the well aimed bullets were fired towards them from the direction of the israeli security forces. one single bullet injured elisa moody in the shoulder and another single bullet hit a black lay in the head and killed her instantly. her. israel's military says the investigations into sharon's death are biased and that the journalist was in no way shot intentionally. and it is not possible to determine whether she was killed by palestinian gunmen who fired uncontrollably at his surroundings or by an idea of soldier by accident. ah, israel's military also says the palestinian authority should hand over the bullet the kill touring and take part in a joint investigation. but the palestinians say they can't trust these rarely, military to conduct a transparent investigation of itself as of law and aris. memorial service, the palestinian prime minister said that instead, these railey should hand over the rifle that its military admits may have been you that are the you and human rights chief michelle bartlett, wants israel to open

a criminal investigation into hearing about atlas death and 24 sentences won't present joe biden to get the us involved in its own investigation. bernard smith, outer sarah, west jerusalem, ah, this is al 0, the top stories to sell you. a supreme court has struck donal 1973 ruling recognizing a woman's legal rights to an abortion. conservative dominated court voted to overturn the ruling donors roe vs wade millions of american women and are expected to lose their rights to you. as president joe biden said that it was a sad day for the country make no mistake. this decision is a combination of a deliberate effort over decades upset balance of our law.

it's a realization of an extreme ideology in a tragic error by the supreme court. in my view, the court has done what is never done before. expressly take away a constitution, right? it is so fundamental to so many americans. it already been recognized. republican members of congress hailed the ruling as a momentous victory. the people have wanted victory. the right to lie has been vindicated. the voiceless will finally have a voice. this great nation canal live up to its core principle that all are created equal, not born equal, created equal. this for the 2nd earthquake in afghanistan just 3 days after the most destructive quake in 20 years, 5 people were killed. the overall death toll now stands at least $1100.00. you and

finding suggest that israeli security forces 5 the shot, the killed ounces, era journalist, levine, elbow or clay you and human rights office. since the bullet didn't come from indiscriminate 5 by armed palestinians, as initially claimed by israeli authorities, others the headline for these continues here on out as era after today's edition of inside story coming up next. ah, hands of the internet, the un he will wise office is urging countries not to impose to medication blackouts. it says the impact of such action has had a negative effect on people's lives. but will government listen,

this is the inside story. ah hello, welcome to the program, hashim, a halla, the internet and other communication tools have become a crucial part of our everyday lives. but what happens when governments shut them down or impose severe restrictions? a report by the un human rights of a says those actions have severe consequences and that impact has been vastly underestimated. the report released on thursday says state imposed communications shut down to have deprived millions of people from reaching to loved ones earning a live in or participating in political debate. and thus, governments have increasingly restricted access to information in order to stifle

political dissent. using the pretext of security internets shut downs, also carry major economic costs for all sectors. according to the report, let's take a closer look of the report which says, internets had downs, our power for markers of sharply deteriorating humor. why situations in the place is the i imposed. a lack of communication during armed conflicts or protest contributes to further insecurity and violence as abuse as go unreported. and while authorities often use public safety or combating this information as their reason for shutting or restricting internet access, the reports as it often achieves the opposite result or report by digital wise organization access now documented 100 and $82.00 shut downs in $34.00 countries

last year, india was responsible for $106.00 of those, with around 80 percent reported in indian administration administered kashmir, yen mars john tasha down the internet 15 times. it responds to widespread protests against is cou, last february. in if your peer and internet blackout has made it difficult to report on the crisis into gray and elsewhere in the country. in 2020 authorities in belarus, limited internet access unblocked, the social media app telegram to stop anti government protesters from coordinating . ah, let's bring it i guess in geneva. peggy herc's, director of thematic engagement of the united nations humor white's office, which produced the report in washington. steven nicks, senior director for eurasia of the international republican institute, and

a london barbara book, oscar c, a director for law and policy at article 19, an organization that campaigns for global freedom of expression. welcome to the program. peggy governments restricting access to the internet. why should we be concerned now? is it because we're seeing indications of a pattern here? absolutely. we see a light stand in pattern and it's evolving. we see blanket shut down, but we also see all sorts of other ways to shut down through reducing the speed. i, you know, i'm taking you down from 5 g to g, or downgrading, or throttling and other way. so there's certainly a trend and we need to worry about it because it has enormous impact. it's not just um, you know, the shutting off of speech and, and protest which is sometimes the purpose i'm but it has enormous economic impact

