Iran the Worst Tyranny: This Week in Online Tyranny

Iran Officially Worst Online Oppressor. A new report from Freedom House has ranked Iran as the world’s worst abuser of online rights.

“Freedom on the Net 2011” determined that the five worst countries for online freedom – based on obstacles to access, limits on content and violations of user rights – are Iran, followed by Burma, China, Cuba and Tunisia. (The last entry is certainly changed somewhat by the uprising earlier this year.)

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BlackBerry restricted in UAE. The government of the United Arab Emirates has restricted the secure BlackBerry Enterprise to a few companies with more than 20 users.The government has also recently arrested two bloggers, Ahmed Mansoor and Farhad Salem Al-Shehhi.

Turkey blocks domain names. Turkey has listed 138 words that cannot be used in domain names. Any website that opens in Turkey using one of these words will be shut down. The words include “animal,” “beat,” “escort,” “homemade,” “hot,” “nubile,” “free,” “teen,” “pic,” (bastard in Turkish), “got” (ass), “Haydar,” (mans name but also means penis), “gay,” “çıplak” (naked), “itiraf” (confession), “liseli” (high school student), “nefes” (breath) and “yasak” (forbidden). Yes. The word forbidden is forbidden.

Burma bans Skype, trashes Internet cafes. The Burmese leadership banned Skype and other VOIP services and have sent Bureau of Special Investigation officers into Internet cafes to tell owners not to provide VOIP at their establishments.

Bahrain renews state of emergency. Bahrain has kept its “emergency” status to enforce a greater repression of expression and assembly in the wake of the March protests.

Vietnam jails sentences another blogger. Vi Duc Hoi, a blogger and democracy activist, has been sentenced to a five-year term in prison. The CPJ counts six bloggers currently imprisoned in the southeast Asian country.

Azerbaijani Facebook user denied bail. Bahthiyar Hajiev, a former opposition politician, was arrested for a show trial because he called for protests on Facebook and posted videos condemning the last set of elections in his country. He has been charged with “desertion.” Despite being beaten and threatened with rape, the “judge” in the case refused his attorney’s request to hear witnesses in Haijev’s treatment.

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