Report on Internet Filtering in Tunisia

This is a follow-up to last week's post Repression Precedes UN-Sponsored Info Summit in Tunisia.

The Open Net Initiative (ONI), a partnership between the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and the Advanced Network Research Group at Cambridge University, recently published a study on Internet Filtering in Tunisia, host country of last week's World Summit on the Information Society.

The study outlines that country's "widespread censorship practices and Internet controls".

In its intro summary of the situation, ONI writes "Tunisia’s approach to the Internet comports with the strong limitations the state imposes on other media. Laws criminalizing defamation of public officials or spreading false news push journalists to censor their reporting, and the imprisonment of critics of the government makes plain that these laws have bite. The state also employs a mixture of economic controls, such as directing subsidies and advertising to friendly outlets, and informal pressures, such as violence against critics, to ensure that media stay within prescribed boundaries."

ONI has produced other country studies on Internet filtering and censorship:

• Internet Filtering in Burma in 2005
• Internet Filtering in Singapore in 2004-2005
• Internet Filtering in Iran 2004-2005
• Internet Filtering in China 2004-2005
• Internet Filtering in Bahrain in 2004-2005
• Internet Filtering in United Arab Emirates in 2004-2005
• Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia in 2004