influence into all areas of life with a view to consolidating the authority of the ruling elite. Under Hadjaev, state television was used as a platform for the propagation of the late President Karimovs political programs and ideology. Even mild criticism of any aspects of government policy disappeared from the airwaves, and progressive-minded journalists were dismissed. Despite being one of the largest broadcasters in the region, Uzbekistans national state television and radio company has no correspondents anywhere across the former Soviet Union and focuses entirely on domestic developments. In addition to hammering home state ideology, the government-run broadcaster was also used to target perceived opponents of the authorities, or the country itself. For example, in 2012, at the height of a smear campaign targeting Turkish businesses in Uzbekistan, the state broadcaster pulled the plug on popular Turkish TV shows, substituting them with South Korean soap operas instead. And it was during the Hadjaev era that the TV evening bulletin earned the mocking unofficial nickname of News from Heaven.

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Uzbekistan: Emboldened Media Shedding Self-Censorship - EurasiaNet

This condition of generalized fear may even be inspired by some act of ancient violence, passed on through underground lore to contemporary consciousness. In the western part of El Salvador, peasants remembered, long after the fact, the armys 1931 massacre of their families, which took over ten thousand lives. So powerful was that memory fifty years later that when the rest of the country rose up against the military, scarcely anyone in the region took up arms.

Such ripple effects, even if unintended, are especially potent when their target belongs to an already vulnerable group. After 9/11, for example, journalists and activists reported extensive fear throughout Arab and Muslim communities in the United States, inspired by the detention of 1,200 to 5,000 Muslim and Arab men. This was a fear not just of detention, deportation, or vigilante violence, but of speaking out on politically controversial issues of American foreign policy, which mightand often doesattract scrutiny, surveillance, or harassment from the federal government and police. Theres fear in the Arab community, reported Mino Akhtar. What I hear Arabs and Muslims saying is, Lets keep a low profile. Dont step out there. We need to stay quiet and let this blow over, a claim confirmed by numerous press reports.

Against such a backdrop of fear, even the most innocuous actions can generate additional fear, with equally repressive results. In December 2001, for example, Mohadar Mohamed Abdoulah, a Yemeni immigrant living in San Diego, was granted $500,000 bail after being detained for two months as a 9/11 material witness and for having lied on his asylum application. Initially, the local Muslim community rallied to Abdoulahs cause, pledging $400,000 for his bail fund with promises to raise more. But once it was announced that each contributor would have to provide his or her name to the government and perhaps appear before the judge, many in the community balked. When people were told theyd have to go to court and answer questions from the judge, said Abdoulahs lawyer, they chilled out. One day, added the lawyer, its all about the solidarity and standing tall. Then they run. This community isnt split. This is about abject fear. Because of the states detentions and deportations, and because of vigilante attacks, this simple request to identify themselves to the court was enough to arouse fear throughout the Muslim community in San Diego.

Generating fear across time and space in this way requires the involvement, even cooperation, of the entire society: elites and collaborators, bystanders and victims. To command more than a small, immediate audience, political fear must mobilize generals and foot soldiers, and a supporting army of secretaries, cooks, and maids to tend to them. Political fear also relies upon bystanders, whose passivity paves a path for elites and their collaborators, and the targeted community of victims, who transmit didactic tales of fear among themselves, thereby increasing its reverberating effects. Inspired by the victims desire to shield themselves from sanctions, these small acts of education among the victims are central to the economy of fear. They minimize the amount of actual coercion perpetrators must apply, and they maximize the effect. One black North Carolina woman recounts that under Jim Crow her parents and grandparents warned her, at an early age, that if she disobeyed the rules of segregation, she would get arrested. So, she concluded, any time you saw white and colored, unless you wanted to be arrested and be in jail, you didnt dare.

This is the second in a series of five posts this week on fear in the age of Trump, drawn from Fear: The History of a Political Idea.

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Beware of Self-Censorship - New Republic

Dear Compton, censorship is the subject of this comment.

Some of you think the Compton Herald has crossed the line, become reprobate, turned its back on the people, and indeed, imploded simply because a perceived enemy of some of you has been given access to our pages.

No such villainy has happened. The craft of Journalism requires an ethical imperative to present the truth underscored by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The First Amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, ensuring that there is no prohibition on the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble, or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

It was adopted on Dec. 15, 1791, as one of the 10 amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.

