Posts Tagged ‘egypt’

Internet controls still a global battle

November 1st, 2011
Posted by Senior Director, Juliette Terzieff:

Internet censorship in China has gained the spotlight again recently in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. China’s ability to forestall the use of Internet-based tools to drive public protests, and to successfully block searches for events like the Egyptian protests in January 2011 that dominated the global airwaves are both a demonstration of the government’s continued strength and an admission by authorities that the potential power of technology worries them.

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Yemen activists count on social media

October 24th, 2011
Posted by Senior Director, Juliette Terzieff:

As the one year anniversary of Tunisian protests that launched Arab Spring uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East approaches, pro-reform activists across the Arab world are looking to maintain momentum and cement gains into systemic changes. Given the prominent role of technology – and in particular, social media – in helping to drive protest movements it’s hardly a surprise that once again activists are turning to the Internet to deliver their message.

Tunisia’s successful elections this past Sunday will no doubt give reform movements hope that continuing to apply pressure on political leaders can produce results. It was events in Tunisia beginning in December 2010 that triggered street movements across the Arab world. Authorities estimated 90% of eligible voters showed up to cast a ballot and have their say in electing those who will be tasked with drafting the country’s new constitution.

Yemen’s youth activists are continuing attempts leverage YouTube, Twitter and other social media outlets to tell the international community just what kind of change they seek – and to keep their cause in the spotlight. Their Support Yemen video “Break the Silence” first aired more than a week ago, asking for the end of corruption, better education, and improved healthcare. They also want President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power and ruled with an iron fist since 1978, to step down.

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Technology put to tortuous use

August 29th, 2011
Posted by Juliette Terzieff

Torture isn’t normally what you associate with text messaging. But in Bahrain activists detained by security forces are finding their cellular telephone records being used against them by authorities as proof of insurrection.

Events in Bahrain are not the first time – nor are they likely to be the last – that a repressive government uses technology to prosecute or persecute those who seek to take advantage of the freedom of communication enabled by other ICT tools. That authorities are once again using technology purchased from multinationals based in Western countries has brought criticism from human rights and pro-democracy activists.

Across the Middle East and North Africa over the last few years dissidents and pro-reform activists have turned to technology to create and drive mass movements for change. Text messaging capabilities via cellular telephones and Internet-based communications have been used to reach around government-dominated press to gather forces domestically to support movements. Activists have employed YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as means to broadcast their message instantaneously to a global audience, hoping to increase international pressure for change and promote accountability for government abuses.

Activists have had mixed results. The Twitter revolution – a concept that gained currency as Iranians challenged 2009 election results that kept incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in power – was the first time social media gained widespread recognition as a social and political tool in the international media. Iranian activists and their supporters worldwide strove to sidestep authorities’ efforts to block access to social media outlets with some pretty impressive success – even though Ahmedinejad was ultimately able to withstand the challenge from the streets with help from the country’s well-trained security forces.

Fast forward to 2011… and once again social media usage played a role in driving protests in Egypt, Bahrain and Syria. In all three cases authorities instituted a crackdown against protesters and sought to control the flow of information, either by attempting to throw an Internet kill-switch or by limiting access to certain sites like YouTube.

Egypt’s pro-reform movement was successful in its effort to force longtime incumbent President Hosni Mubarak out of power – though it remains to be seen how much reform to the country’s security forces, judiciary and political system sought by activists will actually materialize overtime.

Syrian authorities have unleashed a violent crackdown against protesters that has included mass detentions, house-to-house searches, and sending tanks into residential areas to quell demonstrations. And while the control measures have helped keep President Bashar Al-Assad in power thus far, activists continue to successfully get video footage and information out of the country preventing a repeat of a 1982 crackdown by Assad’s father, Hafez, when it took weeks for news of a deadly crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood to reach the world.

Assad’s actions have drawn vociferous and sustained condemnation from the international community and rights groups the world round. European Union countries and the U.S. have placed additional sanctions on Syria, while the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has asked the Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

Inspired by explosions of protest across the region and the use of social media Bahraini activists set out to push for political reform in February 2011 – even going so far as to set up an Internet tent to broadcast their efforts in Manama’s Pearl Square. But before analysts could even warn that Bahrain was not Egypt, and Bahraini authorities had experience quelling protests, security forces swept violently into the capital’s streets and overpowered demonstrators.

In every case Western politicians and civil society have expressed support for the “street,” urging the governments in question to institute reforms, or step aside. Western companies that produce the technology repressive governments have used to aid their counter-protest efforts have found themselves also under fire for the use of their products.

