Silence of the dissenters: How south-east Asia keeps web users in line

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Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines are all moving towards Chinese-style internet censorship

Thursday 21 October 2010

Ben Doherty in Bangkok

guardian.co.uk

Cambodia's government is seeking to monitor all internet use inside the country, by appointing the state-owned telephone company to operate the sole internet exchange.


Websites will be monitored to filter out pornography, officials say, but opponents say sites critical of the government are also likely to be blocked.

Governments across south-east Asia are following China's authoritarian censorship of the digital world to keep political dissent in check, the Guardian can reveal.

Vietnam, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines have all moved or are moving towards monitoring internet use, blocking international sites regarded as critical and ruthlessly silencing web dissidents.

• In Vietnam, the Communist party wants to be your "friend" on the state-run version of Facebook, provided you are willing to share all personal details.

• In Burma, political unrest can be silenced by cutting off the country from the internet.

• In Thailand, website moderators can face decades in jail for a posted comment they did not even write, if the government deems it injurious tothe monarchy.

While much is made of China's authoritarian attitude towards internet access, a majority of south-east Asian governments have similar controls and , rather than relaxing restrictions on internet use, many are moving towards tighter regulation.

The Guardian has spoken to five leading bloggers across the region about the present restrictions they face and future fears.

Raymond Palatino, a Filipino MP and editor with Global Voices, says governments, in addition to crudely blocking websites, are starting to use arguments of morality and decency to censor access to information and quash criticism.

"There is direct censorship to block political dissent. You have repressive laws in Myanmar [Burma], in Vietnam, in Singapore. In fact I think Vietnam is catching up with China in terms of building strong firewalls to prevent dissidents from accessing critical content on the internet.

"But we also see governments using the excuse of protecting the public morality in order to censor internet content. Governments use the excuse of censoring pornography as a safe argument to make censorship acceptable to the public."

More than a decade ago, George W Bush asked people to "imagine if the internet took hold in China. Imagine how freedom would spread". But rather than emerging as a catalyst for democracy, the internet has become another way to to stifle dissent.

Palatino sees governments using the internet for their own selfish advantage. "They are learning how to prevent people for using the internet to criticise government. Instead of being a potent tool for empowering the people, the internet will be in the hands of an authoritative, repressive government."

With a population of more than 600 million, south-east Asia has about 123 million internet users. But penetration ratesvary from 0.2% in Burma and Timor-Leste to more than 80% in Brunei Darussalam and 77% in Singapore. But south-east Asian use is still dwarfed by China's384 million users.

In the Philippines, cybercrime legislation before the parliament would outlaw anything deemed obscene or indecent. Palatino says: "The laws are deliberately broad and vague so they can be used to shut down anything subversive."

Cambodia's government is seeking to monitor all internet use inside the country, by appointing the state-owned telephone company to operate the sole internet exchange.

Websites will be monitored to filter out pornography, officials say, but opponents say sites critical of the government are also likely to be blocked.

In Thailand, century-old lese-majesty legislation is combined with new computer-related crime laws, to mute criticism on the web.

Lese-majesty laws – defaming the monarchy - are imposed inconsistently in Thailand, but wielded often enough, and against defendants of sufficient profile, to stifle almost any discussion of the monarchy's role in a country riven by political factionalism. Chiranuch Premchiaporn, the editor of Thailand's English-language news website Prachatai.com, faces up to 70 years in jail for allowing the monarch to be insulted online.

The charges relate to five of 200 comments posted about an interview with a Thai man who was charged for refusing to stand for the anthem in a theatre.

Premchiaporn, known as Jiew, did not write the comments, and pulled them from the website but, according to police, allowed them to stay up ''longer than the appropriate period'', a period never defined by authorities before or since the charge.

Now on bail, the prospect of jail weighs heavily on her. "And it isn't just about 'Oh, how long I will have to spend in the cell', my whole life is uncertain. I cannot plan my life because of this legal charge, it makes everything hard."

Thailand's strict laws, and harsh punishments, have had a chilling effect on political discussion on webboards and blogs.

"I think the biggest problem in Thai media is self-censorship … but we started Prachatai for the ideals of believing in the rights of people to access information … from many sources and not be dominated by just one source," Jiew says.

