Days after the Indian government blocked a website for its alleged subversive content, a new global report states that post 9/11, countries across the world are intensifying measures to police the Internet.

London-based Privacy International, a surveillance watchdog, and GreenNet Educational Trust, a group propagating the use of information technology, conducted the September report, entitled Silenced.

The study, which surveyed 50 countries over a period of 12 months, points out that many countries view the Internet as a potential threat to security, and that Internet restrictions and communications surveillance have reached an “unprecedented level ” since the September 2001 attacks on the United States.

“This study has found that censorship of the Internet is commonplace in most regions of the world,” says Privacy International. “It is clear that in most countries over the past two years there has been an acceleration of efforts to either close down or inhibit the Internet.”

Governments employ a wide variety of restrictive methods, such as applying laws and licenses, filtering content, tapping and surveillance. Myanmar, for instance, blocks any online writings “detrimental” to its interests while Bahrain blocks sites that are “platforms for spreading biased news, rumors and lies.”

India, the report states, regulates speech that is “lascivious” or “that appeals to the prurient interest.” In 2002, India enacted the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance Act authorizing the government to monitor electronic communications, including personal email.

The report’s launch coincides with an Indian government ban on the Yahoo discussion group Kynhun for “promoting anti-national news and containing material against the Government of India and the state government of Meghalaya.”

Insurgents who have been fighting for their ethnic rights in the northeastern region of India for several decades allegedly ran Kynhun.

The report finds that Internet censorship is rife across the world, even in developed countries such as the U.S.

“The September attacks gave the U.S. government the opportunity to adopt law enforcement policies that had failed to win public support in the 1990s, such as enabling law enforcement to monitor Internet traffic in detail and limiting access to certain types of public information,” the report says.

In Asia, though Internet access is limited, governments are imposing restrictions on both access and content.

For instance, the report says Indian authorities are implementing stricter surveillance and monitoring controls over Internet activities, especially after the September 11 attacks and an armed assault on the Indian Parliament in December 2001.

The blocking of the Kynhun group is a case in point. The website was apparently blocked because some of its messages called for independence of the Nagas, an indigenous community living in northeast India. There were some references to corruption and police brutality.

“This whole episode smacks of utter disregard for people’s rights as citizens and for their rights as consumers,” says online activist Harsh Kapoor of South Asia Citizens’ Wire.

In a signature campaign against the move launched last week, he says, “While the government of India continually lectures the world about our being some larger-than-life information economy superpower, it is deeply undermining the very basis on which the conditions for a domestic information driven economy flourish — by regimenting and controlling information.”

“This is a worrying development, though I can’t say it is completely unexpected,” remarks free Internet software consultant Raj Mathur. “Under the umbrella of national security, the government thinks it has the mandate to block anything,” he says.

Kapoor points out that there have been several other instances of the Indian government clamping down on Internet access in a bid to beef up national security. When India was battling Pakistan over the Kargil hills in 1999, the website of a leading Pakistani daily was blocked.

Last year, a Kashmiri journalist, Iftikhar Gilani, was arrested from his New Delhi residence for downloading an article on defense positions in Kashmir from the Internet.

The Internet experts stress that the problem arises also from the fact that the Indian government has no policy on website content. “The government should present a stated policy on what is accepted and what is not,” says Mathur. “Then we are in a position to discuss it, accept it or repeal it,” he says.

Silenced also underlines the need for laws and policy to combat censorship across the world. “Laws are needed, laws will be created; expertise and participation is essential to ensure that appropriate regimes of protection and minimalist regimes of invasion are established,” it says.

“Much remains to be done,” the report concludes. “Policies are yet to be formed; policies need to be questioned; laws repealed, destroyed, and built up again.”