Kazakhstan is the worst place in the world for the Internet

THE GLORIOUS Nation of Kazakhstan might claim that it is not the backward country portrayed in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. But its Interweb policy seems to gainsay this.

A report from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe shows that the authoritarian government in the country is throttling the interweb as effectively as a fake Kazakhstan film director's buttocks.

Firstly only four per cent of the country has access and connects through the state-owned Kazakhtelecom.

You get an unlimited dial-up plan for €82 in a country where the official average monthly wage is €292. An unlimited DSL connection will cost you €2,458 for an unlimited 1.5Mbps connection. They do not even chuck in a modem.

Cable is not much better. A 6Mbps connection will set you back €16,144 a month. The OSCE points out that this is more than a thousand times the price of such a connection in Western Europe. At those prices only the elite and local mobsters can afford access. The government also has a habit of cancelling domain name registrations. Sites which it says spread "dirt" and "lies" are for the chop.

Bloggers who publish items critical of the government have been charged under statutes that prohibit any violations of the president's "honour and dignity."

In 2003, a journalist complained that one of his favourite websites was being blocked and a local prosecutor opened a criminal case against him for compromising the security system of Kazakhtelecom. He was beaten, sentenced and "sent behind bars".

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