Latest update April 5th, 2026 12:45 AM
Latest News
- Bankrupt, lack of experience and faced with mounting lawsuits – Lindsayca awarded multi-million U.S. contract in Guyana
- Crypto, Cartels, and Collusion: GI-TOC Exposes Guyana as the Lifeblood of Venezuela’s Gold Underworld
- Kidnapping accused killed in crash on Mandela Avenue
- Iran rejects Trump’s ‘helpless, stupid’ 48-hour ultimatum
- U.S. deportation case against ‘Melly Mel’ terminated
Is the OLPF project an attempt to monitor Guyanese internet activities Chinese style?
May 10, 2011 Letters
Dear Editor,
I’ll get straight to the point. Law Professor Peter Yu, the Kern Family chair in intellectual property law at Drake University Law School, warns, “The question is no longer how the Internet will affect China, it is how China will affect the Internet.”
With the internet as its principle facilitator, globalization has undoubtedly led to more open and free societies yet, Mr. Editor, modern China has shown a remarkable resistance to this natural bi-product of globalization, while at the same time, utilizing this new media to promote economic growth and development. But by investing in more automated internal control and filtering systems, China ultimately inhibits political expression. In fact China’s internet has been a tool for security authorities to identify, monitor and arrest potential dissidents. Many have now been given good cause to worry that the Chinese model of the internet is spreading globally.
Explicit control of content via “only government authorised” or “limited internet expressions” which “satisfies government standards” of being “true and trusty” and “good” is an ongoing process in China today.
Hu Jintao, in his statement to the Politburo in the early 2007 stated that he aimed to “purify the internet environment” and “ensure that one hand grasp development while one hand grasps administration.”
According to Reuters, in 2009, Li Fangping, a Beijing human rights advocate who often embraces controversial causes, asked the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to allow hearings on the “lawfulness and reasonableness” to reconsider the government demand that all new personal computers carry internet filtering software, adding to an uproar over a plan critics say is ineffective and intrusive. “This administrative action lacks a legal basis,” Li wrote in a submission to the ministry that was sent to reporters by email. “Designating that the same software must be installed in all computers affects citizens’ rights to choose.”
Li went on to state, “Above all, we’re concerned about freedom of speech and the right to know,” he said. “We know that citizens have been prosecuted because of their private emails, and we’re worried about more such cases.”
Mr. Editor, it is within the above context that I bring to you, SN’s 5/09/11: “Under the OLPF, the government plans to distribute computers to 90,000 poor families in Guyana in two years. Phase one will deliver 50,000 laptops to priority groups which include single-parent, differently-abled and least fortunate families. Families living together as a single household, who earn a combined income of $50, 000 or less, are eligible.
In Phase Two, the eligibility criteria will be adjusted to cater to families of higher income brackets.”
And the article ended: “The project was initially launched in January, when 142 computers were ceremonially handed over to students from four entities. It was later disclosed that the computers were bought with a US$50,000 gift from Chinese company Huawei, after it had won a US$14M contract to lay fibre optic cables here. This is one of a number of controversies that have swirled around the project since its launch.”
In view of all of the above, I ask readers to read:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/11/us-china-internet-idUSTRE5590ZX20090611
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/china-internet-filter-challenged-in-rights-uproar-1702428.html
your http://www.stabroeknews.com/2011/news/stories/05/09/applications-for-laptop-programme-available-from-today/
And then follow the yellow brick road wherever it will lead you, all the way to the massive deceit at the head of the Ivory Tower. And then, Mr. Editor, maybe at the end of this short journey, I hope Guyanese would all be fully equipped then to finally ask the PPP government the relevant questions. I also hope that persons such as those that immigration attorney, Balwant Persaud recently represented in Canada would be vindicated, and websites such as Guyanaobservernews.org, demerarawaves.com and columnist such as Freddie Kissoon and opposition parties such as the AFC, the party I am proud to support and the PNC as well, would be more alert because these parties, websites, individuals and entities have had their own past experiences in this area of alarm. Most of all, Mr. Editor, I hope Guyanese family would not be taking a Trojan Horse into their homes. God Bless Guyana.
Roxanne De Cruiz
Discover more from Kaieteur News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.