and impact on people's ability to access essential services like health care, education or their jobs. so it's something that really should be concerned everyone . stephen, this is something that the report says has been vastly underestimated, is because we tend to consider internet as a, as a normal part of our daily lives. and therefore, just we move on without looking into the details of those incidents that take place in different parts of the world. but we bring them together. they portray a somber aspect of the political reality. yes, that's true. and i agree with peggy's comments. this goes far beyond protests and, and speech. ugh, i would like to go back and put this in context. and the basic question we have to ask ourselves is where people rely on for their main sources of news. and 10 to 15 years ago, in the former soviet space,

there was completely dominated by television, primarily, state television, ultimately a mix of state and private television. but that has changed. we see polling data that indicates in countries like ukraine, george, i'm old over. internet has crept up and actually surpassed t v as the main new source for people in those countries. unfortunately, in countries like russia and bay, louis, that's not been the case. in russia, there's data that indicates them over 50 percent of the russian citizens rely primarily on t b for their political news. that number rises to 74 percent. when you look at people 55 years and older. so this is a tremendous problem. ah, is the access to news and information through the internet in places like russia and bill roost, where it has been curtailed and almost completely eliminated in some cases. baba so

this is, this has become quite vital instrument in our lives to the point where we line it to earn our living, to listen to the years, to talk to our loved ones to take part in. and it political debate, voice our concerns about the future and governments are using that in particular to stifle dissent. what do you think should be done to stop this from happening again and again? thank you. thank you so much. i agree, and i also want to add that this is not just stipend in the science. it's l. so stifling ability to people to, to, to go about in their daily lives. because people are increasingly rely on the internet or ban on the internet to access information and all food about their necessary for enlightened me. if you are running a business, if you are promoting your small enterprise or big enterprise online, you are trying to find information about your call with recently in the phonetic. so that's really having impact on all aspects of life which are now interconnect it

technology with internet and web or, and, and the shut the ass in body is formed impact visibility. so what has to be done? so there is a solution that lie on a number of layers and levels. and the report or a high commissioner, which we are discussing, outlines them about one of the layers is on the side of the states which are resorting to this measure and which are imposing those shutdowns. so to the eyes, blankets shut, goss on, is like killed or black out, and never justified, and a never a proportionate restrictions on human lives, right? so, is, these channels are often, isn't it as a sort of like, necessary to go? that's a national security or public. busy order if it happens in the context of protests or of some sort of like emergency you know,

best blanket one. like when you disconnect the whole country over a week from internet that's never justified like they can be live, it never kind of situation where you can disconnect the whole region or a whole country from the internet. so they should spell this rock based for stuff that we can discuss, like when, if and be justified. and we're kind of like it's a, it's a, it's a, you know, area better, extremely early read circumstances, but the blanket shut downside is okay. so the, the state then there is something which can be done on the level of how they, how they comply with the shop owners and what they can do to challenge them. and they're also a baroness or international community. and what we are also doing here to point out the danger of those shut downs and bad impact on human ide economy and lives of people. peggy, when, when, when, when you look at the report, india feature features as a, a leader in restricting ah, access of the internet,

particularly in germans kashmir. the, the, the conflict possess, or the un has been criticizing india for excessive use of violence, as, as long as the conflict continues, we are likely to see the trend perpetuated for as long as it takes. yeah, i mean, the reality is we have long term shutdowns, like what has been experienced and kashmir, and all saw an army mar is another good example of that. ethiopia, where we now have ongoing concerns there because of what's been said and you, you talked about in the intro, but the reality is one of the big problems here is, you know, yes, we have a lot of data on what's happened in india. but we also know that there is a global phenomenon, and there's all sorts of things that are happening, that we don't even have real transparency and that on. so one of the key things we call for the report as well is that if a government's going to impose to shut down their minimum obligation is that they

should actually tell us they're doing that. tell us why they're doing it. and that way we can at least have transparency and accountability around us. and we also propose pulling together a collaborative mechanism that might be able to help us to better monitor these, this phenomenon. and i do think that would bring us back to barbara point where if we're monitoring them, we'll be in a better position to be able to, to really hold government accountable when they, when they do these actions. if it's more in the public domain, stealing monitoring a governess. oh, imposing the black house, you're going to be a delicate and difficult task because you know, the use all sorts of techniques. those who would tell you that we how for infrastructure, but they do it on purpose. so as people cannot, don't know the matter you though the government looks as very sensitive. they are saying that we will have enough technology. we don't have enough resources to do that. when we know that the ultimate of motive is to deny people from getting access to those last fools. so how do see us moving forward to talk of this

