October, 2009

Stories from October, 2009

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps launch 40 IRGC’s blogs

  21 October 2009

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that more than forty blogs have been created to struggle against IRGC’s enemies on cyber space. This action has taken place in the township of Arak,in the southwest of the Markazi province.

Video: How Police & Customs Officers deal with Bloggers at Cairo Airport?

  21 October 2009

Today, 21 October 2009, Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas was stopped by security officers at Cairo airport while his coming back to Cairo. From his last two experiences, Abbas didn’t travel with his laptop or CDs, flash memories and camera memory cards, since they were confiscated earlier this year. So nothing...

Macau: Political filtering

  21 October 2009

Netizens from Macau discovered that the largest forum in Macau, cyberctm, has activated keyword filtering mechanism and filtered away the term “Chief Executive” as well as its substitution “Chief Thief”. The so called “Chief Executive” or C.E (in Chinese 特首)is the head of the Macau Special Administrative Region and the...

United States:Aftermath of G20 protest suppression

  20 October 2009

Pittsburgh hosted G20 summit last month (September 22-25), which was marred by protests and the controversial way in which authorities went about suppressing dissent through Twitter. Activist Elliot Madison who works with People's Law Collective, his home was raided by authorities, he and another man were accused of ” using...

Morocco: Press Freedoms Backsliding

  17 October 2009

2009 has not been a good year for press freedom in Morocco, and over the past few months, actions against journalists seem to be escalating.  Although journalists are aware of the country's press law – which forbids criticism of the royal family, Islam, and the Western Sahara – many choose...

Anonymous Blogging with WordPress and Tor guide in Persian

  17 October 2009

The Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor guide is now available in Persian thanks to this translation by an Iranian blogger and friend who wants to remain anonymous. The guide outlines several methods of protecting one’s identity in order to avoid retaliation and can considerably reduce the risks that a blogger’s identity will be linked to his or her online writings through technical means.

Egypt: Security beats Blogger badly

  16 October 2009

Today, Friday 16th October, the Egyptian blogger Demagh Mak and his brother had been stopped for “ID check” in Tanta (Egyptian Province) by a police officer named Mohamed El-Dahrawy. For no reason, the police agent beat blogger Mak on his back, while asking for IDs. Andd when Mak asked him...

China’s Internet: Two Media Declarations

  15 October 2009

As if to complement one another, two like-minded media declarations were posted on the internet only two days apart from each other, one on Oct. 8 by a group of 15 Chinese intellectuals, another by the Chinese government’s Xinhua News Agency during a World Media Summit in Beijing on Oct....

China: Blocking Twitter's third party applications

  14 October 2009

In the past few days, Chinese twitterers reported that the Chinese censor has blocked a number of popular Twitter's third party applications. Since Fanfou, the Chinese micro-blogging website, has been ordered to shut down earlier this year, many bloggers moved to Twitter to spread their ideas. Net activists believe that...

Iran's Internet: Whirlpool and fear

  10 October 2009

While the world is trying to free the web, Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is going to make it much more barred. Recently, a site which is called Gerdab (Whirlpool) has been launched in order to monitor the Iranian Internet according to the IRGC’s dogmatic ideologies and strategies. Gerdab...

China: Internet human rights declaration

  9 October 2009

2009 is a political sensitive year in China. Apart from the 60th anniversary of PRC, it is also the 20th anniversary of Tienanmen Massacre and the 50th anniversary of Dalai Lama's exile. Moreover, natural disasters, social unrests and ethnic conflicts come one after the other. Social and political control began...

Anonymous Blogging with WordPress and Tor guide in Italian

  7 October 2009

The Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor guide is now available in Italian thanks to this translation by Jan Reister from Nazione Indiana blog. The guide outlines several methods of protecting one’s identity in order to avoid retaliation and can considerably reduce the risks that a blogger’s identity will be linked to his or her online writings through technical means

Turkey: Violating online free speech

  5 October 2009

Turkey, a modern democracy which takes pride in staying secular despite intense pressure from Islamic fundamentalists, unfortunately is actively engaged in curtailing online free speech. Since September 18,2009 MySpace, a popular social networking site and Last FM-where you can listen to free music, has been blocked in the country for...

Iran: new and innovative ways to get heard loudly

  3 October 2009

Let's see how people in Iran are using media to make their voices heard when all media outlets have been subjected to government pressure and censorship. After the suppositious election in Iran, most of the internet had been filtered and there were no any other media, such as radio or...

Pakistan: Army Human Rights Video being censored

  3 October 2009

A certain video showing images of Pakistan Army's military brutality during its offensive in Swat has surfaced across the web. BBC: The video shows of an officer in Pakistani army battle uniform interrogating several suspects, some of whom are quite elderly and are presumably relatives of men being sought. When...