Prachatai is blocked in Thailand, under order of the emergency decree after the red-shirt uprising of May. It is one of more than 100,000 websites blocked in the country. "We want to promote the rights of the people to speak up about their issues, not just only people who have a big name, or who are important in government."

In Vietnam, web-users can become "friends" with their communist government, joining the country's own version of Facebook. A trial version of go.vn was launched in May. A full version is expected online by the end of the year.

The functions are familiar to those versed in social networking. Users can update their status, post photos and links, and send messages back and forth.

There are news links, historical articles on founding father Ho Chi Minh and other revolutionary heroes, and members can also play state-approved network games (in one particularly violent example, players join a band of militants sworn to fight the spread of global capitalism).

The site is closely monitored by the government's security services, and while, for many, the attraction of the internet lies in its anonymity, to join go.vn users must submit their full names and state-issued identity numbers to the government.

The Vietnamese government says it expects to have 40 million members, half the country, in five years. Perhaps because web dissidents are dealt with so ruthlessly by the communist regime – four bloggers were recently jailed for 16 years for anti-government posts – five months on, take-up of go.vn is a bare few thousand.

Burma has one of the poorest records on internet freedom in the region.

All .mm sites and email addresses are closely monitored by the ruling military junta, and international sites banned, but the tiny internet cafes that dot the former capital, Yangon, are adept at bypassing the government's firewalls, using proxy servers to evade the censors and access banned sites.

Outfoxed on technology, the junta responds during times of stress by simply unplugging the internet, especially to stop unwelcome news getting out of the country.

At the height of the monk-led Saffron Revolution in 2007, the junta's generals shut down access completely, later claiming a break in an underwater cable had cut the country off.

With Burma heading towards its first elections in a generation early next month, and the anticipated release of political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi a week later, there is an expectation the web blackout may be repeated.

Once isolated from outside world, Cambodia jumps online

Monks head online in Phnom Penh.

March 16, 2009
WorldFocus.org

Several decades ago under the communist Khmer Rouge, Cambodia was isolated and cut off from much of the outside world. While the Internet has since expanded the range of global communication, most Cambodians still lack Internet access — only about 70,000 people are online.

Tharum Bun is the information technology manager at The Asia Foundation in Cambodia and writes at the “In Asia” blog that while Internet access may be scarce, those who have embraced the Web — including a former king — have used blogs to engage in dynamic and open dialogue.

Cambodians Embrace Online Dialogue

By Tharum Bun

Cambodia has over 13 million people, but currently, less than 2 percent have regular access to the Internet. Cambodia’s official language is Khmer, but these Cambodians who chat, e-mail, and blog on the Internet – and the approximately 23 percent of Cambodians who text with their mobile phones – find it easier to use English. While low Internet penetration, language barriers, and technical issues with using the Khmer scripts limit the amount of Cambodians who can engage in online dialogue, those Cambodians who are entering the international blogosphere are breaking a pattern of devastating silence and isolation.

The former King (or King Father), Norodom Sihanouk, now 86, makes regular postings about Cambodia’s past and present on his website. The former Prince – fluent in Khmer, French, and English – posts communiqués and reactions to media reports regularly. Originally launched in 2002, the King’s website became a new digital medium for global visitors. Cambodian media largely use their websites as a source for information, taking the King’s comments and those of his critics, and translating them into Khmer. The King’s online conversation and personal digital medium is inspiring young Cambodians to engage the Internet as a forum for discussion and debate, and to learn English as a second language.

After the Khmer Rouge fell in the 1980s, Cambodia experienced a big baby boom; today 60 percent of the population qualifies as youth. Because of their English language skills and affinity for technology, Cambodian youth make up the largest number of Internet users in the country and are, like the King, engaging in online debate. This group of active Internet users writes mostly in English, given both the technical difficulties of inputting Khmer characters, as well as the widespread use of English among their audience: their own peers and the international online community.

