Stories from 15 July 2008
NGOs: Defending the voices
At the end of our first day of open work, GV founder Rebecca MacKinnon put an important idea on the table: censorship is not only a political or technological problem; it is also a social problem. Thus, it is important to encourage bloggers to resist; to keep blogging. In this last task, the NGOs are one of the most valuable resources for bloggers who need help to keep blogging actively for their causes. The main question for the session was how NGOs can help more effectively.
China: Locking down IDC server rooms for the Olympics
While Chinese webmasters wait to see if the Olympics will bring tightened reins on the internet as is widely expected, more specific documents have recently appeared online which suggest part of Beijing's Olympic Plan is to place controls over Chinese internet data centers of severity that hasn't been seen since...
Russia: One Year in Prison for Blog Comment
On July 7, Savva Terentyev, 22, a Russian blogger and musician, received a one-year suspended jail sentence for a comment he posted on Feb. 15, 2007, on the blog of a local journalist Boris Suranov. Below are rough translations of the comment and a small passage from the verdict, as well as an opinion poll on the impact of Terentyev's case on the freedom of expression in the Russian blogosphere.
Belarus: The Blast, the Arrests, and Bloggers’ Solidarity
A week ago, a homemade bomb packed with bolts and screws tore through a crowd of thousands of people who had gathered for the Independence Day all-night concert near the World War II monument in central Minsk. The blast occurred around 12:30 a.m on July 4; some 54 people were wounded; Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko happened to be nearby when the bomb went off, but was not hurt.
