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Iran on Tuesday stepped up censorship of websites that usually give foreign currency rates for its pummelled money, the rial, as the exchange market remained virtually paralysed and under tight scrutiny.

Sites such as Mesghal.com and Mazanex.com had rates blanked out for the rial's value against many other nations' currencies, extending a censorship that previously applied to dollar and euro rates.

The market rate for gold coins was also missing.

In Tehran's money changing district, licensed bureaux were doing no business at the rate of 28,500 rials to the dollar imposed since Saturday by the central bank in an effort to reverse a collapse of the money last week.

Instead, a few black market dealers were offering the dollar at 35,000 rials -- close to the all-time low of more than 36,000 reached last week when the rial plunged 40 percent in value.

Iran's currency market has effectively been frozen since October 3, when protests erupted in central Tehran over the sliding rial.

Although shopkeepers and exchange bureaux have since reopened, they are doing little trade.

Merchants in the city's historic Grand Bazaar, which packs political weight in Iran, have greatly increased prices, to the dismay of shoppers. Several were refusing to sell goods until the currency situation stabilises.

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Iran censors currency rates as rial suffers

Philippine President Benigno Aquino defended a new cybercrime law Friday amid a storm of protests from critics who say it will severely curb Internet freedoms and intimidate web users into self-censorship.

Aquino specifically backed one of the most controversial elements of the law, which mandates that people who post defamatory comments online be given much longer jail sentences than those who commit libel in traditional media.

"I do not agree that it (the provision on libel) should be removed. If you say something libellous through the Internet, then it is still libellous... no matter what the format," Aquino told reporters.

Another controversial element of the law, which went into effect on Wednesday, allows the government to monitor online activities, such as e-mail, video chats and instant messaging, without a warrant.

The government can also now close down websites it deems to be involved in criminal activities without a warrant.

Human rights groups, media organisations and web users have voiced their outrage at the law, with some saying it echoes the curbs on freedoms imposed by Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s.

Philippine social media has been alight with protests this week, while hackers have attacked government websites and 10 petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court calling for it to overturn the law.

Aquino, whose mother led the "people power" revolution that toppled Marcos from power in 1986, said he remained committed to freedom of speech.

But he said those freedoms were not unlimited.

Aquino gave a broad defence of the law, which also seeks to stamp out non-controversial cybercrimes such as fraud, identity theft, spamming and child pornography.

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Philippine president defends cybercrime law

Twenty-six years since democracy was supposedly restored and media censorship ended, it is alarming to hear that Philippine President Aquino has signed into law Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

The Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA) joins the Filipino people in urging the Philippine Supreme Court to declare the cybercrime law unconstitutional.

Instead of signing a law that threatens anew not only the freedom of the press but also the freedom of millions of ordinary citizens who use the Internet, President Aquino should have instead worked for the immediate passage of the long-overdue Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.

We hope that when President Aquino comes to New Zealand on Oct. 22, 2012, he would have good news that the cybercrime law has been junked and the FOI bill has finally been passed.

The FOI bill must be passed if the Aquino administration is serious about taking the righteous path. Allowing citizens to access information about their elected public officials is crucial in ensuring accountability and promoting good governance.

In New Zealand, the Official Information Act has been in place for 30 years now.

With the cybercrime law that includes online libel, we are concerned that the Filipino peoples right to express their views and criticize erring public officials is seriously threatened. Journalists, anticorruption crusaders and ordinary citizens who express strong views against corrupt politicians would be sanctioned for merely expressing their views as cybercriminals.

With the cybercrime law, the Aquino administration has declared its own version of Marcos martial lawthe e-martial law, and now those in power may unjustly claim any information posted on the Internet to be libelous. Media censorship is back wholesale, and ordinary citizens are now more vulnerable to being charged with libel.

MURRAY HORTON,

secretary, Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa,

Continued here:
‘Media censorship is back…’

LONDON (Reuters) - A leading media watchdog has accused Iran of trying to cow journalists into silence and self-censorship, adding to international pressure on Tehran over its treatment of activists and the press.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)said Tehran, which is facing tough international economic sanctions over its nuclear program, was also trying to restrict internet access.

"The situation for independent journalists is Iran is worsening by the day," CPJ Deputy Director Rob Mahoney said in a statement on Wednesday.

"High-profile persecutions and imprisonments are an attempt by the authorities to intimidate the media into silence and self-censorship. The international community must speak out against such actions."

The United Nations human rights office called on Tuesday for the immediate release of prominent activists and journalists arrested or intimidated in what it called an apparent clampdown on critical voices ahead of next year's presidential election.

The CPJ expressed concern about Ali Akbar Javanfekr, press adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and head of the state-run IRNA news agency, who was jailed for six months for insulting the Supreme Leader and Reuters Bureau Chief Parisa Hafezi on trial on charges of spreading lies and propaganda.

In citing a series of arrests of print journalists, it said Iranian authorities had maintained a 'revolving-door' policy, freeing some temporarily as they took others into custody.

In March, the Iranian government suspended the press accreditation of all Reuters staff in Tehran after publication of a video script on women's martial arts training that erroneously referred to the athletes as "assassins". Since then, Reuters has been unable to report from Iran.

Reuters, the news arm of Thomson Reuters, the global news and information group, corrected the script after the martial arts club complained and apologized for the error.

Reuters' Bureau Chief in Iran, Iranian national Parisa Hafezi, was subsequently charged on several counts including spreading lies and propaganda against the establishment. Hafezi had not been involved in drafting the video script.

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Media watchdog accuses Iran of intimidating journalists

Many of the major web services have been expanding to emerging markets over the last few years. Googles travails in China are well documented, for example.

Now Googles YouTube is setting up shop in Europes fastest growing internet market with official sanction but that may call up the same kind of ethical concerns its parent has seen elsewhere.

Turkey says it has successfully convinced YouTube to operate at youtube.com.tr a fact that means the video site will have to comply with the countrys own domestic laws on such things as censorship.

Transport and communications minister Binali Yildirim (via Reuters):

It will now be in a binding and critical position to implement court decisions and remove any objectionable publications. Further more it will also pay taxes on its operations.

The issues is thrown in to relief by last weeks government edict that the controversial video, The Innocence of Muslims, be censored in Turkey.

Google, Twitter and Facebook last year said they would comply with the local laws of countries in which they operate.

Turkey is not considered a wildly oppressive state, but its stance of freedom of expression has been a sticking point in Turkeys efforts to gain European Union membership.

On the other hand, Turkey represents a tremendous business opportunity. With a young population, its online penetration surged from 15 percent in 2005 to 45 percent by late in 2011. And its 35 million users spend so much time online that they make Turkey the number-three country for time spent online per user.

YouTube.com was already the number-five site in the country last year, according to comScore.

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YouTube goes legit in Turkey, bringing more sales and more censorship