A recent BBC World Service poll determined that nearly four out of five people – 79 percent – around the world believe that access to the Internet is a human right.
Internet cafe in China. Photo credit: Tim Yang
“The right to communicate cannot be ignored,” Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, told BBC News. “The internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created.” Hamadoun said that governments must “regard the internet as basic infrastructure – just like roads, waste and water”.
This follows a French court’s ruling that Internet access is in fact a human right: France’s Constitution Council deemed the Internet “an essential tool for the liberty of communication and expression” in June 2009; Finland and Estonia have claimed the same.
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