A top media rights watchdog has listed Australia along with Iran and North Korea in a report published on countries that pose a threat of internet censorship.

Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) put Australia and South Korea on its list of countries “under surveillance” in its Internet Enemies report.

Australia was listed for the Federal Government’s plan to block access to websites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse. Critics say the plan is a misguided measure that will harm civil liberties.

In South Korea, the RSF report added, “draconian laws are creating too many specific restrictions on web users by challenging their anonymity and promoting self-censorship.”

“These countries are worrying us because they have measures that could have repercussions for freedom of expression on the internet,” RSF secretary general Jean-Francois Julliard said at an internet rights award ceremony.

Russia and Turkey were also added to the watchlist, which is a category below RSF’s top “Enemies of the Internet”, the countries it considers the 12 worst web freedom violators.

These include Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Iran and Vietnam.

“The world’s largest netizen prison is in China, which is far out ahead of other countries with 72 detainees, followed by Vietnam and then by Iran, which have all launched waves of brutal attacks on websites in recent months,” RSF’s report said.

A senior manager of US internet giant Google, David Drummond, said there was an “alarming trend” of government interference in online freedom, not only in countries that are judged to have poor human rights records.

He cited Australia’s plans as an example, saying that there “the wide scope of content prohibited could include socially and politically controversial material.”

The Australian case “is an example of where these benign intentions can result in the spectre of true censorship,” he added, speaking at Thursday’s ceremony.

“Here in Europe, even in France, at this very moment, some are tempted by this slippery path of network filtering.”

- AFP