The french private organisation calling itself "Reporters Without Borders" once again loses credibility by attacking China while remaining silent on abuses in western countries especially the very neighbour of France, the "United Kingdom" of Britain.
In a press release today headlined "Do Internet companies need to be regulated to ensure they respect free expression?" Reporters Without Borders (RSF) asked the right question but gave the wrong answers. Mathaba believes very strongly that Internet companies DO need to be regulated to ensure free expression but only on a voluntary basis. In other words, an Internet company in its Terms of Service should clearly state what type of content is allowed. If it believes in unlimited free expression, including child pornography and how to make bombs or how to liberate Britain by culling dictator Tony Blair in humane fashion by lethal injection prior to a trial at the Hague, and so forth, then a given company should simply state that it does not believe in censorship of any kind, and its users must face the law themselves if they break any applicable laws.
However, what RSF is calling for is the regulation of Internet companies to "ensure they respect free expression" which in itself is a rather vague term, as demonstrated by some examples we just gave above. Vague, that is, until you read through the RSF press release in full. The essential problem with RSF and its ideas is that throughout its proposal it constantly refers only to "repressive countries" and limits these restrictions to publications in "repressive countries" and supply of services from United States of America (USA) to where it is addressing its campaign. The USA is termed by RSF a "democratic" country along with Britain. And this is where the problem lies.
First of all, China is termed a "repressive country" and the USA and Britian are termed "democratic". However, evidence does not back this claim up. On the contrary, evidence clearly shows that the USA is no longer a "democratic" country since the last two elections which were proven to have been stolen by the Bush administration, we could even call it the Bush dictatorship. The US dictatorship has given itself powers and used them widely to round up and truly disappear tens of thousands of people inside the USA without charge or trial, under unlimited powers given to its "president-dictator" in the "war against terrorism".
Britain on the other hand, already before history began anew on 11 September 2001, had already closed down Mathaba's content server by sending a fax from the government to the British NTL Internet company on spurious basis of Mathaba having published secret documents, without specifying those documents, which in fact had been circulating on the Internet for several hours and were thus no longer secret. Documents which were in the public interest showing the British government agencies were responsible for assassination of African leaders and covering up assassinations even on the streets of London.
Further, by a mere telephone call to the US Internet company Exodus Communications, Mathaba's US domain server was closed down. All it took was a phone call from Exodus to NameSecure threatening to cut off all NameSecure's services if it did not comply immediately. Naturally at the time it created a great amount of interest and shock among the Internet community as in those days the US and Britain were still, outwardly at least, democratic. However, it received no mention in the western corporate press, even though it went against all the laws at the time, which included that we should be informed of the reasons and sent a request to remove any illegal content.
At this juncture it may be interesting to our readers to point out what is known to those who take even a cursory glance at history, but is a lesson never learnt by those who aspire to be emporers without clothes: that it is very hard to build anything genuine up, but very easy to destroy. Think of a life of a child, how much sweat and tears to raise it. One bullet and it is dead. Or a business, blood and sweat to create success, but even the biggest most expensive multi-billion dollar building can be destroyed by a single match, which costs less than a cent. Another lessson, is that if you go against Nature (or God the Creator of Nature if you believe), is that you will always fail. And often sooner than later. Rome before, Anglo-America today.
Therefore we should point out that many of those repressive groups who conspired against Mathaba, have since fallen: Exodus Communications the US communication giant went bankrupt, Conrad Black the former Telegraph owner is facing a lengthy prison term, British Secret Services now facing extinction are forced to recruit childish wannabee James Bonds via the Internet, Richard Perle, who conspired against Internet freedom of expression in the west, better known as the architect of the disastrous "Iraq War" is in disgrace, to mention but a few. Repression to describe this war, would surely be an understatement.
So, where is RSF therefore as a western organisation sitting right there where it can observe all these repressive actions? Does it take any note or make any complaint to its "democratic" governments? No, not a word. On the other hand RSF is very active calling on these "democratic" but actually repressive regimes to take action against "repressive countries" claiming that China is one such "repressive country". No, not even the government of China, the WHOLE of China, the COUNTRY, is termed "repressive" by RSF. Need we remind readers that China is the world's most populous country? A quarter of the world live in China? And that none of them are hungry? Even in small countries many die of starvation due to bad management of government, while China has managed to avoid many such problems, the effects which would cause a billion or more people to suffer if they were mismanaged.
We are not saying there are no room for improvements. The Chinese government itself acknowledges that in many fields there are room for improvements and criticism is valid, whether in health, education, human rights or the economy. However, as the government it gives itself the right to enact laws and does not, to its credit, claim against all evidence as do repressive western regimes (not countries) such as the US and Britian, that they are "democratic" and "human rights beacons". China does not claim nor legislate that "freedom of expression" even on the Internet is guaranteed, and indeed legislates against a range of Internet activities, such as those RSF complains about where bloggers are sensored who claim against all the scientific evidence that western repressive regimes are actually democratic governments, and who claim that human rights exist in the US and Britain when they have long since been eroded except in the fairy tale stories of western corporate media.
The mainstream media on the Internet is where western citizens now turn to for their information, and the reason for that is the repression supported by most of their print media and crimes of the undemocratic western regimes that are covered up in that media. The Internet media networks such as Mathaba are now becoming mainstream while propaganda newspapers like the "Times", "New York Times", "Telegraph" and broadcast networks such as the "BBC" and "FOX" fight to keep intelligent people listening to their news and turn increasingly to trivial entertainment to keep their audiences.
In summary, before we listen to questionable organisations like "RSF" we should measure them against a well known measuring stick: how do they react, if at all, to abuses of human rights and freedom of expression in their own countries? Are they even silent on the matter? And what language do they use when referring to others, given that Europeans have a long history of xenophobia, murdering millions of Africans, Asians, Americans, Jews, Australians, few were untouched. Do they even dare to lable more than one billion people at one stroke a "repressive country"? Yes, they are silent, and yes they are xenophobic.
So let's move on and let's support our own independent media networks so that they truly become mainstream and inform the public so that once democratic countries can turn away from repression and become democratic again, in a stronger way than before, so that democracy cannot be taken away by a few crazies as happened in the USA with the active support and connivance of the British establishment.