This dynamic online dialogue has helped pave the way for a more open discussion in a country torn by civil wars in recent decades. The trauma inflicted by the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979) is still a major point of discussion in Cambodia. Cambodian intellectuals, who were once the target of mass killings, and their surviving children, use their knowledge of the English language and technology to express their opinions and views. To move Cambodia past years of silence, this is essential. The King has used his website to post his thoughts on social order and past politics, encouraging today’s Cambodian youth to use online forums, chat rooms, and blogs to discuss issues from everyday life to larger, social issues.

While this new emergence of online voices, in a language other than their own, doesn’t necessarily reflect the progressive thinking of the entire nation, it is a starting point of voiced, diversified opinions.

Unlike in neighboring Thailand and Vietnam, computer and Internet technology came late to Cambodia. Conflict destroyed the country’s telecommunication infrastructure. Software to support Khmer computer scripts began in the early 1990s, when e-mail communication was first introduced to the nation. At that time, most documents and texts written in the Khmer language and published on the Web were either scanned graphics or converted to another format to maintain readability.

While English is still the dominant language for Cambodian bloggers, in late 2006, global search engine giant Google released a Cambodian domain using a standardized set of Khmer scripts and fonts, commonly called Khmer Unicode. The move was significant for Cambodians, and they have quickly adopted the standard Khmer characters to exchange information in Khmer more conveniently. This progressive move is allowing for a greater number of Cambodians to join the virtual conversation and discussion. The lack of Intranet infrastructure inhibiting 98 percent of the Cambodian population from logging on remains a major problem, but the increase in online discussion and dialogue is a promising trend for Cambodia.

Meet Cambodia's social media elite - the Cloggers

After the tragedy and devastation of the civil war, a new young, tech savvy middle-class is emerging in Cambodia

Young motivated bloggers spearheading a web-led revolution

Monday, March 16, 2009
TechRadar.com

With its jagged, pot-holed streets and swarms of begging children, visitors are often shocked at the poverty in Cambodia, widely considered Asia's backwater behind Vietnam and China.

Shacks and slums are testament to a third of the population earning less than half a US dollar a day and Transparency International ranks the country, only recently freed from years of civil war, coups and rigged elections, as the 14th most corrupt in the world.

Yet tech-savvy youngsters are bringing a new voice to Phnom Penh's poverty-wrought landscape. Hanging out in cafes and clicking away on their laptops, they comprise a small but growing middle-class of baby-boomers born during the 1980s, after the Khmer Rouge genocide left 2million Cambodians – a quarter of the population – dead. Now they've come of age, and they're wiring Cambodia with it.

They're a tight-knit clique. Led by 26-year-old writer and photographer Bun Tharum, Cambodia's first blogger, a small group formed in 2006 to give workshops on social media. With their efforts, and Cambodia's King-Father Norodom Sihanouk starting his own blog, the group of 30 soon transformed into thousands. Now, they call themselves 'Cloggers' – Cambodian bloggers.

Tharum sees change on the horizon. "After all the hardship our country has experienced, we're trying to bring a new era of innovation," he says. "Blogs are helping break down barriers, get discussions going – something we need to move forward. It's the voice of the new generation."

Reaching the summit

The group reached a peak in popularity when it held the Cloggers' Summit in August 2007, attended by 200 international guests, including editors from Harvard Law School's Global Voices Online project. Attendees discussed social networking with a Cambodian twist, looking at how non-profits – which dominate Cambodia's economy – and students could use it, despite the country's low-bandwidth connectivity.

They hit another success in September with the first annual BarCamp Phnom Penh, an event that saw hundreds from around Southeast Asia attend, including Microsoft. "BarCamp was great for thinking outside the box," Tharum says. "We got Cambodians to start speaking their minds in that untraditional setting, the un-conference."

Much more can be attributed to the city's sudden blogging craze. While less than two per cent of Cambodians have web access on their own computers, Phnom Penh sports a huge mobile web culture. "It's amazing. Farmers are selling their land so they can buy a mobile phone and motorbike," says John Weeks, an American who heads Phnom Penh's popular House 32 web design firm. "You'll see Khmers [Cambodians] wearing sandals and eating street food while talking on their Blackberrys."

