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'Beyond comprehension'

Beijing is a leading proponent of U.N. supervision of the Internet. At a WGIG meeting in Geneva last June, the Chinese representative said: "We feel that the public policy issue of Internet should be solved jointly by the sovereign states in the U.N. framework."

"Where Internet resources now are managed by one government, in future it should be jointly managed by all governments," the envoy said.

But human rights campaigners worry about countries like China being involved in setting future Internet policy.

Reporters Without Frontiers, a media freedom watchdog, says China oversees the most far-reaching system of Internet censorship and email surveillance anywhere, and is also "the world's biggest prison for cyber-dissidents," more than 60 of whom are in jail.

Just this week China announced rules aimed at ensuring that online news sites only carry approved news.

Tunisia is another country where rights groups say press freedoms have deteriorated, and critics see in its choice as host country for the Internet summit an echo of Libya's 2003 selection to chair the U.N. Commission on Human Rights - another reason why the U.N. should not be given oversight of the Internet.

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement the U.N. decision to allow "a country that imprisons people for using the Internet [to host the summit] ... is beyond comprehension."

In a report released this week, a coalition of 14 media NGOs said Tunisia was unfit to hold the summit, accusing the government of taking steps aimed at stifling dissent ahead of the event.

They cited reports of a clampdown on the press and civil society, including the jailing of a human rights lawyer for posting critical comments online. Mohamed Abbou was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment for "incitement of the population to infringe the laws," they said.

Tunisia on Wednesday dismissed the report as "biased and inaccurate."

"Freedom of the Internet is a global challenge, that's why we are concerned about what will happen in November in Tunis," Vincent Brossel of Reporters Without Frontiers told Cybercast News Service from Paris earlier.

"If countries like China manage to get the Internet in their hands it will change absolutely all the rules," he said. "It's quite scary."

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