INTERNET

Date:15/03/12

Reporters Without Borders doesn’t mention Azerbaijan in its ‘Enemies of the Internet’ and ‘Countries Under Surveillance’ lists

On March 2012 the organization called ‘Reporters Without Borders’ published an annual report titled ‘Enemies of the Internet’.

This report, which is published every year in connection with the International Censorship Day, contains the lists of ‘Enemies of the Internet’ and ‘Countries Under Surveillance’ as well as comments on the current situation. 12 countries, Bahrain, Belorussia, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam were included in the first group of countries in the report. The second group of countries included Australia, Egypt, Eritrea, France, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, Sri-Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. Azerbaijan was not included in these lists.

Azerbaijan Republic was mentioned only once in one of last pages of this 72-page report. It was said, in general, that the situation around online information freedom in many countries, including Azerbaijan, will be under focus. However, some local media has spread false information about including Azerbaijan in the list of ‘Enemies of the Internet’. In general, Azerbaijan has not been mentioned in the list of ‘Enemies of the Internet’ since 2002 up to now, and number of internet users in Azerbaijan is growing day by day.

In comparison with 2011 the number of internet users in Azerbaijan has increased by 65%, and half of them are users of the broadband service. The number of web-sites registered in the National Domain exceeds 14,000, let alone thousands of blogs. The number of users of ‘Facebook’ has reached 800,000 people.