Internet censorship spreading: OSCE study

State restrictions on use of the Internet have spread to more than 20 countries that use catch-all and contradictory rules to help keep people off line and stifle feared political opposition, a new report says.

In "Governing the Internet", the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) presented case studies of Web censorship in Kazakhstan and Georgia and referred to similar findings in nations from China to Iran, Sudan and Belarus.

"Recent moves against free speech on the Internet in a number of countries have provided a bitter reminder of the ease with which some regimes, democracies and dictatorships alike, seek to suppress speech that they disapprove of, dislike, or simply fear," the report by the 56-nation OSCE said. Reuters