News

USIS Washington 
File

06 January 1999

INTERNET HELPING THWART GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP IN SERBIA

(Panel discussion at U.S. Institute of Peace) (580)

By Louise Fenner

USIA Staff Writer



Washington -- The Internet is being used to thwart government
censorship and preserve the free flow of information in Serbia,
according to the head of Internet services at Radio B92, an
independent station in Belgrade, and several U.S. communications
experts who spoke at the U.S Institute of Peace (USIP).


Drazen Pantic, director of OpenNet, Radio B92's Internet service, said
that "we have been under constant pressure and tightly observed" by
the Serbian authorities, but no matter what the government does, the
station usually finds ways to slip past the restraints. The pressure,
he said, "forces us to think of ways to use the new technology to
bypass hostile measures."


In introducing the January 6 panel discussion, Bob Schmitt of USIP
described how Pantic and his colleagues began to use a computer
program called RealAudio to transmit an audio version of its daily
news over the Internet when the Serb government started jamming the
regular broadcasts late in 1996. The Internet version also went out
when the government temporarily closed the station that December.


Pantic said the government continues to try to interfere with B92's
Internet service. For instance, the station has problems getting
sufficient phone lines, and recently the government forced the Serbian
Academic Network -- which serves universities -- to install filters to
block access to B92's web site.


B92 asked several international web sites to "mirror" (replicate) the
material on its site, and eventually "more than a dozen sites were
mirroring OpenNet content, so the filter of Serbian Academic Network
sites began to be obsolete. You can't ban all the sites that are
mirroring." The government partially relented, and now the filter
blocks the daily news in Serbian, but not in English, Pantic said.


Radio B92 also sends the daily news by e-mail to more than 30,000
subscribers, "so the banning of the Internet is not very effective,"
Pantic added.


Gene Mater of Freedom Forum discussed the media law passed by the Serb
Parliament last October which prohibits broadcasts or publication of
material that spreads "fear, panic and defeatism" as well as
rebroadcasts from foreign media sources. Two independent radio
stations, three daily papers and one weekly news magazine have been
closed down under this law, "and one firm was fined one-half million
dollars in fines it can't pay," he said.


"Many observers, including me, see this law, if allowed to stand, as
the effective end to freedom of the press in Serbia."


Prior to the October government crackdown, Serbian independent media
was "quite competitive with state media," said John Fox, director of
the Open Society Institute. Radio B92 was "an example of what
independent media should be" and "a cutting-edge example of how civil
society can challenge authoritarian rule."


James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology said there is
"an electronic cat-and-mouse game, with very high stakes, in country
after country," as governments try to establish firewalls and
otherwise limit citizen access to the Internet.


He urged Western governments to support free access to the Internet
worldwide and to provide assistance in development of the necessary
technical infrastructure. But ultimately, Dempsey said, human
ingenuity can almost always find a technological solution to whatever
restraints governments try to enforce.


"I believe the technology of human expression is a unique force for
democracy and peace," Dempsey said.