Iranian activists and their supporters blasted Nokia Siemens Network after reports surfaced that the company had provided a product called the Monitoring Center to Iranian authorities. The technology gave authorities the ability to monitor calls, voice and text messages, and Internet traffic. Nokia Siemens said the technology is standard infrastructure in most countries’ cellular networks but did acknowledge authorities might abuse such capabilities. Nonetheless, the company believes the risks of doing business in countries like Iran doesn’t eclipse the positives that come from the general expansion of cellular or Internet access.

It is an argument that has been used by other companies, such as Google or Yahoo! Inc., when challenged by human rights groups over doing business in countries with repressive regimes like China. And certainly, most stakeholders from across the spectrum agree that increased access to the Internet and consumer electronics can help address development, poverty and expression challenges.

In Bahrain authorities are using a Monitoring Center sold by Siemens and managed by Nokia Siemens Network’s divested unit Trovicor, according to Bloomberg Markets. While Bahraini authorities have not admitted using the technology as a tool against activists, industry observers say there is no other way authorities could obtain such transcripts of cellular communications. That the monitoring technology can also be used to change messages en route to a recipient or pinpoint an individual’s location makes it a powerful potential weapon for authorities. Egypt, Syria and Yemen also purchased centers from the company.

The European Union and the U.S. thus far have no legislation that restricts the sale of powerful inspection technologies even though some U.S. lawmakers considered casting a legislative eye on the subject in the wake of the Arab Spring. In fact existing U.S. law requires that carrier-grade cellular and Internet equipment carry intercept capabilities, leading manufacturers to build them into production lines.

Significant changes to the market are unlikely any time soon.

There remains broad agreement among stakeholders that ICT tools can be a powerful force for positive change, able to magnify and increase movements for social change. And companies in the ICT sector will continue to face pressure to ensure that people can access and use their products freely.

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India Internet law draws fire

August 9th, 2011
Posted by Juliette Terzieff

Indian Internet users have begun to discover the limits imposed by a new law on web content, encountering interruptions in their surfing in the form of screens displaying a message that content has been blocked under instruction from the Ministry of Telecom.

Human rights activists, bloggers and Internet users are lashing out at the new on the grounds that its provisions constitute infringements on the rights to privacy, free speech and expression. Indian authorities have characterized the new law as a balance between individual freedoms and collective security, but critics say the restrictive provisions rival Chinese attempts to censor web access.

The new law prohibits web sites and service providers from disseminating any material that might be harmful, blasphemous or insulting – and requires them to remove any such content within 36 hours of a complaint registration. Internet café will have to increase current security measures – which include installing surveillance cameras and obtaining identification from all customers – to keep a detailed record of each individual’s surfing activities. Owners are required to turn over the records to government authorities at the end of each month.

India has suffered two large-scale terrorist attacks in recent years and is contending with armed conflict in Kashmir. In November 2008 terrorists unleashed a four-day long attack on hospitals, cafes, community centers and educational institutions in Mumbai that left 164 people dead and over 300 injured. Earlier this year 18 people died and 81 were wounded when assailants detonated bombs in three Mumbai neighborhoods. In both cases, investigators have reported traces of Internet activity as central to building their cases.

While rights advocates express sympathy for the government’s efforts to address security concerns associated with the Internet, critics charge the vague wording of the law potentially leaves it open to wide interpretation by authorities.

“With this kind of blanket surveillance regime, we are on a very slippery slope,” Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society told the Washington Post. “The language is so vague that it is open to arbitrary interpretation. . . . In comparison with other democracies in North America and Europe, the Indian rules appear to be on the China end of the spectrum.”

India is home to the world’s third largest number of Internet users behind China and the United States, even though less than 10 percent of the population has regular access. But growth over the last decade has been spectacular – rising from 5 million to 100 million between the year 200 and now.

In many countries the increase of Internet penetration has led to social and political upheaval as dissenters are able to reach a global audience to expose abuses and push for reform. In countries with repressive regimes and state-controlled media, individuals have been able to sidestep official controls to reach like-minded countrymen and help launch protest movements.

It’s a reality that has triggered censorship battles between governments and civil society, the private sector and rights advocates around the world over the last decade. In many countries, such as Egypt and Vietnam, bloggers have been specifically targeted for harassment or arrest for their online activities. In other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and China, authorities have moved to censor Internet access more broadly.

The advance of Internet access around the world has also provided militant groups and terrorist organizations with more advanced tools to both accelerate internal communications and reach a broader audience. As a result of these and other criminal activities, such as pedophilia, governments in even the most democratic and open countries have moved to place some restrictions on the Internet.