particular issue? well yes, i want to say 2 of distinct examples of the challenges that we face in terms of internet shortages and shut down. and again, i would point to russia and below ruth's where the opposite leadership has basically been forced to leave. the country of the nepali organisation is now operating from villainous lithuania. another capitals in europe, similarly taken australia is an illness leading the boilers opposition, along with others in various parts of europe. so these opposition movements have become offshore movements. they no longer have the capability to interact in person with voters and constituents, which means the internet is the only means to communicate with people inside these 2 countries. and i will cite a specific damn example of russia during the duma elections. the volleys organization came up with a system called smart voting, which is basically

a get out the vote program, identifying voters urging them to vote for any candidate, any party except for the party of blood, emer putin. and it was successful in local elections. the authorities knew that so in the recent duma elections smart voting website wish on down. and then slowly, but surely all of the apps that carried smart voting in russia were shut down to varying degrees. because the authorities knew that this was effect of they feared losing seeds and the russian duma. but in addition to these internet shut down, so this is the threat, the work we're talking about here. there are other digital tactics being used by authoritarian regimes. and in this case, in the duma elections, the russian government introduced electronic boating in moscow for the duma elections. and when the results were tallied from regular voting,

of the 15 constituencies in moscow, the smart boating candidate was leading. then, when the electronic votes were tallied up, guess what? the party power one, every single constituency. so these tactics go beyond merely shutting down the internet. this goes to digital applications, digital strategies, which deny people basic fundamental rights to campaign and to cast their votes for their choice of candidate or political part. that's the challenge to base today. bubble. how should we draw the fine line between the our can says the concerns of the international active is looking forward to see a world without restrictions. and government has say, we have to do with, for the sole reason that we're facing huge security concerns. blackouts, restricted access to the internet's come sometimes when we are launching

a major military operation targeting terrorist groups, it has to happen, otherwise, it's not gonna work out. so how can we define the line between the 2 concerns here? so we need to have also be mindful of the phenomenon like we are describing because we are using shut down to refer to like bias, ideas, types of measures which the, which the states are imposing. so at the mazda, no one is the blackout when they disconnect every i and then as we have heard already from it and so on. so that out of forms like sometimes that on like technical, the throttling of the, of the network. so which is not so obvious because you as a user, you really don't know what's happening is that i think a problem is there like a shortage of electricity or, or, or you don't know. and then there is no soda. and blocking of the websites or blocking sit and ox is, was just described for the kids of russia. so that is kind of like a bias tools which fall into this definition of what i'm called shut down. and we

need measures though kind of like, you know, for randall restricts that they use or, and that will depend how it is. so what i said about that this all black carbon shut down and what you were referring to watch the governments often use, they say that is an emergency. that is a terrorist attack that he saw a some, something really serious, where we didn't need to disconnect the whole country from being it. so as i said, base east, nether excuse, which is which proportionate what actually, which is even defective. i isn't even disconnect, said to haiti out wrong from the internet. totally. you are not only trying to kind of like get some terrorism go, although, oh, so this, this up and measures are used to on the issues like exams, right? they say like, we need to prevent kids treating him. he's actually is everyone. but anyhow, so when you do this you are also preventing emergency services reaching out to the people who might be held by paris. you're my be l. so i'm disconnecting and leading

the passivity, he or even like in real life information like what's happening, right, so you're my in action that he shot shooting score. it's very important. and the blind, the lot can report to the police or can connect, what is what is happening. so proportionality wise, this never works for a whole country or for a whole each and just, it's just disconnect. and it's also so much of useful information and necessary information which are need in this crazy situation to respond to that back. i. so thoughts on that number one, we might talk about like, you know, sometimes in betty, super limited equations when you know, it might be, you know, really necessary. i can like, think of that such situation, but been under the rule of law and, and the legal system is just can be decided by some of it official or by we don't, we don't know whom in an net we don't you process or without concealing all these

aspect majority of those a concern which we are having are actually on dose spurious, it is a mean speech that the countries have and which they say which made us stand when you look at them. maybe let's talk a little bit about practical ways to tackle the issue of denying people access of the internet. peggy, when it comes to traditional forms of or authoritarianism, we have developed tools. we can take the oppressors to the united nations humor, whites council or to the united nations security council. we can impose sanctions when it comes to digital authoritarianism. people have been floating wise ideas such as deploying the satellite internet, why fi balloons? v p as and you know, no one is not easy, it is not easy. so costly and not all the world would be able to have access to those. what could be from your own perspective, the easiest, most practical way to tackle this problem. i sit there gently are easier and

