A U.S. Owned Enterprise Blocks Swedish Access to rebelión.org and the Bolivarian News Agency
Ernesto Tamara - Rebelión
The websites of Rebelión (
www.rebelión.org) and the Bolivarian News Agency (
www.abi.bo), among others, have been censored by various internet providers in Sweden and other European countries.
Telia, the Swedish telecom and internet provider, was affected by a decision made by the North American company Cogent, which administers access provided through a variety of servers. The measure was taken unilaterally, and prevents all internet subscribers whose service flows through Telia from accessing Rebelión, ABI and other sites.
Most internet providers receiving service through Telia realized the sites were being censored after trying for more than a week to reach them, without success.
Concerned by what appeared to be a server error, users contacted Telia’s customer service.
The response was not at all reassuring. Cogent had censored access to certain Spanish and Latin American pages for reasons unknown and there was no possibility that service would be restored in the short term.
Telia maintains that nothing can be done to restore the connection to those sites, admitting that it is dealing with censorship and a limitation on freedom of information. It adds that it is negotiating with Cogent, but so far without positive results.
The censored sites can be accessed from other internet servers, particularly those run through smaller firms. In some cities the censorship involves thousands of users, since management for entire apartment blocks, such as HSB, has contracted to provide tenants with broadband internet service through the state Telia network.
Telia is the largest internet service provider in Sweden and is associated with other enterprises in Scandinavia.
