Abstract
As the internet evolves, everyone has a responsibility to protect digital rights. This includes, but is not limited to, access to the internet and the right to online privacy. As we have discovered in Tunisia, however, the path to safeguarding freedom of expression online is fraught with difficulties. It takes both time and effort, as those of us working at the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) have learned.
In less than two years, Tunisia has gone from being one of the worst offenders of online censorship to a champion of internet freedom in the Middle East and North Africa. In September 2012, Tunisia confirmed its commitment to a free internet by joining the Freedom Online Coalition, a group of 17 countries from around the world dedicated to freedom of expression. Earlier, in July, the UN Human Rights Council passed its first resolution on internet freedom, an initiative proposed by Tunisia and five other countries.
Getting here has not been easy and new challenges arise all the time. Perhaps our biggest success is that Ammar404, the nickname given to the former regime’s censorship machine, is now officially dead and the internet in Tunisia is experiencing a rebirth.
Under the regime of former President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, internet users, especially dissidents, faced extensive censorship and surveillance. The government kept a close watch over all online content. A censorship infrastructure that included human censors ostensibly filtered content that was deemed harmful to the public. But in reality, it was content critical of Ben Ali’s regime that fell victim to the censor’s blade. Activists and bloggers were arrested and imprisoned.
Before his ouster on 14 January 2011, the dictator announced the end of internet censorship and the release of all bloggers. However, a few months later, in May, the ATI received an order from the military court to block five Facebook pages. We have since received complaints to delete around 30 Facebook pages, mainly because of defamatory content. Most widely known was the request in May 2011 to filter all pornographic content. In February this year, the Supreme Court accepted our appeal and sent the case to the court of appeal.
This is not about pornography; it’s a matter of principle. In post-revolutionary Tunisia, we are determined to break with the former regime’s censorship practices. There is no legal framework in Tunisia that obliges us to filter content. Internet service providers offer parental controls for those who are concerned about their children accessing pornographic material. And so, supported by the online community, we decided to fight each of the requests in court.
As head of the Tunisian Internet Agency, I have spent more than a year battling against internet censorship. This is important for a fledgling democracy such as Tunisia but also to set an example to other countries in the Arab world. Over this period, I have been under a great deal of pressure. But, with the help of civil society, including international NGOs, ATI staff and a team of excellent lawyers, we have won all our lawsuits and have not removed any webpages to date.
In its 2012–13 policy programme, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, which oversees the ATI, stated clearly that the era of internet censorship was over. Information and Communication Minister Mongi Marzoug declared at a press conference in Tunis that surveillance would only be carried out in the case of an investigation and with a court order as is the practice in other democracies.
We are still working hard to preserve internet freedom in Tunisia and the fight is far from over. We must continue to ensure safeguards are in place in all new legislation. We especially need to focus on privacy and raise awareness about personal data protection among Tunisian internet users. Even though it has been a challenging couple of years for me, it is important for us to continue working together so that we can stand up for our principles: mine is that the ‘internet equals freedom’.