Interesting, similar things are going on in Azerbaijan. I blogged about this yesterday.<br><a href="http://www.katypearce.net/cv/today-in-the-clusterfk-that-is-azerbaijani-internet-policy/">http://www.katypearce.net/cv/today-in-the-clusterfk-that-is-azerbaijani-internet-policy/</a><br>
<br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 9:08 AM, Norbert Klein <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nhklein@gmx.net" target="_blank">nhklein@gmx.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
According to <i>The Cambodia Daily</i> of
Friday, 7 December 2012, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications
has recently issued a decree that says, among other points:<b>
</b>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm"><b>No Internet Cafe is allowed to
operate
within an area closer than 500 meters from any school.
</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Given the fact that Phnom Penh, the
capital city of Cambodia, has many schools, it has to be assumed
that
not many regions remain outside of these 500-m-circles around all
schools; it also has to be assumed that the majority of already
existing
Internet Cafes, located in areas of social activities including
schools, will have to close down.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">This order is issued to supposedly
protect young people from bad influences: Violating “traditions”,
exposing them to pornography, preventing them from playing
prohibited
games – but none of these issues has any clear definition. And
there is no clarity about the legal authority to interpret and
enforce these measures.<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The regulation is also to protect
users
from using drugs, doing money laundering, kidnapping, and human
trafficking – all these activities are anyway illegal – their
prohibiting is covered by different laws – why include these in
the
new order on to Internet Cafes?<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">As for some context: according to a
recent survey, there are more than 600,000 Facebook users in
Cambodia. Many of them do not have computers, but access the
Internet from Internet Cafes.<br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">=</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Of course I know that the Dubai
conference is dealing with many important issues on a different
level. But I find it really surprising that these regulations come
forward while – I assume – also Cambodian government
representatives are attending the ITU conference in Dubai.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">I wanted to share this information –
shocking in its general scope, and at the same time extremely
vague. I would of course appreciate to receive comments, which I
then might share locally. </p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Norbert Klein<br>
Phnom Penh<br>
Cambodia</p>
</font></span></div>
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<br></blockquote></div><br></div>