Notation by Marc Aupiais
Catholic Culture / Trinity Communications' Catholic World News service has allegedly been blocked by the Vietnamese Government. The service has noted their reporting on the situation in Vietnam, as a possible explanation for what they are reporting as a block against them online.
Due to the makeup of the specific site mentioned- it is unlikely that Vietnamese will be safely able to use usual methods to bypass the specific alleged block.
Several services, including Zenit News Service, AsiaNews, and Catholic World News- have reported on alleged state brutality against Catholics, reportedly conducted by Vietnam's Communist government, and allies. It is uncertain which other services, other than Catholic World News, who reported on the alleged issue, and AsiaNews, Catholic News Agency, and Independent Catholic News - have possibly been affected- if indeed the Vietnamese internet is being filtered by their national grid's possible firewall.
There has been increasing friction between the Vatican State, and the Communist Vietnamese government- over land ownership and over anti-religious violence, and censorship claims. Catholic services have increasingly been reporting on alleged violence, intimidation, sanctions against Catholics, and arrests- as well as alleged censorship.
According to Catholic World News: those blocked include:
"VietCatholic News, a service staffed by Vietnamese journalists, has long been blocked to users inside the country. Now Catholic World News, AsiaNews, Catholic News Agency, and Independent Catholic News have all been added to the list of blocked sites."
Catholic World News (Catholic Independent; American) 06 / 08 | August 2009
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=60341
Unlikely to be an error if only a number of websites have been blocked, as seems suggested:
Scripturelink.net news, recently found itself unavailable in the Republic of South Africa, along with at least one United States of America government site, however- this could well have been an error in South Africa's local system.
The report alleging the censorring of a number of websites by the Vietnamese state- in contrast- has claimed that many of those sites which reported abuse, are no longer available by ordinary methods in Vietnam.
By-passing government blocks with proxy and information masking techniques, is a likely method to be attempted by Vietnamese if the claims are true:
In situations such as that alleged by CWNEWS: browsers such as Firefox have been quite easily set up to use a proxy for every operation- thereby bypassing government or organisational information blocks, while other methods actually masking specific internet activity are well known to work- and to be in use in many instances. Both kinds of methods: having been used during the Iranian Election Saga, are likely known more widely than before. It is considered: not advisable to enter identifiable information, or passwords- over proxy- the Catholic World News site demands that users log in, after a certain amount of activity, or be denied access to their resources.
2 comments:
Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh is one among the prime ministers who have ruled India to have traveled extensively world-wide. History reveals that only three of the Indian Prime ministers have visited Nepal so far. The incumbent prime minister also has not visited the nation in his six year term. Man Mohan’s predecessor A.B.Vajpayee went to that country only because of the compulsions of situations ( In connection to SAARC summit conference). However Nepalese Prime Ministers or the King would visit India annually. Political critics Academics and former diplomats are unanimous opine that this trend must change. Of the reasons attributed for this one-sided communication gap is the frequent change of government in Katmandu. Whatever may be the reasons given for justification things must change and let us hope for the positive that Dressing will break the tradition by paying visit to Nepal soon
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