Not even the Pope has complete freedom of speech in cyberspace, it seems. A missive to the Catholics of China published on the internet by Benedict XVI has been pulled because it flouted censorship laws, according to the eastern Vatican publicity agency, AsiaNews.

In fact, not only has the Government of Peking taken the Pope’s letter off all Catholic-themed websites in the country, but it has actually blocked access to the Vatican sites to Chinese surfers. Religious leaders and followers from Rome to Peking are completely baffled by the decision. “There’s no freedom of religion any more,” complains a Chinese priest who prefers to remain anonymous.

In an up-and-coming country such as China, a country with one of the world’s largest populations, the native language of which is spoken by more people than any other, a country that has pulled itself out of near Third World conditions to become a booming economy on the cutting edge of technology, it is difficult to believe that certain religious beliefs are frowned upon and access to the internet is heavily controlled. Essentially, despite China’s new face as a 21st-century nation, freedom of speech is still lagging behind the times.

Software companies are ‘supporting repression’, says Amnesty International
Despite this, censorship on popular culture as a whole is rife in China. Musicians and singers hoping to travel east as part of their world tours have to be vetted thoroughly by the Chinese government and provide an official translation of their lyrics, in case any are considered inappropriate. It is hardly surprisingly, therefore, that the web is under such stringent control – politically-controversial, anti-religious, and even mildly pornographic content is considered to be against public decency and the plug will be pulled on any pages containing themes of this type – in fact, entire sites can be removed at the government’s discretion. Access to certain website addresses can be universally blocked.

Worse still, anyone found using or creating a site, the contents of which are deemed illegal – even if they are completely harmless – can face a huge fine or even prison. Amnesty International has noticed numbers of ‘cyber prisoners’ soaring in recent years. Since November 2002, the total of net-users sentenced to jail has increased by nearly two-thirds, and in the last three years, 54 people have been put behind bars.

For this human tragedy, Amnesty International apportions a large slice of the blame onto world-dominating software giants who, the organisation claims, are writing programmes that makes censorship easy. Filtering out certain sites and user-names, restricting certain email addresses, and cancelling blogs are just a few of the measures Microsoft has been accused of, essentially supporting the government’s clampdown on freedom of speech online. 

Earlier this year, the organisation Reporters without Borders wrote to the US government claiming Microsoft had withdrawn a blog written by journalist Zhao Jing, under the pseudonym of Michael Anti, in which he criticised the Chinese government’s restrictive attitude to internet use.

Search engine Google has also come under fire from Amnesty International. The charity claims www.google.cn has a built-in filter to block access to certain sites, although Google insists that it was obliged to remove numerous search results in order to be able to operate in China.

A spokesperson from the Gates empire says Microsoft is not in a position to police the end use, or users, of its technology.

Cisco Systems, another software company criticised by Amnesty International, insists that as a firm they are ‘politically neutral’ and “if the Chinese government chooses to police internet use, that’s their business.”

Yet Amnesty International argues that these restrictive practices violate human rights laws adopted by the UN and claim that multi-nationals in any trade have a responsibility to ensure that they do not inadvertently support abuse or repression.

Spain – the next China?
In a relatively permissive, relaxed society like Spain’s, ‘censorship’ is a word that went out of fashion when Franco’s dictatorship ended. In contrast to China, there is relatively little control over freedom of speech on or offline. To this end, internet censorship in Spain seems an unlikely prospect – or so we were led to believe. Yet the national government is considering just that. The Spanish government wants to pass a law allowing it to shut down internet pages without having to take the matter through the court channels first.

Those whose cries of protest, comparisons with the Chinese government and Franco’s reign were heard rebounding through cyberspace were consoled with promises that this move would only be to fight against phishing, child pornography and unauthorised medical advice amongst other dangers to society.

However, others are more concerned that the decision could be to hush the scandal-lovers of the Spanish press. Any minister or councillor would have the authority to shut down a website it considered inappropriate, according to certain criteria and circumstances. In theory, therefore, this might even mean that a councillor could close a site because he or she is incensed by comments made in an article about him or her. Likewise, any councillor or minister could get their own back on their rivals by wiping their sites off the web.

Could it lead to these extremes? Víctor Domingo, president of surfers’ association Internautas.org, is determined that it will not. He has already started a campaign in protest against the idea. In fact, even Francisco Ros, Secretary of State for Telecommunications is against such censorship.

Despite unanimous opposition, the government intends to proceed with its proposed Ley de Impulso de la Sociedad de la Información, a law covering technology and society that will make possible the censorship of sites politicians consider inappropriate.

Is this an attack on freedom of speech, particularly in the press, threatening to move our progressive country back into the dark ages, or an essential  tool designed to protect the vulnerable from hackers and dangerous criminals?

The jury is out on this point, and unless and until it is finally put into place, the benefits or drawbacks of this controversial law will not truly be revealed.