KAZAKHSTAN / ICANN : Reporters Without Borders raps censorship of UK comedian's "Borat" website

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Martin Burack <marty () burack nu>
Date: December 14, 2005 9:47:43 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: KAZAKHSTAN / ICANN : Reporters Without Borders raps  
censorship of UK comedian's "Borat" website

Dave:

For IP, if you'd like.

Marty Burack

> Reporters Without Borders / Internet Freedom desk
> 14 December 2005
>
>
> KAZAKHSTAN
> Reporters Without Borders raps censorship of UK comedian's "Borat"  
> website
>
> Reporters Without Borders condemned censorship by the Kazakh  
> government, which has removed the right to use the .kz suffix  
> (equivalent to .uk) from two websites it finds troublesome,  
> including that of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, or "Borat".
>
> The worldwide press freedom organisation said it was concerned by  
> the politicisation of the administration of domain names and has  
> written to Franck Fowlie, ombudsman for the Internet Corporation  
> for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN,) that registers domain  
> names, asking him to intervene.
>
> Borat.kz carries sketches by Sacha Baron Cohen, who portrays a  
> sexist and racist Kazakh journalist on the US cable channel HBO.  
> The Kazakh web business body that manages the .kz – said the site  
> had been shut because borat.kz was hosted outside Kazakhstan and  
> false administrators’ names had been given when it was registered.
>
> The government decided last month to deny .kz to sites hosted  
> abroad, an unjustified step that tightens political control over  
> Kazakh online publications.
>
> "The role of bodies that manage the country code top-level domain  
> names (ccTLDs) is above all technical. They are not qualified to  
> censor the contents of sites", Reporters Without Borders said in  
> its letter to Frank Fowlie. “We find however that the Kazakh  
> government sees to it that websites that mock or criticise it are  
> rejected."
>
> "In this way, it infringes the principles set out by ICANN, which  
> requires that the management of the ccTLDs should be fair and non  
> discriminatory’. We think that an intervention by your organisation  
> would show that it was capable of defending free expression on the  
> Internet, a key issue when you consider the stormy debates on the  
> governance of the Internet that marked the recent World Summit on  
> the Information Society (WSIS)", the letter to the ombudsman said.
>
> The opposition website Navi.kz was forced to give up its .kz at the  
> end of October after a legal procedure that was stage-managed by  
> the authorities.
>
> In November, Reporters Without Borders put Kazakhstan on a list of  
> "countries to watch" because of repeated violations of free  
> expression on the Internet. See: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3? 
> id_article=15613
>
> ------------------------
> Julien Pain
> Bureau Internet et libertés / Internet Freedom desk
> ___________________________________________
>
> Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
> TEL: ++ 33 (0) 1 44 83 84 71
> FAX: ++ 33 (0) 1 45 23 11 51
> internet () rsf org
> www.internet.rsf.org
> Read our handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents :
> http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

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