Featured stories from April 2008
Stories from April, 2008
Saudi Arabia: Blogger Fouad Alfarhan Released
Prominent Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan was freed today. He is back home in Jeddah after 137 days in custody. Alfarhan was arrested on 10 December 2007 for unspecified “violation of non-security regulations.”
Egyptian activists released
Two Egyptian activists, Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed, who launched the “6 April” Facebook group and blogger Mohamed Sharkawy, have been released. Both Esraa and Sharkawy were arrested on 5 April while distributing leaflets announcing the 6 April strike.
UAE: Du prepares to block offensive websites
DU, the United Arab Emirates’ second Internet Service Provider serving Dubai free zones such as Dubai Media City, Dubai Internet City, Knowledge Village, Marina and other residential complexes, has started blocking access to websites that are considered “morally harmful” and offensive to local “moral, social and cultural values”. According to...
Zeng Jinyan speaks out on Hu Jia's sentencing
On the day after her husband's sentence to 3.5 years in prison for his blogging activities, house arrested blogger Zeng Jinyan wrote a letter explaining her side to their story. Here now thanks to one friendly netizen is an English translation: Please tell me: is this a just verdict? Zeng...
Japan: Major Parties Cooperate to Legislate Regulation of “Harmful” Internet Content
Japanese bloggers have been making noise the past few days [ja] in reaction to two separate bills, submitted first by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) and next by the leading opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), each aiming, in apparently similar ways, to legislate regulation over Internet...
Indonesia blocks YouTube over “Fitna” the movie
Update (Fri Apr 11, 2008): Indonesia has lifted the ban on Youtube.com. Internet service providers “would only block access to pages carrying the film by Geert Wilders” The vice chairman of the Indonesian Internet Providers Association said. The Indonesian government has ordered the country’s internet service providers to block YouTube...
Saudi Arabia: Fouad Alfarhan's blog and Freefouad blocked
The blog of the detained Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan has been blocked today in Saudi Arabia, along with Freefouad website dedicated to Alfarhan's case and the pro-reformist blog Freedoms. Users trying to access these blogs from Saudi Arabia were met with a notice saying “Blocked URL. Dear User, Sorry, the...
Hu Jia sentenced to 3.5 years
After spending over four months in detention, Beijing-based blogger Hu Jia was sentenced today to 3.5 years in prison for “state subversion,” which, according to his lawyer Li Fangping, is “a decision that is likely to draw more international criticism of the country's political controls ahead of the Beijing Olympics.”...
China: Hu Jia to be sentenced today
Hu Jia goes back on ‘trial’ in a few hours where it is expected he will be handed down a sentence of up to five years in prison based on two interviews given and six unspecified blog posts most of which were written during the more than one year he...