practical ways to tackle this, but i before moving to that house, my do want to pick up on what barbara was saying about we are documentation shows that in, in you know, the vast majority of cases, governments are using national security or public order as justifications for when they do these types of, especially the bigger or blankets shut downs. but the reality is by shutting down the internet, they have the impacts that barbara talked about. but let's be clear, once the internet is shut down, all the monitoring all the reporting, all the checks on government power are limited. so in fact, you create an environment in which abuse and impunity can flourish. so in fact, rather than decreasing violence and decreasing the threats to national security and public order, once the internet is shut down, you create an environment that makes abuse as much more likely. and so that's why we're so concerned about this. but moving to your question about like,

what can be done? there are a number of very clear steps. first of, as we said, we need a sort of a international standard where we're states feel obliged to report on what they're doing in a public and transparent way. that alone will start to hold government accountable and will, i think, make it much less likely that they're able to do this on an ongoing basis. secondly, one of the points we make in the report, which i think gets lost, is that there's tons of effort going on right now. to close the digital divide to bring connectivity to all the parts of the world that don't have it about 50 percent of the world's people don't have full internet access. but in those conversation about connectivity, we're not talking about shut downs. so in fact, a number of the governments that are receiving support to build up connectivity with them in our countries are also resorting to shut down. so we need to link those things. we need to integrate the shut downs conversation into work that's been done to close the digital divide and to improve connectivity. so if you're

going to get support development aid to do to increase internet access, but in your country, it should come come with some requirements that you don't and gave and gain gauge in this kind of shut down behavior and don't limit the very internet access that you've been helped to create still are a couple of boca civil, should we reshape the narrative in an, in a way or another. because as you know, when you talk to many people all over the world about access of the internet, that will tell you, you know, and this is not really a top priority. our top priority for us would be having access to food and water. but we get to the point where it becomes almost as existence shall as important as access to food and water. could that be the tipping point? that would bring all the international community to say, you know, and internet is paramount, is sacred? is part of our daily life. do you deny us access? you will be punished? you make to the excellent point that at best information over the internet is

critical in this day and age. and it is acquainted with an important thing such as food and water. i agree completely with that. what do we do about it? again in addition, what picky just step. ah, i think multi lateral efforts are important here to place internet access at the top of the agenda. but i would argue that the democracy of the world, once the standards that peggy are described, are set forth. that in all bilateral negotiations, that access to internet be at the very top of the list in terms of bilateral discussions, bilateral relations. let's make it a priority for the us and our western allies and others to prioritize this issue in all bilateral discussions that they have with these autocratic regimes and others that are considering are shutting down or limiting the internet bubble for many,

many years. for decades, in fact, one of the biggest problems that we faced was basically when talking about your vice, my nations was impunity and leaders took advantage of that and perpetuate of the suffering of the people. do you think that we need this time to enforce a mechanism? think about something like an international tribunal to bring those who are committing those atrocities digitally. and i love talking to justice to stop this from recurring again. and again, up of course we need to have accountability for the state state are resorting to those measures at the state level or are it for the pre regional level. i don't think that we need like a special tribunal on dos because actually human rights system already allows or days sir, kind of violations to be challenged. right. so within the current system, both international austin actually domestic me. you can, you,

you can try to challenge those, those positions, and that, that the shadows. and this is actually something which we haven't covered so far. and which is very important to mention. because the shut down is sir, always imposed by the state on to a set internet service provider. i'm on a i speak. and so they in majority of the cases of a snack comply with the shut boundaries. if i, if they dont, is, would have an operations but are pushes to chime. she talked to ask them to challenge this decisions or disorders like going even to the court or engage should we, the states to not, as i not complying or even comply in an, in a way which is not necessary. so challenge those cuddles or internet access orders . thank you. so that's on the stay below and for the states like we have an international mechanisms where these issues can be brought to attention. universe video to give you when the state compliance is and being an eddie rice for the

human rights standards and the, and a did international human. i'd ominously bell and political rights to come down to the mechanisms and it's very important or other states, but also for human rights community to continuously bring those violators. why count and use the assistance which we have about going to hold on to which i wish i wish we had time to cover all aspects of this sort of our promise though, we will definitely revisit this issue of a denying people access of the internet in the near future in the meantime, barbara books because her stephen next and peggy hook a really appreciate your insight. thank you. and thank you for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside laurie. you can also join the conversation on twitter. i'll hand it is at a j inside 40 for me, hash law, but i am the entire team here in doha bye for now.

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