Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders. Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders. Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders. Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders.

Please join me in welcoming Lucy Morrion from Reporters Without Borders. So whether their causes are national or global, the messages that bloggers and netizens communicate are the ones that will decide of tomorrow's internet.

We can still feel like, you know, a sort of resistance is being organized on the web against this tendency for more control, more repression, more propaganda. Now I'm just going to say a few words about the list of the enemies of the internet that Reporters Without Borders put out last month.

Sorry. So every year we publish a list of countries that are supposed to be the worst violators of freedom of expression on the net. This year again, the 12 worst violators were Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam.

Some of these countries are determined to use any means necessary to prevent their citizens from having access to the web. Burma, North Korea, of course, Cuba, Turkmenistan, these are countries where financial, technical

obstacles are coupled with harsh crackdowns on the existence of a very limited internet. Internet shutdowns or slowdowns are pretty common, especially in the period of unrest. And the internet's potential as a portal open to the world directly contradicts the propensity of its regimes to isolate themselves from other countries.

Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, for instance, have opted for such massive filtering that their internet users have chosen very often to practice their censorship. And it's something that is hard to measure exactly. For economic purposes, China, Tunisia, Egypt, Vietnam have waged on infrastructure development strategy, but

at the same time keeping a tight control over the web's political and social contents. The Chinese and Tunisian filtering systems, for instance, are becoming increasingly sophisticated. And these countries are also demonstrating a deep intolerance for critical opinions, even

if they pretend that they are not censoring political content on the internet. Iran, I mean, I think it's something that you know pretty well, but the serious domestic crisis that Iran has been experiencing for months has caught netizens and the new media in its net.

And they have become now enemies of the regime. Among the countries that are under surveillance, because we have this list of enemies of the internet, and we have a list of countries under surveillance that do, well, their behavior basically raises some concerns about net freedom. It may be not that worrying right now, but in the future it can be a real problem.

So, among these countries under surveillance are several democracies. Australia, because of the government's plan to introduce this highly developed internet filtering system. And also South Korea, where we have draconian laws creating too many specific restrictions on web users and challenging anonymity on the web.

We have added two countries this year to this list, Turkey and Russia. Why? In Russia, aside from the control exercised by the Kremlin on most of the media outlets, the internet

has become basically the free space for sharing information, for denouncing corruption, and Russian bloggers use that pretty well. But the independence of the web is being jeopardized by some bloggers arrest, prosecutions, as well as by blocking of some websites that are deemed extremist, but also we've seen Kasparov's website being blocked for a little while.

And what we are seeing is also the regime's propaganda being increasingly present on the web. We have bloggers who are infiltrating discussions from bullying the Kremlin's critics.

So, it's not sure yet whether this is the beginning of the real strategy of internet control, but at least there is a real risk that the internet can be transformed into a tool for political control. So, we wanted to draw the attention on this issue. In Turkey, taboo topics mainly deal with Ataturk, the founder of

the republic, the army, issues concerning minorities, and notably Kurds and Armenians. The dignity of the nation is also a big taboo. So, these excuses basically have been used to justify blocking several thousands of websites, including YouTube,

which has been triggering a lot of protests by Turkish bloggers and also by some international organizations. And bloggers and netizens who express themselves freely on such topics also face judicial reprisals. We see pretty often online journalists being prosecuted for attempting the dignity of the nation, for terrorism, and so on.

So, it's something that we see pretty often. In this list under surveillance, we have other countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Belarus, and Thailand that should actually need to make some effort, some progress, because they may very well next year be transferred into the enemies of the internet list itself.

Thailand, because of the abuses of the less majestic crimes, the Emirates, because they have bolstered the number of websites blocked, and Belarus, because the president has just signed a liability order that will regulate the net, and that is coming to force this summer, just a few months before the election.

So, this list of enemies of the internet and countries under surveillance will probably change next year. I think the trend is probably that there should be more addition than countries taken off the list. But at the same time, the examples of internet users' actions, online campaigns for the general interest could also be more numerous.

And each of us can be today the one who can mobilize other internet users for important causes, the environment, free speech, women's or children's rights. That's why it's really crucial to fight today for internet to remain what it was meant to be, a

free space for sharing and exchange, not a tool of repression at the hands of repressive or manipulating powers. And this fight is being played out right now. So, I think I'm going to stop here to let you some time to ask questions. I think there are some microphones over there. I don't see them very well.

But if you want to ask some questions, please go ahead. I'll be happy to answer.

I think we have very few time left, but yeah. Can you hear me right? Yeah, that's fine. What are some of the methods that reporters, if they are like in one of the oppressed nations, like the ones you named, what are some of the ways they can try to get the news out right now?

Like, what are the tools of the trade for people like that right now? You mean people like bloggers in repressive countries or us here in our democratic countries? Well, I mean, first of all, what is important is that more and more people in those repressive countries know about censorship, even if it's being denied by the government.

So, they are being more curious about how to get around censorship, how to use VPN proxies. And even if proxy servers are blocked in their countries, sometimes it's being copied on DVDs and passed from one hand to another. It's on USB flash drive and so on. So, I guess there's more awareness about how themselves to get around censorship.

Now, you have other tools like in Cuba, for instance, online journalists and bloggers, they cannot have access to their blogs. Their blogs are hosted abroad. So, what they do is they basically prepare the articles before and they put it on USB key drive and they go on, they can go now to some of the tourist hotels.

So, they're going to go online because it's really expensive. It's $6 to $7 an hour when the monthly salary is about $20. So, they just go online, they send an email with all the information and then their friends abroad will be the ones posting the information.

But then they cannot, you know, moderate the comments, which is a little bit tricky for all of them. But I guess what we try to do is not only to monitor the violations of online free speech but also to help spread the word about these tools to get around censorship. And also to call upon all of us in our democratic countries where we do have access to a pretty open internet.

There are some very useful tools like Tor. You can download it to your computer, it doesn't cost you a thing. And you become part of a network where computers abroad are being put at the disposal of people in repressive countries so they can get around the great firewall of China or other great firewalls.

In your example from Cuba, would that circumvention that they use, is that legal in Cuba or is that still something if they get caught with that, they're pretty much putting themselves on the line every time? Well, I mean, the risks are really high. I think you have, according to the law, you can get five years in jail

just for connecting to the internet illegally and 20 years for sending an article abroad that has not been vetted by the authorities. So, in this case, it's pretty specific because they can have access to the World Wide Web in some internet, in some tourist hotels.

So they would go there, send their email in a few minutes and then go. Or some of them also use the black market. I think you pay $50 a month to serve the web and $1 for sending one email. But then it's passwords and IDs that belong to people that are authorized to have access to the

net and they have to use it at night because these people are using it during the day. So it's quite some organization. Thank you.

Applause.