KEY POINTS:
ATHENS - Amnesty International has called on the United Nations to help eliminate restrictions to internet access, which the rights watchdog said are a violation of basic human rights.
An Amnesty International delegation handed a petition signed by 50,000 people to Nitin Desai, the UN Secretary General's special representative on internet governance, on the final day of the inaugural world Internet Governance Forum in Athens.
"I believe the internet should be a force for political freedom not repression," said the petition.
"People have the right to seek and receive information and express peaceful beliefs on line without fear or interference," it said. "I call on governments to stop unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the internet and on companies to stop helping them (governments) do it."
Amnesty, and other human rights groups, have accused major US IT firms of breaching the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in colluding with China to censor the internet.
"If we were going to get governments to do something then we had to get users mobilised," Amnesty's Steve Ballinger said. "This campaign did exactly that."
China's control of the internet stirred controversy at the forum on Tuesday when a rights group accused western firms of providing Chinese police with technology to limit web freedom.
China is the world's second-largest internet market and is reported to employ an estimated 30,000 people to trawl websites for subversive material.
- REUTERS
