06 January 1999
(Panel discussion at U.S. Institute of Peace) (580) By Louise Fenner USIA Staff Writer Washington -- The Internet is being used to thwart government censorship and preserve the free flow of information in Serbia, according to the head of Internet services at Radio B92, an independent station in Belgrade, and several U.S. communications experts who spoke at the U.S Institute of Peace (USIP). Drazen Pantic, director of OpenNet, Radio B92's Internet service, said that "we have been under constant pressure and tightly observed" by the Serbian authorities, but no matter what the government does, the station usually finds ways to slip past the restraints. The pressure, he said, "forces us to think of ways to use the new technology to bypass hostile measures." In introducing the January 6 panel discussion, Bob Schmitt of USIP described how Pantic and his colleagues began to use a computer program called RealAudio to transmit an audio version of its daily news over the Internet when the Serb government started jamming the regular broadcasts late in 1996. The Internet version also went out when the government temporarily closed the station that December. Pantic said the government continues to try to interfere with B92's Internet service. For instance, the station has problems getting sufficient phone lines, and recently the government forced the Serbian Academic Network -- which serves universities -- to install filters to block access to B92's web site. B92 asked several international web sites to "mirror" (replicate) the material on its site, and eventually "more than a dozen sites were mirroring OpenNet content, so the filter of Serbian Academic Network sites began to be obsolete. You can't ban all the sites that are mirroring." The government partially relented, and now the filter blocks the daily news in Serbian, but not in English, Pantic said. Radio B92 also sends the daily news by e-mail to more than 30,000 subscribers, "so the banning of the Internet is not very effective," Pantic added. Gene Mater of Freedom Forum discussed the media law passed by the Serb Parliament last October which prohibits broadcasts or publication of material that spreads "fear, panic and defeatism" as well as rebroadcasts from foreign media sources. Two independent radio stations, three daily papers and one weekly news magazine have been closed down under this law, "and one firm was fined one-half million dollars in fines it can't pay," he said. "Many observers, including me, see this law, if allowed to stand, as the effective end to freedom of the press in Serbia." Prior to the October government crackdown, Serbian independent media was "quite competitive with state media," said John Fox, director of the Open Society Institute. Radio B92 was "an example of what independent media should be" and "a cutting-edge example of how civil society can challenge authoritarian rule." James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology said there is "an electronic cat-and-mouse game, with very high stakes, in country after country," as governments try to establish firewalls and otherwise limit citizen access to the Internet. He urged Western governments to support free access to the Internet worldwide and to provide assistance in development of the necessary technical infrastructure. But ultimately, Dempsey said, human ingenuity can almost always find a technological solution to whatever restraints governments try to enforce. "I believe the technology of human expression is a unique force for democracy and peace," Dempsey said.