Stories from July, 2009
“Resign or Else”: Report of Power Abuse Stifled in the Madagascar Media
[ Most identities have been replaced by initials for safety reasons] VNR is a young journalist in one of the largest newspaper of Madagascar. When we first talked over the phone, her number was hidden and the first thing she said was to ask carefully what was the purpose of...
Azerbaijan: Appeal of bloggers rejected ahead of National Media Day
On 20th of July, Baku Court of Appeals was going to consider the cases of Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli, two youth activists and bloggers recently beaten and detained in downtown Baku and then sentenced for two months of pre-trial investigation detention. Friends and acquaintances of the detainees, as well...
Democracy movement under attack in Vietnam
Vietnam's growing democracy movement is under attack from the state once again.Pro-democracy blogger Nguyen Tien Trung was arrested earlier this month. According to Reporters Without Borders “Nguyen Tien Trung’s arrest brings the number of journalists and bloggers held in Vietnam to at least 11. Nguyen Tien Trung, an active member...
Azerbaijan: Activists’ support site goes down
Yesterday, as Önər Blog [AZ] reported, the Appellate Court in Baku was to consider again the case of Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade, the recently beaten and detained youth activists and bloggers sentenced last week. Yesterday, however, one of the main websites created in their defense went down.
China: Netizens arrested for gang rape scandal in Fujian
Yesterday (July 16) in early morning, twitterer amoiist sent out a mobile message to twitter saying: “I have been arrested by Mawei police, SOS.” And the second message is: “Pls help me, I grasp the phone during police sleep”. Since then, there isn't any update in his twitter. His arrest...
Egypt: No to Illegal Confiscation of Personal Devices
On the 30th of June 2009, the security officers at Cairo International Airport have detained an activist blogger, Wael Abbas, who frequently writes about torture cases and police abuse in Egypt. Mr. Abbas was also frisked and the officers confiscated his laptop computer and other belongings.
Australia debates internet censorship
It is not only China or Iran. Australia is debating internet censorship, in its case to protect children from online predators. But the proposal is off to a rocky start after several child protection groups-including Save the Children and civil liberty groups’ opposition. According to ABC News “The child protection...
Azerbaijan: Youth activist, prominent blogger imprisoned after trial behind closed doors
In what might be the first case of a blogger being assaulted and detained in the South Caucasus, two youth activists were yesterday imprisoned for two months pre-trial investigative detention in what many consider to be a travesty of justice.
Uighurbiz.cn's founder detained
In twitter, a number of retweets said that IIham Tohti, a Uighur professor in Minzu university of China and founder of Uighurbiz.cn has been detained. According to Xinjiang Governor Nur Bekri's press statement, the Urumqi riot was led by Uighur exiles via the Internet: “Rebiya had phone conversations with people...
Information on riots in Urumqi slow to come by
China’s Muslim ethnic minority-the Uighurs are facing Beijing’s wrath after riots broke out in city of Urumqi in province of Xinjiang. The government has largely censored news, pictures and videos on the riots but the information is trickling in slowly and at least 140 people have been killed. D'Arcy Doran...
Tunisia: Facebook user jailed for spreading rumors liable to disrupt public order
On Saturday, July 4, 2009, The 8th Criminal Chamber of the Court of First Instance in Tunis has condemned a Tunisian professor, Dr Khedija Arfaoui, to eight months in prison for spreading rumors, on the social networking website Facebook, liable to disrupt public order.
Iran:The head of Judiciary targets hostile websites
According to news sites “the head of Iran's judiciary called on Sunday for the prosecution of people working for increasingly influential anti-establishment satellite TV channels and websites.”
Iran: Myth and reality about Twitter
International media coverage of the Iranian protest movement in the past weeks has widely celebrated ‘Twitter power' as a tool of organizing and reporting on protests, but the reliance on Twitter has had both positive and negative results in this crisis. We look at some of them here to demystify the actual degree of impact.