Phnom Penh has just been wired with 3G technology, far ahead of neighbouring countries Vietnam and Thailand, giving blogs explosive potential. Yet phones still haven't reached their peak, Weeks insists. "Users aren't afraid of technology. But phones aren't reaching their full potential," he says. "If ordinary Cambodians can overcome the language barrier and literacy barriers, phones have incredible gateway potential that would dwarf the current blog boom."

Huddled around in Phnom Penh's sparkling new KFC – Cambodia's first foreign franchise – the Cloggers whip out cutting-edge phones yet to catch on in the West. One begins texting in a frenzy – he's on Twitter and he's addicted. The others laugh, moving into a discussion of King-Father Norodom Sihanouk, the country's leader and highest profile blogger.

He's revered by older generations, but Cloggers don't share their zest for the monarch. "Young people don't care about the King when we blog," says Sreng Nearirath, a lawyer who blogs her thoughts in My World vs. Real Scary World. "We just blog because we want to talk about our lives and talk with each other." Cambodia, a conservative society, doesn't offer opportunities to open up and discuss your feelings, especially for women. That's what makes blogs so special here.

"Men have dominated technology fields, but we're seeing more and more women speaking their minds through blogs," says Chak Sopheap, a rising voice in Cambodia's women's empowerment movement. "They give us an outlet to gain selfesteem and be more informed about the world."

Sopheap is perhaps Cambodia's most controversial blogger, touching on subjects like trafficking, corruption, forced land evictions and women's rights. Her public profile is brave; most political bloggers in Cambodia, such as the popular "Details are Sketchy" and "KI Media" blogs, are anonymous. "If everyone keeps silent to intimidation, intimidation will gain its position.

"By making our voices heard, we can create change," she insists. She's pursuing a master's degree in international relations in Japan, which she credits for bringing new angles to her blog. "I've learned from a different cultural context about how crucial good governance is," she says, referring to Cambodia's corruption problem.

On the political power of blogs, Sopheap points to the reactions by Cloggers to Burma's 2007 Saffron Revolution. In a rare move, they co-ordinated demonstrations against the Burmese embassy and denounced Cambodia's support of the regime. Some also took part in International Bloggers' Day for Burma that same month, each dedicating a post to the protesting monks.

In nearby Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, governments actively chase down and jail critical bloggers. Vietnam is also ramping up censorship, authorities announcing in December they are to ask Google and Yahoo to help 'regulate' the web. Yet no Cambodian blogger has been blocked or arrested.

"Politicians have either not noticed political blogs or they're deeply suspicious of them," says Preetam Rai, former Southeast Asia editor of Global Voices Online, a blog aggregation service. "I think Cambodia comes under the first category. Practically speaking, blogs reach a very small percentage of Cambodian people. The politicians might as well ignore them for now."

But politics aren't the Cloggers' main focus. Most don't bother and many don't care. "Most Cambodian bloggers don't directly attack the government so, I believe, they won't be on the bad side of any government," Rai says. "The hope is that some from the current crop of bloggers end up in government in couple of years' time."

Rai also notes that Cambodia is a very young country and many high-ranking officials are likewise youthful and tech-savvy. "These are the people who can be influenced by blogs," he adds, optimistically. "The Cloggers are doing the right thing by showing people technology in a neutral way. Cambodia needs a generation that can discriminate information, by showing people online tools that can help them verify things."

Children of government officials, likewise, have been studying at universities abroad, bringing back knowledge of blogs and English fluency that gives them access to the internet world. "We see a lot of foreign influences coming into blogging culture," says Prum Seila, a journalist who blogs about Cambodian popular culture. "Government kids are coming back to Cambodia and blogging like us. They're also bringing ideas about democracy."

Seila thinks foreigners and foreign-educated Cambodians bring an 'open-source culture' because they're commenting on Clogs, challenging young Cloggers. "You wouldn't see anything like it if we weren't talking to foreigners. They bring ideas and challenges, and make us think differently about new things," he says.

Is English elitist?

Unlike Vietnam or Thailand, where bloggers write in their native languages, Cambodians tend to blog in English, linking them, says Prum Seila, with a global audience. "It's a good thing we blog in English, because how else can we inform the world about our thoughts and our problems?" he adds. "We're putting Cambodia on the map."