“While there are legitimate security concerns to deal with, repressive governments that cite such issues for broad restrictions often have domestic political concerns in mind,” says Islamabad-based defense analyst Mohammad Bokhari. “Ultimately it comes down to those dedicated individuals and groups that are being targeted for dissenting activities being willing to keep taking the risk that are the best hope for pushing change.”

While unrestricted and universal Internet access has the broad support of the United Nations, human rights groups and most Western governments, there is no real mechanism at the international level to compel a government to ease restrictions on the Internet.  With little chance an enforceable mechanism will come into force anytime soon, the combined pressure of stakeholders from across the spectrum to wield the power of the Internet as a building block for the future.

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Disaster response goes viral

April 24th, 2011

 Posted by Senior Director Juliette Terzieff:

It was only a matter of an hour or so after the devastating Jan. 10, 2010 earthquake hit Haiti when the chatter on social media sites began to hit a fever pitch. On Facebook, blogs and Twitter individual users rallied their friends to spread the word and get involved. In less than 24 hours I was able to write a blog post with a robust list of places where people could reach out helping hands to the people of Haiti using their cellular telephones or computers. Over the ensuing days and weeks efforts increased  — ways to help loved ones locate each other, mapping of affected areas, appeals for aid – and in each case the Internet was used as a way to spread news quickly.

It was amazing. For many social media fans it was the first time we realized the true tangible power users can wield on an international level. For the disaster response community it was a pivotal turning point. Proof positive that ICT tools wielded by individuals can influence the way the international community responds in cases of dire humanitarian need.

In the last year volunteer and technical communities (V&TCs) such as Ushahidi, OpenStreetMap and CrisisMappers have used their skills to help address humanitarian issues associated with natural disasters in Pakistan and Japan, and political crises in Libya and Egypt. They are quickly becoming essential tools for humanitarian crisis response.

“Haiti was a tipping point,” says Adele Waugaman, head of the United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership that invests in mobile technology applications to promote UN health and disaster relief efforts.

“The tools were there but had not been used at that scale and the Haiti disaster showed the possibilities for a change in the way plans unfold and mounting more proactive humanitarian responses.”

The humanitarian community has long been plugged into ways in which the ICT sector can aid response efforts. The ability of field responders in some of the world’s most inhospitable environs to leverage satellite feed to access the Internet and exchange information with regional offices and headquarters has already revolutionized the way aid operations unfold.

The addition of volunteer crisis mappers though brings the relationship between ICT tools and humanitarian response to an entirely new level.

“I think what we’re seeing is the rise of a “mapping reflex”, sort of like a “Wikipedia effect” where people decide to contribute to online Wikipedia entries…people don’t just Tweet and share YouTube pictures, they start creating maps. So international organizations are starting to take note and realize the value that these maps can have,” says Patrick Meier, Director of Crisis Mapping & New Media at Ushahidi and co-founder of CrisisMappers.

Stakeholders from across the public and private spectrum are examining ways to make crowd-sourced data an effective and standard tool in disaster response. The starting point? Haiti.

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Using handheld GPS technology volunteers fed information to other volunteers in front of computer screens around the world to collect, aggregate and map pleas for help from Haiti. Their efforts to combine mobile platforms, statistical modeling, geospatial technologies, and visual analytics helped close an information gap for aid responders who arrived in Haiti to find a drastically altered landscape. Local capacity was decimated, records destroyed. Destruction was so severe neighborhoods were unrecognizable. Immediate, desperate need filled every rubble-covered street.  

“To coordinate response within the UN system you need to know ‘who, what, where’ and in Haiti the baseline data was gone – locations and numbers of hospitals, schools, etc. That kind of information traditionally takes a lot of time to create, now it can be done in hours,” says Waugaman.

The UNF-Vodafone partnership, in conjunction with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), commissioned the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to explore how to align crisis mapping and existing disaster response systems into a systemic standard that can accelerate the entire process in a replicable manner.

The report, Disaster 2.0, looks at the lessons learned during the Haiti response and recommends ways to coordinate efforts between the two communities.  Forging a new system, the authors say, will require challenging the status quo and they recommend creating a neutral forum to assess areas of alignment and conflict, a rapid response team to implement practices supplied by V&TCs, a joint research and training effort, and an operational interface to promote coordination.

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Integration of crisis mapping into official channels of humanitarian disaster response is just in its beginning stages. Supporters are already looking at ways to overcome some of the challenges to creating a revised system of disaster response such as creating a tier of people who understand the way the humanitarian system operates and ways in which to verify the information being received from multiple sources during a disaster scenario.

The goal is to create an existing system that can be deployed rapidly to answer need anywhere around the world.

