This blog post from Citizen Lab partner, ASL19, discusses Iran’s planned National Information Network.

Ethiopia remains a dangerous country in which to express dissent online. The recent conviction of a number of bloggers and journalists, combined with the country’s history of filtering critical political content online, demonstrates the restrictive nature of the country’s information environment. This blog post describes recent developments in the country and reports on the results of ONI testing conducted in September 2012.

Government officials’ responses to the blocking and the subsequent resumption of access to Google services give evidence that perhaps the Islamic Republic of Iran will remain receptive to popular demands and respect the boundaries of censorship.

Online freedom of expression continues to be threatened in Vietnam, as recently proposed regulations and the ongoing detainment and harassment of bloggers combine with an already strict regime of Internet filtering to further restrict information openness. This OpenNet Initiative blog post describes these new developments and reports on the results of testing conducted in Vietnam from April to August 2012.

Professor Ron Deibert spoke to Nora Young on CBC Radio’s Spark about Iranian Internet controls and the creation of a “national Internet”.

Research Fellow Jon Penney wrote a paper titled Communications Disruption & Censorship under International Law: History Lesson, which was presented at this year’s Second USENIX Workshop on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI).

This issue of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Cyber Watch covers issues such as blogger and netizen arrests, Internet and social media use, censorship and filtering, hacktivism, government control, and cyber warfare.

OpenNet Initiative research has documented that web filtering applied by India-based ISPs is also filtering content for customers of an ISP in Oman. This “upstream filtering” is restricting access to news sites, political blogs and file sharing sites for customer’s of Omantel, who have limited opportunities for recourse. Combined with the significant filtering implemented by Omantel itself, this essentially puts users in Oman behind multiple layers of national-level filtering.

Citizen Lab Senior Researcher Helmi Noman submitted a chapter entitled “In the Name of God: Faith-based Internet Censorship in Majority Muslim Countries” for inclusion in the Routledge Handbook of Media Law to be published in December 2012.