But Cloggers have had a long-standing debate over whether to blog in English or Khmer. English, they claim, is the language of the internet; web proficiency means reading and writing in English. Others disagree, saying a country shouldn't have to change language just to use the web.

That's why the Phnom Penh-based Open Institute has been perfecting its Khmer language Unicode. With the project including popular comedy blogger Be Chantra, whose blog "TraJoke" is in Khmer, the font has certainly been catching on. "Cambodia's English-speaking population is an elite," he says. "With Khmer, we can reach a wider audience and have a bigger impact."

But some Cloggers aren't convinced. Tharum contends that anyone who can use the internet can also read English. Seila thinks English brings much-needed international attention to Phnom Penh. Plus other Cloggers mention the possibility of getting censored once their writings are available for all of Cambodia to read.

Chantra and the Open Institute maintain their optimism. "As more Cambodians get access to computers, which is happening, more of them will write in Khmer," he says. Cambodia's growing literate middle class could indeed solidify Khmer above English. But their taste for foreign knowledge and culture could also reverse that trend."

Cloggers: young Cambodian voices find their own way on the Web [... as it should be]

Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 23/02/2009. Young Cambodian woman checking her e-mail in an internet café (Photo: Vandy Rattana)

02-03-2009
By Corinne Callebaut
Ka-set

They are young, free and feel like talking about anything without any taboo. These young people are Cambodian bloggers, also known as “cloggers”, the way they self-named themselves. Through the medium of a simple keyboard, they write what very few Cambodians can or dare express openly. Contemporary social issues, love, sex, political opinions, forced evictions... Cloggers will tackle any subject, sharing stories and chatting together without measure, making the most of the Internet, that so-called free space, almost exempt of censorship. The government is only slowly starting to take an interest in that space and would like to see it more regulated via a law, currently under preparation. But till then, the Khmer blogosphere, home to and incredible and surprising breeding ground of opinions, keeps organising itself like busy bees.

Click to Read More...

Cambodian bloggers dream of beating the propoganda

Clogger Chak Sopheap, one of the rare political bloggers in Cambodia

Tuesday, July 08, 2008
ABC Radio Australia

Just 10 per cent of Cambodians have access to the internet, but a small number of Cambodians are taking up the craft of blogging.

Cambodian bloggers, or 'Cloggers' as they refer to themselves, are starting to use cyberspace to discuss music, romance, daily life and, just occasionally, politics.

While the traditional news media has no official censorship and is often described as one of the freest in the region, a recent study concluded Cambodia's "media is closely controlled by politics, money and fear".

A survey of 150 journalists last year found 65 per cent were afraid of being physically attacked, and 62 per cent feared legal action.

Pen Samithy, President of the Club Of Cambodian Journalists, told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program, while violence against journalists has diminished in recent years, the threat of criminal and civil prosecutions has increased.

"We are very concerned about this and I think after the election the Cambodian journalists will meet each other and resolve this problem," he said.

We don't want any journalist to be jailed because of their job."

Mr Samithy is also editor-in-chief of Rasmei Kampuchea, the largest newspaper in Cambodia.

He freely admits that his newspaper, like most in the country, is seen to have a bias towards Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party - just as some of his competitors favour the various Opposition parties.

He says his, and other papers, are striving to introduce more balance.

That is not the view of the bloggers, however.

Chak Sopheap is one of Cambodia's very few bloggers.

The 23-year-old says the media in Cambodia is increasing and is more open, but there are still limitations.

"If you look at TV nowadays there's restrictions and it's not independent at all," she said.

"The TV's role is to promote government and mainly the ruling party."

Bloggers are a long way from being able to challenge that official propoganda with only 1,000 or so active in the country and very few of those prepared to tackle politics.

After a blog entry criticising the ruling Cambodian People's Party, Miss Sopheap was sent a message telling her she should run otherwise she would be killed.

She says she doesn't expect blogs to have much influence on the election later this month but hopes that by the 2013 election Cambodia will have too many bloggers for any one political party to control their message.

"I notice that there's an increasing number because one of my network, they promote the blog creation, they go to schools, universities and other organisation to teach people how to blog and the benefits of blogging," Miss Sopheap said.