“The tools are just that, tools that can be used in a variety of ways to support the UN and humanitarian efforts to meet needs wherever and whenever,” explains Waugaman, “regardless of whether the cause is natural, political or otherwise.”

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ICT tools and the push for refoms

April 18th, 2011

Posted by Senior Director Juliette Terzieff:

When Egyptians took to the streets en masse to demand reform in early 2011 an outpouring of global support erupted on the Internet. Popular social media outlets Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were lauded by the international media for their role in galvanizing international support and helping protesters sidestep government efforts to stop the protests.

The work in Egypt is hardly done. Yes, Mubarak is gone from power, but many political, judicial and economic reform challenges remain. And despite the recent conviction of a blogger to three years in prison for criticizing the powerful military, it‘s a safe bet Egyptians will continue to use ICT tools in the quest to push lasting reform.

But what of reform campaigns in other countries with repressive governments? How successful have anti-government protesters in places like Syria, Libya and Bahrain been? And to what extent are they leveraging technology to deliver their messages?

Tech-savvy, education, infrastructure and access all play a role in determining how much citizens of these countries use ICT tools to broadcast their message.

In the case of Bahrain, protesters set up public on-the-spot communications platforms to broadcast their efforts. Authorities mounted a heavy-handed violent response, physically dismantling protesters encampments. But has it silenced the debate? Has it stopped the protests? While the government’s response and events elsewhere in the region may have driven Bahrain off the top of the nightly news broadcasts activists continue to use Facebook, Twitter and other tools to push for the change they seek.

“By being one digital step behind their people (and the rest of the world) the authorities unwittingly ignited the exact national upheaval they sought to quell,” says Arran Dall, managing editor of FACT Bahrain Magazine,

Pro-reform forces in Syria continue to successfully get some information out via video and blog posts – data that has been picked up by the mainstream media – despite restrictions on Internet access. While the amount of information has been significantly less than what the world witnessed in Egypt’s case earlier this year, observers still see the power of modern communication systems playing a significant role.

Where current President Bashar Al-Assad’s father, Hafez, was able to order a violent and successful crackdown against an uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 without fear of an immediate international response, the Internet, satellite television broadcasts and other modern capabilities make such an undertaking nearly impossible. In 1982, it was weeks before news of the crackdown publicly hit the international radar and thousands had already perished.

“That can’t happen today with videos being posted online all the time and al-Jazeera covering things. This limits Assad’s weapons, and the people know it,” Mordechai Kedar, a professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University told the Globe & Mail.

Assad has sought to placate protesters with a limited number of reforms in recent weeks, including the reshuffling of political powerbrokers within the ruling structure and plans to repeal emergency rule that has been in place since 1963. Few observers expect Assad’s moves will silence the protests.

In Libya, where there is relatively little access and infrastructure – and more immediate survival questions – to support the widespread use of Internet-based tools on the scale we witnessed over the last few months in other countries, there are Libyans and the diaspora keeping up a near continuous flow of information. Dozens of influential members of Twitter continue to tweet in support of #Libya, but in this case traditional media has dominated the chatter.

As we examined here shortly after Mubarak’s government fell, the Egyptian government’s attempt to shut down Internet access in a bid to sever communication lines and shield events from international observation was doomed to fail. In an increasingly interconnected world, where the possession of a cellular telephone potentially gives an individual an international platform, and both public and private actors are increasingly willing to help individuals side-step government controls, government-sanctioned censorship will ultimately prove to be a temporary measure. 

And at the end of the day, technological capabilities alone do not drive revolutionary change, people do. In the case of Egypt the massive outpouring of international support on the Internet buoyed protesters across Egypt. But it was on the ground activism and a broad determination for change that drove Mubarak from power, and will be behind whatever pressure is brought to bear on future leaders.

For despotic regimes the lesson seems pretty clear. Don’t allow Internet usage to permeate society and the strength of its power to push for change can be muted. However, unless repressive leadership is prepared to confiscate every cellular telephone, destroy a country’s entire communications infrastructure and ban all traditional media from operating, the message for change will get out.

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Social Media leads 21st Century Global Revolutions

February 26th, 2011

From Future500 Senior Director, Juliette Terzieff:

Hosni Mubarak should have given me a call on January 25. His mistake.

But if he had, I would have told him something Joss Whedon already made perfectly clear in Serenity: “you can’t stop the signal.”

Actually if Mubarak had called Beijing, Tehran or Rangoon he would have heard much the same message. Sure governments can still limit communications capabilities, but the measures are temporary stop gaps at best. Time and time again over the last two years, popular uprisings have found ways to sidestep official controls and use the Internet to get their messages out to the world.

