The irony of it

After the Indian government hastily blocked access to all blogs and blogging sites after the Mumbai train bombings it seems Indian bloggers have been accessing their blogs through a Pakistani site. It’s always comforting to know that in times of civil strife when democratically elected governments start to act like autocrats citizens can rely on autocratic states to provide them with services.

There’s something seriously wrong with this picture.

Even the proposed solution, making individual bloggers liable for their blog’s content, is more than a bit worrying. This would enable the government to more effective go after the authors of sites “which carried material from religious and political extremists” (there are 17 of them targeted at the moment), but would also enable individuals voicing thoughts the government would rather not hear liable under new anti-terror laws.

Still, Indian bloggers are using the Pakistani portal and other methods to continue blogging in the face of government crack downs, just as bloggers in China and other information repressing states do. Prasanto Roy, president of the Dataquest Group, which analyses technological trends in India, is confident that the flexibility of the internet will ultimately prevail:

The internet was built to resist these physical barriers. Information is mirrored and copied quickly. I think what happened here was just some idiot in some ministry decided to block these sites without thinking it through.

Indian government officials were quick to retreat from their actions, saying that blogspot and other sites shouldn’t be blocked:

Gulshan Rai, director of the computer emergency response team, which is responsible for India's cyber-security, said: "Blogspot.com should not be blocked." He added: "What we need to do is work with service providers so that we block individual pages. Just give us some time."

Even blocking individual pages is an infringement of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

That’s pretty clear, I would have thought, and since India is a signatory they are bound to uphold this right (not that being a signatory stops other countries from abusing all manner of rights wholesale).

And, just in case India needs any further prompting to allow people to access the rights they are entitled to, there’s always article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by India on 10 April 1979:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

I know that "the protection of national security line" is the one the Indian government is running, but preventing people from speaking their minds in a public forum is actually not a very good way of protecting the national interest. It merely forces people underground where they can plot unimpeded.