Cambodian bloggers opening up conservative society

Clogger Chak Sopheap (Photo: Oso)
Click here to read Sopheap's ifocus blog

06/18/2008
Agence France-Presse

The majority of Cambodian bloggers write in English so they can reach a global audience, but very few touch on one of blogging's most popular topics: politics.

'If I were you, I would run. Otherwise you will be killed' - Threat received by clogger Chak Sopheap who still continue to post her views

PHNOM PENH--When Hor Virak started blogging three years ago, he was one of only a handful of bloggers in Cambodia and quickly gained a following for his frequent postings on technology.

At first, he said, "I just rode my motorbike around and took interesting pictures to post on my blog."

But by the beginning of last year, he was attracting several hundred readers a day and now says he is thrilled with his new-found celebrity.

"When I started it, I had no idea it would take me to this level of fame," he said, sitting at his laptop in a Phnom Penh cafe.

If Hor Virak's idea of fame seems modest, it's because government data show only about 10 percent of Cambodia's 14.4 million people have Internet access.

He is among a lively group of Cambodian bloggers -- or "cloggers" as they call themselves -- who are opening up this tiny, conservative country to the wider world and potentially bringing in unprecedented social change.

Cambodian bloggers are keeping online diaries which they use to reflect on personal relationships, school and social issues, expressing opinions that are traditionally kept private.

"This kind of public expression is a new thing that never happened in our society," said Be Chantra, who trains bloggers through a non profit organization called the Open Institute.

Blogging in Cambodia did not have an auspicious start. In 2003, Be Chantra and two other colleagues travelled the country training 2,000 students to blog in an initiative funded by Microsoft and United States aid agencies.

"It was not successful," Be Chantra said, shaking his head.

Fewer than five percent of his students were able to keep a blog afterwards as they could not access the Internet, he said.

Since then, however, more than 1,000 Cambodians have turned to blogging and most of them are students who began by their own initiative, said Be Chantra.

Cambodian bloggers now meet regularly and hold workshops to teach each other about new software applications. Most see this as great progress as the Internet only arrived here a little more than a decade ago.

"If the Internet was cheaper, faster and easier to access there would be even more bloggers," said Be Chantra.

Despite patchy access to the Internet, 20-year-old university student Keo Kalyan has begun earning an income from her blog musings, written under her online identity as "DeeDee, School Girl Genius."

More than 200 visitors per day check out her postings, which are usually written in pink, and the Indian cosmetics company Shaadi has begun buying advertising space on her site.

"The money isn't much, but I'm happy my voice is being heard," Keo Kalyan said.

The majority of Cambodian bloggers write in English so they can reach a global audience, but very few touch on one of blogging's most popular topics: politics.

Be Chantra's Khmer-language comedy blog is read by the Cambodian diaspora in the US and Japan but those hoping for something beyond humor are confronted with a banner on his site that reads: "No Politics Here."

"Politics could easily hurt you and it is nonsense," he said.

Last year Radio Free Asia reporter Lem Pichpisey fled to Thailand after receiving anonymous death threats for his reports alleging Cambodia's political elite were involved in illegal logging.

Attacks against journalists in Cambodia have fallen in recent years as the government has turned to the courts to punish reporters or publications it feels have violated the press law, critics say.

Although defamation, the charge most frequently leveled against journalists, was decriminalized in 2006, stiff fines now discourage aggressive reporting.

"The good thing about a blog is that it can be anonymous and you still can be contacted," said Gary Kawaguchi, a digital media trainer at the Department of Media and Communications of Cambodia.

"But the press here is very controlled and people still find out who you are so bloggers still have to be careful," he added.

Chak Sopheap, a university student who started a blog in her own name last year to draw attention to Cambodia's impoverished rural communities, said she was threatened for criticizing the ruling Cambodian People's Party.

"The message said, 'If I were you, I would run. Otherwise you will be killed,'" Chak Sopheap said.

While her fellow bloggers have vowed to keep their political criticism anonymous, Chak Sopheap said she will continue to post her views, claiming her blog affords more freedom of expression than Cambodia's mainstream media.

"Through blogs people change their attitudes and open their closed-lip habits. They can talk about how society can be developed," she said.