This First Amendment is not some archaic doctrine written by men in a bygone era, now relegated to dusty, brittle pages shuttered in an old dark room. Not remotely true. The First Amendment, notably the passages, there is no prohibition abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press breathes free.

That includes the City of Compton.

One thing that an objective newspaper will incite, adhering to fairness in reporting and assuring free expression for all is rancor from factions determined to suffocate the voice of an opposing view. That is exactly what is currently playing out on a national stage between President Donald Trump and the media he wants to silence.

In Compton, there is tremendous dissension against Mayor Aja Brown. The city may very well be split straight down the middle. Thats to be expected in politics.

But what is not to be expected is censorship by the local newspaper. The rancor in this town to muffle certain elected individuals is at a fever pitch. The Herald never will participate in any such offense.

We may pen editorials and comment to oppose or affirm certain individuals for public office, and we will scrutinize public officials in Compton and publish their scurrilous activity, but that is left to the discretion of the editorial board of the Herald.

Everyone has an equal voice at the Compton Herald. Individuals may pen opposing views, but they must take care not to libel, or present information that is uncorroborated.

Lets be clear, the Compton Herald does not now, nor ever will bend to the will of the public, which would render censorship through this medium if it were possible.

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COMMENT: No censorship at the Compton Herald, no sir! - Compton Herald

An independent group of Russian filmmakers is protesting what it says is are efforts by a State Duma deputy from Russia-annexed Crimea to "censor" a controversial film centered on a love affair between the future Tsar Nicholas II and a young ballerina.

Kino Soyuz (Union of Filmmakers) on February 7 published an open letter protesting Duma Deputy Natalya Poklonskaya's calls for investigations of the unreleased film, Matilda, by director Aleksei Uchitel.

The protest letter, signed by more than 40 Russian directors, also charges that nationalists belonging to a group called "Orthodox State -- Holy Russia" have been threatening "arson attacks and violent acts against theaters that would dare to show the film."

Poklonskaya was the Kremlin-appointed prosecutor-general in Crimea from the time Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory in March 2014 until she was elected to Russia's State Duma in September.

She now wants Moscow prosecutors to declare that Uchitel's film violates provisions in Russia's Criminal Code against insulting "the religious feelings of believers."

She says the film portrays Tsar Nicholas II -- a canonized Russian Orthodox saint -- as a sinner.

'Drunkards And Fornicators'

Poklonskaya also charges that Uchitel wrongly portrays Russia as a country full of "drunkards, gallows, and fornicators."

Although Matilda is not scheduled to have its first screening until October 2017, it became mired in controversy after a promotional trailer was released in 2016.

The film tells the story of a three-year affair between Crown Prince Nicholas and a teenage ballet dancer named Matilda Kshesinskaya that ended in 1894. After the affair, Nicholas married the German princess who became Empress Aleksandra.

Tsar Nicholas II with his family in 1914, three years before they fell foul of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Nicholas II was executed together with his entire family after the 1917 Bolshevik coup. They were canonized as Russian Orthodox saints in 2000.

A Russian Orthodox Christian and monarchist organization called Tsar's Cross denounced the film project as pornographic and unpatriotic -- leading Poklonskaya in November to demand a criminal investigation.

But the Prosecutor-General's Office in Moscow announced in January that it was unable to uncover any evidence suggesting the film might offend religious beliefs.

That ruling led more than 20,000 Russian Orthodox activists to petition Russia's Culture Ministry and demand that the film be banned.

Bolstered by that petition, Poklonskaya announced on January 30 that she had officially requested that the investigation be reopened.

'Influential Forces'

The Russian Orthodox Church and Culture Ministry have not taken any public position on the controversy surrounding the film.

On February 7, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin's administration "does not want to take sides" in the dispute.

Peskov said debate about whether the film is offensive should take place after it has been publicly screened.

The protest letter by Kino Soyuz says independent Russian filmmakers "know very well what censorship is" because of "decades" during the Soviet era that "ruined the destinies and fates of artists and impeded the development of the arts."

The letter concludes that Russian culture should "not be pressured by new forms of censorship, no matter what influential forces initiate it."

