World Day Against Cyber Censorship is an online event held each year on March 12 to draw attention to the ways that governments around the world are deterring and censoring free speech online. The day was first observed on 12 March 2008 at the request of Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International. A letter written by Jean-François Julliard, Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders, and Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International, was sent to the Chief Executive Officers of Google, Yahoo!, Inc., and Microsoft Corporation to request observation of the day. The annual event is symbolized by a logo created by Reporters Without Borders consisting of a computer mouse breaking free from a chain.
Enemies of the Internet list
In conjunction with World Day Against Cyber Censorship, Reporters Without Borders updates its Enemies of the Internet and Countries Under Surveillance lists.
In 2006, Reporters without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF), a Paris-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press, started publishing a list of « Enemies of the Internet ». The organization classifies a country as an enemy of the internet because « all of these countries mark themselves out not just for their capacity to censor news and information online but also for their almost systematic repression of Internet users. » In 2007 a second list of countries « Under Surveillance » (originally « Under Watch ») was added.