Topic: Censorship of the Internet
Country: Gabon
Delegate Name: Julia Kortberg
School: Ann Arbor Community High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Gabon position papers GLIMUN 2010 committees
The Gabonese Republic rarely censors our non-internet media to maintain peace and order within our nation. Our Government will filter information in order to keep the evil and deceitful accusations of others away from our people.
The Communications Code was established in 2002. The Code strictly enforces censorship of non-internet media that is harmful to our citizens at a permanent, deceiving level. This code prevents false criticism of our President, Ali Bongo Ondimba, and his family. The Communications Code specifies criminal and civil penalties for serious libelous expression. It was established to prevent fictitious speculations in our media that is meant to undermine our Government.
The Gabonese Republic would choose to censor the non-internet media in order to maintain harmony and control in our country. We would censor to keep inaccurate political influences from causing fear in our citizens. Our citizens’ well being is most important to us. We only censor to keep our citizens safe and our economy growing.
The censoring that occurs ensures that countries will continue to invest in us and that our oil production remains steady.
We chose to not censor the Internet because only 6.7% of our citizens have access to it; therefore, it is unreasonable to suggest that such usage will upset the political stability of Gabon. It is also unreasonable in our fiscal situation to spend money on censoring the Internet for such a small percentage of our country’s citizens. Because of the low percentage, we are not concerned with the potential harm. We allow our citizens to freely access the Internet, email, and chat rooms.
We are undecided whether or not we will censor the untrue, damaging, information on the Internet as more citizens gain access to it.