Original post:
Russian Filmmakers Protest Attempts To 'Censor' Film About Young ... - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Common Dreams

Comparing Trump to Stalin, Australia's Chief Scientist Warns Against Censorship Common Dreams American scientists are facing censorship on par with that imposed in the USSR under Josef Stalin, Australia's chief scientist Alan Finkel said during a scientific roundtable in Canberra, Australia, on Monday. "Science is literally under attack ... Australia's chief scientist: Trump's EPA changes akin to Stalin's censorship of scienceTheBlaze.com Australia's Top Scientist Blasts Donald Trump Over Stalin-Like CensorshipHuffington Post Australia's chief scientist tears Trump's EPA mandate: 'It's reminiscent of the censorship exerted by political ...The Week Magazine The Guardian -The Australian -The Sydney Morning Herald all 15 news articles »

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Comparing Trump to Stalin, Australia's Chief Scientist Warns Against Censorship - Common Dreams

EFF recently received dozens of pages of documents in response to a FOIA request we submitted about Operation Choke Point, a Department of Justice project to pressure banks and financial institutions into cutting off service to certain businesses. Unfortunately, the response from the Department of Justice leaves many questions unanswered.

EFF has been tracking instances of financial censorship for years to identify how online speech is indirectly silenced or intimidated by shuttering bank accounts, donation platforms, and other financial institutions. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the Justice Departments controversial and secretive campaign against financial institutions in 2013, and one Justice Department official quoted in the article stated:

"We are changing the structures within the financial system that allow all kinds of fraudulent merchants to operate," with the intent of "choking them off from the very air they need to survive."

While Operation Choke Point was purportedly aimed at shutting down fraudulent online payday loan companies, we became concerned that this campaign could also affect legal online businesses.

EFF filed FOIA requests with the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission. The documents EFF received from the DOJ are primarily correspondence between members of Congress and the Department of Justice. In that correspondence, Congress members raised concerns about Operation Choke Point, asked questions about how it operates, and stated that this is an issue that constituents are sending letters about.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Kenny Marchant (D-TX), for example, emailed the Department of Justice with specific questions about how the Department defines a high risk financial business.

In the correspondence we received, the DOJ overwhelmingly replied with form letters that didnt describe the criteria the Department used to decide whether a company was considered high risk, how many companies were currently labeled high risk, whether a company would ever know if it was considered high risk, or any appeal process for companies to have themselves removed from that category.

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) wrote a letter to then Attorney General Eric Holder describing how two community banks in Wisconsin were bullied by regional agents of the FDIC, who told them to stop working with prominent online lenders:

These banks were informed that if they chose to ignore the FDIC's request, they would face "the highest levels of scrutiny they could imagine," and were given no explanation, details of complaints, or any evidence as to why these demands were being made.'

Duffy called these threats "outrageous" and "intimidation tactics."

Other members of Congress wrote to the Department of Justice about how Operation Choke Point was hampering opportunities for law-abiding Native American tribes and the Hispanic community.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who cosponsored the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and advocates for additional financial regulation, expressed deep concern about the Department of Justice stepping beyond the bounds of the law with Operation Choke Point. In his letter to Holder, he stated:

As much as I would like to see stronger regulation of consumer lenders, I've sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Accordingly, I must oppose efforts to "legislate by prosecution" and legislate by "criminal investigation," even if I agree partly or completely with the ultimate substantive aim.

He also said, "[y]our department should conduct criminal investigations for the purpose of enforcing laws we havenot laws you (and I) might wish we had."

Unfortunately, the responses from the Department of Justice left more questions than answers. Vital details about Operation Choke Pointincluding what industries beyond online loans may be impacted, the exact criteria for labeling a business high risk, and the tactics used to pressure banks into participationare still unknown.

Many people believe that Americas financial institutions may need additional regulation, and some may believe that online lenders should face additional scrutiny. However, an intimidation squadron secretly pressuring banks to cut off businesses without due process is not the right way forward. As weve seen with digital booksellers, whistleblower websites, online publishers, and online personal ads, payment providers often cave to pressurewhether formal or informalto shut down or restrict accounts of those engaged in First Amendment-protected activity. In order to foster a future where digital expression can flourish, we need to ensure that necessary service providers like banks and payment processors dont turn into the weak link used to cut off unpopular speech.

But that requires transparency. We need more information about how the government is pressuring financial institutions. Unfortunately, the Department of Justices nonresponses to Congress dont get us any closer to understanding this complicated issue.

