A new Website has gone online containing copies of what it says are banned, censored, or sensitive documents from all over the world.

The Digital Freedom Network (DFN), based in New Jersey in the United States, has an archive of some 200 works including banned newspaper articles, fiction, cartoons, and poetry from 17 countries.

Executive director Bobson Wong said the site was a powerful tool in the fight against censorship.

"The Internet is the most significant invention in mass communication since the printing press," he said.

"It gives people unprecedented reach - one person with Internet access can instantly contact millions of people around the world.

"The Internet is impossible to control completely. Information can get through even the toughest government censors and filters."

'Hostile acts'

Authors whose works now appear on the site include Bao Ge, a Chinese dissident now living in exile in the United States, who was arrested several times before his expulsion from China in 1997.

At a news conference to launch the site, he said: "The real views of the (Chinese) people on current affairs are suppressed, and appeals for democracy are still regarded as hostile acts."

The site includes material from Salima Ghezali, editor-in-chief of La Nation, a French-language weekly newspaper in Algeria whose publication has been suspended by the authorities.

Other sources include Koigi wa Wamwere, a Kenyan writer and human rights activist, and Raul Rivero, head of the independent press agency Cuba Press, whose books are banned in Cuba.

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