E-Censorship in Afghanistan

Not good news:

Kabul Press^? website which is internationally know for its critical articles and reporting on Afghan issues has been regularlz revealing cases of corruption and human right abuses since 2003. We would like to bring to your attention that KabulPress.org has recently been banned by Afghan Telecom, an Afghan telecommunications and internet provider (ISP), to be found by website users. Those of our readers, who are using Afghan Telecom to browse Kabul Press.org cannot do so and we are forced to suggest them to use free web proxies. (http://kabulpress.org/my/spip.... )

In other words: Kabul Press’ website, for the first time in recent Afghan history, is facing an E-censorship.

I have immediately asked Mr. Sangin, Minister of Communications, to resolve the problem, but so far I did not receive any response.

We request you to have a look on this case in a period where freedom of speech and media in Afghanistan is threatened like never before in the recent past. Kabul Press.org must be available again for all internet users of Afghan Telecom as quick as possible. We do count on your support for this. We also would like to raise your awareness on how other (in)dependent Afghan media treat the case.

Good News:

According to webstats.motigo.com, www.KabulPress.org is the leading of about 1.000 Afghan websites and is going to reach 1 million visitors in the very next days. For now (local Time 3 Jul 2007 12) we have had 992,772 visitors. The daily visiting rate is 3.500-4.000. Internet is new to Afghanistan but a steadily growing community of independently thinking people.