Check out the most recent documents EFF got in response to its FOIA request on Operation Choke Point. See documents EFF received earlier on this program.

Originally posted here:
Documents About Financial Censorship Under Operation Choke Point Show Concern from Congress, Provide Few ... - EFF

Renowned Pakistani poet, social activist and academic Salman Haider was abducted on January 6 from Islamabad Highway while he was on his way back home. His wife received a text from his own number, telling her to pick the car from a place few hundred meters away from their house. As the news about his abduction emerged in the mainstream media, the families of two other bloggers, Aasim Saeed and Ahmed Waqas Goraya, reportedto the police that they had been missing since January 4. Two other activists, Ahmed Raza Naseer and Samar Abbas, also went missing in the following days. All of them are well-known for holding a progressive worldview, often critical of the militarys policies.

After weeks of speculation and widespread protests across the country, fourof them returned to their families on January 28. Two of them have since left the country after an active media campaign framing them as blasphemers threatened their lives. The other two, although still in Pakistan, have relocated along with their families, uncertain about their future.

While several quarters suspect military spy agencies of being behind the abductions, the director general of the militarys Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), Major General Asif Ghafoor, in his first press conference, denied the armys involvement. Still, abold editorial appearing in Dawn newspaper on January 11 read, The sanitized language missing persons, the disappeared, etc. cannot hide an ugly truth: the state of Pakistan continues to be suspected of involvement in the disappearance and illegal detentions of a range of private citizens.

Dawns editorial predicted that a dark new chapter in the states murky, illegal war against civil society appears to have been opened.

After protests against the disappearances erupted, a popular Twitter and Facebook hashtag #WhoAreTheyDefending accused the protesters of supporting blasphemers, with many tweets calling for their deaths. TV anchor and televangelist Aamir Liaquat Hussain launched an attack against leading journalists like Owais Tohid, media outlets like Jang and Dawn group, as well as several members of the civil society, accusing them of committing treason and blasphemy. In doing so, Hussain who hosts a controversial talk show in a recently-launched TV channel repeatedlydefied a banon such accusations laid down bythe Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority(PEMRA), which called Liaquats commentshate speech.

Renowned activist and analysts Marvi Sirmed, who herself has come under personal attacks from Aamir Liaquat Hussain, believes there is no way to know if he is parroting someones line. However, looking at who else is taking the position that Aamir Liaquat is taking, it becomes clearer which unseen power wants that line to be propagated, she says.

In October last year, Dawn newspaper staffer Cyril Almeida reported the details of an off-camera meeting where the civilian leadership confronted the then-director general of Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI), Lt. General Rizwan Akhtar, about not allowing action against banned outfits in Punjab. Almeidas story drew a strong backlash from the government, andhis name was put on the Exit Control List only to be removed a few days later after a strong response from the English press and overall media platforms.

Daily The Nation, in aneditorial following the ban on Cyril Almeida, wrote, how dare the government and military top brass lecture the press on how to do their job. How dare they treat a feted reporter like a criminal. And how dare they imply that they have either the right or the ability or the monopoly to declare what Pakistans national interest is.

While the media attempt to push back, the state-sponsored censorship seems to be expanding from topics like Balochistan to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC); from mainstream to social media. Marvi Sirmed has observed the same phenomenon. I havent received any direct censorship directions from anywhere ever. Its just that they show their displeasure through hundreds of anonymous Twitter accounts, she says.

Sirmed, who writes a weekly column for Pakistan Today, recounts how her voice was censored: Recently, my regular column in The Nation has been stopped abruptly in the wake of pressure from some known unknowns.

The Nation became a target of social media abuse under the hashtag #ShameOnTheNation after publishing some op-eds criticizing the states policies. After a barrage of abuse and threats online, the publication was forced to remove some of the op-eds from its website.

After The Newsrecently broke the news that 90 acres of land had been allotted to the former chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif, an organized campaign, both online and offline, called Jang Group treasonous and a blasphemer. Overnight, banners calling for the death of Najam Sethi a senior journalist and analyst associated with Jang Group appeared in front of the Karachi Press Club.

Shad Khan, a U.K.-based Pakistani journalist, was recently removed from the country while he was filming for a documentary on the effects of investment brought by CPEC on the people of Gwadar.

