In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai and elsewhere, India has decided to tighten Internet controls in an unprecedented squelching of free speech in the world's largest democracy. Indian officials have directed telecoms to start blocking certain web sites, including blog portals and individual blogs that they deem potentially offensive -- including two of CQ's friends:

India's Internet regulators have started blocking several Web sites in a move that borrows a page from China, where government censors heavily restrict the flow of online information.

India's Department of Telecommunications sent an order late last week to Internet-service providers to block several Web sites, according to a department spokesman. The spokesman, Rajesh Malhotra, declined to disclose the contents of the letter or discuss the order, saying it was a "confidential exchange of information between the department and the operators."

Several telecom operators confirmed there were more than 15 sites they were directed to block. Close to a third of the sites were home to blogs, the personalized Web logs that have become popular in India, just as they have in other parts of the world. Among the Web sites blocked are parts of Blogger and GeoCities. Included on a list seen by The Wall Street Journal are sites that showcase views of an Islamic holy man, conservative Hindus, and Dalits, the low caste in India pejoratively referred to as untouchables.

Among the sites blocked are two on CQ's own blogroll, My Pet Jawa and Pirate's Cove. I'm not sure what made them ban William Teach's Pirate's Cove, other than the enthusiastic support for the war on terror that he espouses. It's easy to see why they banned My Pet Jawa, though. Rusty at MPJ has followed terrorist abductions and displayed the gruesome ends of those crimes on his blog -- and it certainly has an effect on any human being that sees these posts. Rusty tells the truth, and apparently that has Indian authorities afraid.

I hope New Delhi reconsiders this move. The argument "If X happens then the terrorists have won" has long since passed into cliché status, but in this case it has merit. Terrorists want their dhimmis to live in fear and to sit quietly while Islamists force them into submission. India only makes that easier for them to accomplish. After all, following in China's footsteps for information accessibility should give no one any pride.

Perhaps CQ will be banned next for this criticism. I certainly hope not, but better banned in Mumbai than submission to Zawahiri.

UPDATE: Looks like Macker's World got banned, too. When will the madness stop?

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