March, 2008

Stories from March, 2008

Bahrain: Blogger in Jail for Four Months

  29 March 2008

Bahraini blogger and human rights activist Abdulla Mohsen (Ar) has been behind bars for more than four months, according to Nido. Nido explains: Abdulla Mohsen has been in prison now more than four months. What is he accused of? Well apparently he and more than thirty others are accused of...

Slide blocked in Turkey

  29 March 2008

A Turkish court banned access to Slide, the maker of social networking widgets, for “harboring pictures and articles that are considered to be insulting to Ataturk.” In a note to Slide users in Turkey, Slide announced that it has contacted the Turkish government in hopes of resolving the issue: If...

Cuba: Blocking Bloggers

  28 March 2008

Want to get the Cuban blogosphere talking? Block access to a popular blog. Ever since Cuban authorities did just that to several less-than-supportive Havana-based blogs earlier this week, the blogging diaspora have come out in full support of Cuban bloggers – especially Yoani Sanchez and her popular Generacion Y blog,...

Yemen blocks Maktoob blogging platform

  26 March 2008

Maktoobblog.com, one of the most popular Arab blogging platform, has been recently blocked in Yemen cutting off Yemeni Internet users from the more than 46960 blogs the service hosts. According to MaktoobBlog, there are currently 1226 Yemeni blogs hosted by the service. All of them disappeared from the Yemeni Internet....

Bloguer pour une cause !

22 March 2008

  We are pleased to announce the translation into French of Blog for a Cause!, the Global Voices Guide of Blog Advocacy thanks to Claire Ulrich from Global Voices en Français. Blog for a Cause! has already been translated into Spanish; the translation into Arabic, Chinese and Bengali is on...

Morocco: Fouad Mourtada free

19 March 2008

Fouad Mourtada, the 26-year old IT engineer who has been arrested on February 5th, 2008 and sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of $1350 for creating a fake Facebook profile of King Mohammed VI’s younger brother, Prince Moulay Rachid, has been released about an hour ago. According...

Morocco: Fouad Mourtada Update

  18 March 2008

Fouad Mourtada probably never guessed he’d become a household name. Arrested on February 5 and sentenced on February 22 to three years in prison (plus a $1,000 fine) for creating a Facebook profile impersonating Morocco’s Prince Moulay Rachid, Mourtada is now famous, but unfortunately, that fame has come at an...

China: YouTube blocked yet again

  16 March 2008

[updates below] As Tibet transitioned into total lockdown and videos of the violent situation proliferated on YouTube, people began noticing Saturday afternoon in China that the video-sharing website could not be accessed. Tech blogger Rick Martin on the CNET Asia Little Red Blog has done some tests which confirm what...

Anonymous Blogging guide now available in Chinese

  14 March 2008

Download PDF Thanks to one very gracious individual who unfortunately insists on remaining anonymous, Global Voices Online co-founder Ethan Zuckerman‘s guide Anonymous Blogging with WordPress and Tor is now available in Chinese, bringing years of experience in combining technology with activism not only to yet another part of the world...

Israel: Israblog's Decision Against Banning Pro-Ana Sites

  12 March 2008

An agressive campaign to shut down pro-ana blogs has been taking place in the popular Israeli portal Israblog. Pro-ana refers to the promotion or support of anorexia as a lifestyle choice. Many pro-ana organizations state that they exist mainly to give anorexics a place to turn to discuss their illness...

Fouad Alfarhan: Three months in Jail

  11 March 2008

Three months after his arrest, on 10 December 2007, Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan remains jailed for unspecified “violation of non-security regulations.” At this occasion, his nine-year-old daughter Raghad sends him a message in this video published on Alfarhan's blog, which continues to be updated by his friends: A recent report...

Japan: Mixi in hot water over terms of use revision

  9 March 2008

Japan's hugely popular social networking site Mixi is in hot water this week after news [ja] that a proposed revision to its Terms of Use (ToU), to become effective as of April 1st, will force its users to agree to grant Mixi no-royalty, non-exclusive rights over all content published on...

Armenia: Samizdat & the Internet

  8 March 2008

After a 20-day state of emergency was declared in Armenia when clashes between security services and supporters of the former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, broke out on the streets of the capital following the disputed 19 February presidential election, access to the media has been severely restricted. According to presidential decree,...

EU: Towards a European Global Online Freedom Act

  6 March 2008

The European Parliament has passed a proposal (571 in favor, 38 against) to treat Internet censorship by national governments as a trade barrier. The proposal was submitted by European Parliament member (MEP) Jules Maaten of the Dutch conservative VVD party. The adopted Maaten amendment calls on the European Commission, “to...

China: Hack into Freedom City

  3 March 2008

For China's Astro Boy generation, a house arrested blogger like Zeng Jinyan could be most clearly viewed as one node in a network system needing to be re-established as quickly as possible. This seems to be at least partly the case in ‘Hack into Freedom City’, a manual being P2Ped...