Free Speech Concerns

(Fox News) - A new report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is warning of expanding government censorship of the Internet.

It calls online policing "a bitter reminder of the ease with which some regimes — democracies and dictatorships alike — seek to suppress speech that they disapprove of, dislike, or simply fear."

It points to questionable online restrictions in places like China, Hong Kong and Sudan. It says Malaysia is drafting laws to prosecute Web users critical of Islam.

And says Kazakhstan's information minister has vowed to purge Web sites of what the government calls "dirt" and "lies."

Meanwhile the American Foreign Policy Council reports 40 members of Iran's parliament have written a letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticizing his recent decision to shut down two news outlets.

But Iranian leaders aren't budging, and are in fact stepping up the filtering on the computers of parliamentary deputies.