The message hasn’t always achieved the desired results – think crackdown Iran, think crackdown Burma – but as we have seen in Egypt and across the Arab world over the last month, technology (and social media, in particular) is the revolution weapon of choice for the 21st century. There is real power there.

Truth be told all it takes to galvanize international support and drive a movement is a few enterprising individuals. In the case of Egypt the tweets and Facebook updates of a small group of Egyptians sparked a massive worldwide explosion of support with the #Jan25 and #Egypt hashtags that overwhelmed the social media airwaves virtually non-stop until Hosni Mubarak announced his departure on Feb. 11.

Bloggers picked up the call. Journalists covering the protests tweeted instant updates. Major media outlets continue to produce in-depth packages on the influence of social media and the Internet. And when the Egyptian government attempted to shut down those inside the country, Internet giant Google stepped in to lend a hand. Google teamed up with Twitter to run a voice-to-tweet service that allowed Egyptians to call into international numbers and leave voicemail messages that software then translated into tweets with the hashtag #egypt.

And while it is most certainly people – not technology – that drives the campaigns, social media has emerged as potent weapon.

“Egypt made a radical maneuver, ultimately counterproductive, trying to cut access …but when you are willing to dismantle your country’s entire communication network in an attempt to quiet people you are really scared,” says John Perry Barlow, political activist and fellow emeritus of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Barlow, like many observers, believes technology is causing a paradigm shift in traditional power structures.

“We’re witnessing revolutions that are self-organizing, without central leadership, and that is all a direct result of technology.”

Social media is now being used by protesters in Bahrain, Libya, Iran, Jordan and elsewhere to reach out across social and economic boundaries to build broad coalitions of diverse people united around a common cause.

In countries with mammoth ruling systems in place, like Libya or Syria, shutting down the Internet – at least partially or temporarily – can forestall large public movements. And while Chinese authorities have been able to fight off massive political unrest by pushing rapid economic development for millions of Chinese, activism and unrest are growing there too.

As we’re seeing in Libya not all ruling systems will be as mature about stepping down in the face of the flood as the Mubarak regime was. Leaders like Muammar Gaddafi will fight – unfairly and with little regard for the lives being destroyed – to cling to the old systems.

But for every individual that falls, dozens more around the world will pick up the call and blast the information across the Internet keeping the eyes of the world on any abuses perpetrated against people raising their voices for change ….and that is a power greater than any gun, goon or jail cell.

This post also appears on Juliette Terzieff’s Global Citizen.

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Walking like an Egyptian!

February 11th, 2011

From Future 500, Senior Director Juliette Terzieff

Today is a day for celebration. Tomorrow the work begins anew.

And while the people of Egypt have a long road ahead of them to continuously push for reform and work to dismantle a pervasive sub-culture of official corruption and impunity within the ruling systems, they also have great cause to dance in the streets.

They have done what few would have believed possible one month ago. With amazing grace, determination and demonstrations of love towards each other, the Egyptian nation put aside internal differences to band together. They fought off physical challenges. They fought off political challenges. They stood. And stood. And stood.

And by failing to allow the situation to disintegrate into the bloodbath many feared, Egypt has set the example for the Arab world.

No longer will political leaders be free to act with impunity. No longer will the “Arab street” be viewed unfairly by Western pundits as a symbol of chaos and fear.  No longer will the people of the Arab world have their spirits crushed by the grind of greedy political systems that function only to repress.

Is everything in Egypt now suddenly roses and daisies? No.

The country’s economy needs work. Reform of the judicial system and security forces is paramount. And it’s human rights record? Ai yai yai, abysmal doesn’t even come close. Favoritism, nepotism and the entitlement of the few? Yeah, that’s going to need work too.

But today is a day to celebrate.

Egypt has spoken …. Damascus, Amman, Sana’a, Tehran, are you listening???

 

Originally posted on Juliette Terzieff’s Global Citizen.

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Working Together

December 30th, 2009
From Juliette Terzieff, Senior Director, Global Stakeholder Initiatives:

Welcome to the Future 500 blog.

To start the New Year, we are delighted to launch the official Future 500 blog, where we invite you to join us in ongoing discussions, analysis and observations to advance the practice of stakeholder engagement in progressing systemic solutions to society’s critical sustainability challenges.

In the waning days of 2009 I find myself looking back on a tumultuous year full of critical events that affect all the world’s citizens.

Each of us has a stake in our collective future — a future that in 2009 continued to be endangered by global economic turmoil and international policy failures, increasing frequency of natural disasters, effects of climate change and decreasing availability of finite natural resources – to name just a few of the year’s challenges!

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