ONLINE REPORTERS, ACTIVISTS NEED PROTECTION: CLINTON (AFP, 6 December 2011)
Updated 2011-12-06
VILNIUS, December 6, 2011 (AFP) - Human rights must be defended online as fiercely as in the real world, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Lithuania Tuesday.
"We must recognise that rights exercised in cyber space deserve as much protection as those exercised in real space," Clinton said at a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The top US diplomat urged the assembly of foreign ministers and other high-level officials from the OSCE to adopt a declaration supporting online freedoms.
"Fundamental freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, association and religion apply as much to a Twitter conversation and a gathering organised by NGOs or Facebook as they do to a demonstration in a public square," she said.
There is particular concern that bloggers and other journalists and activists using electronic media are being targeted in the countries of Central Asia, plus Belarus, Russia, and Turkey, US officials said.
Former Soviet-ruled Lithuania, now a European Union member, is coming to the end of its year-long term as president of the 56-nation OSCE, whose membership stretches from the United States to Russia and Central Asia.
The OSCE, which aims to monitor and encourage democracy and human rights in its region, was spun out of an earlier body created to ease Cold War tensions
"We must recognise that rights exercised in cyber space deserve as much protection as those exercised in real space," Clinton said at a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The top US diplomat urged the assembly of foreign ministers and other high-level officials from the OSCE to adopt a declaration supporting online freedoms.
"Fundamental freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, association and religion apply as much to a Twitter conversation and a gathering organised by NGOs or Facebook as they do to a demonstration in a public square," she said.
There is particular concern that bloggers and other journalists and activists using electronic media are being targeted in the countries of Central Asia, plus Belarus, Russia, and Turkey, US officials said.
Former Soviet-ruled Lithuania, now a European Union member, is coming to the end of its year-long term as president of the 56-nation OSCE, whose membership stretches from the United States to Russia and Central Asia.
The OSCE, which aims to monitor and encourage democracy and human rights in its region, was spun out of an earlier body created to ease Cold War tensions