I was granted permission by the Gwadar Port Authority to shoot around the area, Khan says.

Known for The Secret Drone War, which won him an Amnesty Award, Khan was provided with a security official in Gwadar. I filmed with Pakistan Navy for a day after they verified all of the documentation provided by me, he says. However, on the fifth day of shooting, I started receiving visits from officials in civilian clothes who asked for my identity card and I was interrogated by an army major.

Khan was asked to leave Gwadar without his equipment and the intelligence officials accompanying escorted him to a plane for the U.K.

Khan explains the apparent reason for his removal. I had to cover a rally of Sardar Akhtar Mengal, the head of Balochistan National Party, when they came to me and asked me to not cover the rally at all, Khan recalls. Upon my refusal to comply with their demand, they requested to cover the rally positively, which, as a journalist, is not a good practice.

Im a Pakistani citizen but not sure if I was just removed or deported. Im not sure if I still hold the Pakistani nationality or not. Pakistani High Commission in the U.K. hasnt returned my queries, he laments.

A similar incident happened with two New York City-based filmmakers, Rehana Esmail and Sina Zekavat, who have been working on a documentary called Boats Above My House for the past 18 months. The film is about a landslide in the northern areas of Pakistan and the chain of environmental, social, political, and economic events that followed. We focus on a group of people in Attabad village who are not formally recognized as citizens and are attempting to build their lives back after they lost their homes after this landslide, Zekavat says.

Their film received an on-site stop order on November 3, 2016from the Pakistani security agencies. Our line producer and DP (all locals) were forced to undergo a prolonged and unclear investigation process, Zekavat says, adding, all of our gear (including rental equipment and personal cell phones) and footage is being held for a forensic investigation and weve been informed that there are possibilities of serious charges against our fellow crew members.

One of the people they were filming with was Naz, who is the sister of the Baba Jan a left-wing activist and politician currently imprisoned for life. Naz is partially involved in her brothers release from prison as well the general human rights situation for people of Gilgit-Baltistan, Sina Zekavat says, adding, however, the footage that we got up until the stop, mainly consisted of Naz and her family cooking and eating together and doing very ordinary things.

The line of questioning by the investigators focused on filming Baba Jans house, which the co-directors insist wasnt the highlight of the documentary. Human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jahangir has decided to take up their case in the court.

In another sign of a growing crackdown, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) recently banned Khabaristan Times, a satire news website famous for taking on politicians, the military, and religious extremists.

Khabaristan Timeseditor Kunwar Khuldune Shahid considers the ban a continuation of the states crackdown on dissent in online spaces. Our content was published without any bylines, and the author only revealed their name to their audience if they chose to. Article 23 of the cybercrime law itself outlaws spoof and parody, and hence could be triggered to ban the satirical publication, he says.

Khuldune adds: Whether it was to target satire or anonymity, it is evident that secular and liberal voices are being targeted. For many jihadist groups are open to express themselves many do it anonymously as well.

Islamabad-based journalist Taha Siddiqui believes the attempts by the state to coerce journalists into toeing their narrative line are increasing. State has financially squeezed news networks if they tried to challenge the state narrative or openly report on taboo topics like Pakistani military affairs independently, since manages stories on such topics.

Siddiqui predicts tougher days for dissenting voices in Pakistan. The worst part is that journalists and activists have no idea what the red line is anymore and the state has started to react even more violently when it wants to clamp down on those who are vocal about critically evaluating sociopolitical issues in Pakistan, he asserts.

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, who is a keen observer of current affairs himself, agrees.

This targeting of secular pages and websites could be a way to appease the Islamist sections at a time when a crackdown against jihadist groups and leaders has become inevitable owing to international pressure.

Hafiz Saeed being under house arrest, and members of LeT and JuD being put under the ECL [exit control list], highlights this. Maybe the states action against liberal voices, and the fact that it preceded the crackdown, was designed to forestall the Islamist backlash, he concludes.

Umer Ali is a freelance journalist based in Pakistan. He reports on human rights issues, social problems and more. He can be reached on Twitter at @iamumer1.

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Pakistan's Censorship Takes a Dangerous Turn - The Diplomat

Australias top governmentscientist is likeningPresident Donald Trumps changes at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to scientific censorship under Soviet Union dictator Joseph Stalin.

Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, speaking during a roundtable discussion in Australias capital city ofCanberra, said Monday that science is literally under attack in the United States, according to the Guardian:

TheTrump administrationhas mandated that scientific data published by the United States Environmental Protection Agency from last week going forward has to undergo review by political appointees before that data can be published on the EPA website or elsewhere.

It defies logic. It will almost certainly cause long-term harm. Its reminiscent of the censorship exerted by political officers in the old Soviet Union.

Every military commander there had a political officer second-guessing his decisions.

Finkel was referring to a decisionby the Trump administration last month for political appointees toreview all the scientific data foundby scientists at the EPA before it can be cleared for publication.Doug Ericksen, communications director for Trumps EPA transition team, said that the review also applies to information on the agencys website and social media accounts.

And in January, EPA staffers said that the Trump White House ordered the agencyto remove its webpage on climate change a move that ruffled the feathers of many environmentalists.

If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear, one unnamed EPA staffer told Reuters last month, adding that some employees were working to preserve the data stored there.

Were taking a look at everything on a case-by-case basis, including the web page and whether climate stuff will be taken down, Ericksentold the Associated Press. Obviously with a new administration coming in, the transition time, well be taking a look at the web pages and the Facebook pages and everything else involved here at EPA.

Climate Central reported last weekthat the EPA has, in fact, started removing Obama-era information from the government website. Theyre mostly scrubbing it of anything that has a hint of Obama, Gretchen Goldman,research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said.

The administration, however, has downplayed the ordeal. White Housepress secretary Sean Spicer, who first denied Trumpdirectly orderedthe EPAs data scrub, said in January that the communications clampdown on scientific datawas not out of the ordinary, telling reporters, I dont think its any surprise that when theres an administration turnover, that were going to review the policy.

ButGeorge Gray, who was theassistant administrator for the EPAs Office of Research and Development under former PresidentGeorge W. Bush, told the Guardian that scientific studies are typically reviewed at lower levelsand rarely by political appointees.

Scientific studies would be reviewed at the level of a branch or a division or laboratory, he said. Occasionally, things that were known to be controversial would come up to me as assistant administrator and I was a political appointee. Nothing in my experience would go further than that.

Finkel, for his part, sees the White Houses decision as akin to Stalins efforts to censor science.

Soviet agricultural science was held back for decades because of the ideology of Trofim Lysenko, who was a proponent of Lamarckism, he said. Stalin loved Lysenkos conflation of science and Soviet philosophy and used his limitless power to ensure that Lysenkos unscientific ideas prevailed.

As the Smithsonian Magazine outlined, Lysenko was Stalins director of biology and he led a group of animal and plant breeders who rejected the science of genetics. He worked to discredit the genetic discoveries of Gregor Mendel and Thomas Hunt Morgan, attacking them for being foreigners with idealistic ideas that were the product of bourgeois capitalism.

Lysenko argued that he could quickly force plants and animals and even the Soviet people into forms that could meet practical needs and that those characteristic changes could be passed on to their offspring a debunked theory known as Lamarckism.

One of Lysenkosmost infamous claims was that he changed a species of spring wheat into winter wheat after just a few years. That was, of course, impossible, but it fed into Stalins mantra that the Soviet government could create the perfect utopia.

So while Western scientists embraced evolution and genetics, Russian scientists who thought the same were sent to the gulag. Western crops flourished. Russian crops failed, Finkel said. Today, the catch-cry of scientists must be frank and fearless advice, no matter the opinion of political commissars stationed at the U.S. EPA.

Last week, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works suspended rules to approve Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA without any Democrats present. The Democrats boycotted Pruitts hearing last Wednesday, citing concerns over his rejection of climate change science.

A date for the Trump appointees full Senate vote has not yet been set, but given Republicans lead the Senate, his nominationis expected to be approved.

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Australia's chief scientist: Trump's EPA changes akin to Stalin's censorship of science - TheBlaze.com

Arizona Bill Would Stop Censorship Of High-School Newspapers KJZZ A Supreme Court decision has ruled student newspapers don't have the same constitutional rights as other publications. But an Arizona state senator saw that as having a chilling effect and introduced a bill to stop school administrators from censoring ...

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Arizona Bill Would Stop Censorship Of High-School Newspapers - KJZZ