These web sites were the one recent sign of tangible progress in freedom of expression in
Libya. The government is returning to the dark days of total media control.”
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director
(New York) - Libya’s moves in late January, 2010, to block access to at least seven independent and opposition Libyan web sites based abroad and to YouTube is a disturbing step awayfrom press freedom, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should restore web site access immediately, Human Rights Watch said.
"These web sites were the one recent sign of tangible progress in freedom ofexpression in Libya," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, "The government is returning to the dark days of total media control." On January 24, Libyans woke to find that they could no longer access independent and opposition Libyan web sites based abroad,such as Libya Al Youm, Al Manara, Jeel Libya, Akhbar Libya,and Libya Al Mostakbal, which had become major sources of news. With editors based abroad and journalists in Tripoli and Benghazi,these web sites regularly publish news on sensitive political subjects,including human rights abuses by the Libyan government. In its December 2009report, "Truth and Justice Can’t Wait," Human Rights Watch pointed to their availability and the ability of their journalists to operate out of Libya as tentative signs of expanded press freedom. In addition, the entire YouTube web site is no longer available in Libya. It recently featured videos of demonstrations in Benghazi by families of prisoners who were killed in Abu Salim prison in 1996, which the authorities have never investigated, as well as videos of family members of Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi, Libya’sleader, at parties.
A group of Libyan bloggers, journalists, and rights defenders have started anonline campaign on Facebook, called "No to the Policy of Blocking Websites in Libya," and haveshared proxy servers to allow access to the blocked web sites. A Libyan blogger,Gaida El Tawati, told Human Rights Watch that the group had submitted acomplaint to the Gaddafi Foundation’s Human Rights Society and to LTT, the main internet service provider in Libya. Editors of the blocked websites have said that people in Libya are still accessing their websites through proxies, but that access has decreased.
"Libya can stick its head in the sand and try to block the free flow of electronic information to
المزيد
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