Background

Throughout history, dictators have held onto power and maintained their support by controlling the media and access to information. Until recently when the coalition forces silenced it, the media had been piping out a one way stream of information that misinformed the population and prolonged the rein of power of the outgoing tyrannical regime.

Access to the Internet in Iraq is strictly controlled and granted to a very few, privileged people, and what access they do enjoy is heavily censored. The current bandwidth available to the entire country of Iraq is only slightly quicker than that enjoyed by a single average US, Spain or other European company.

CITRI – The Committee for Information Technology Reconstruction in Iraq – aims to raise money to invest in IT & Communications systems in Iraq , so as to make freedom of information and communication – an everyday right that free people take for granted in the west – possible in the new emergent Iraq .

CITRI is an entirely non profit organisation made up of partners, companies and individuals in IT & the professions. Members of CITRI share the common aim of improving access to information, making a fundamental positive difference to the people of Iraq , and ensuring that through our efforts and by promoting freedom of information, the chances of re-emergence of inappropriate rule are minimised.