January, 2010

Stories from January, 2010

Azerbaijan: Demonstrations for imprisoned video blogging youth activists

  17 January 2010

Support Adnan and Emin posts details of two demonstrations scheduled to take place outside the Embassies of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Paris, France, and London, England, in support of imprisoned video blogging youth activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli. The two men were detained last summer and sentenced to...

Egypt: Bloggers detained for showing Solidarity!

  16 January 2010

-Update (16 Jan, 1pm Cairo Timings): arrested activists in Naga Hammadi got a release order from a while, but its still unknown where/how will they be released from Qena or deported to Cairo. -Update (16 Jan, 2:50pm Cairo Timings): the arrested girls are all released and with the lawyers right...

Mauritanian Editor Hanevy Ould Dahah Remains Detained

  15 January 2010

In June of 2009, Global Voices Advocacy was the first to report that Mauritanian editor Hanevy Ould Dahah, who runs leftist site Taqadoumy, had been arrested over a comment left on the site. Ould Dahah, sentenced to 6 months in prison, should have been released on December 24, however, on...

Jordan to censor the internet

  15 January 2010

Jordan's Appeal Court has extended the reach of its print and publications law to cover electronic media, meaning that it will censor sites and blogs, writing in ArabCrunch, Gaith Saqer that, empowers authorities to prosecute or impose fines on any electronic medium of Publishing from SMS to the Internet user...

Google's new approach to China

  13 January 2010

Yesterday Google lnc. issued an official statement reporting that the company had been hit by cyber attack originated from China. The attackers were trying to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists. The company said it would talk with the Chinese government regarding how it might operate in China...

First Amendment and cyber bullying

  12 January 2010

In schools across America, cyber bullying is a growing problem. The case of a Missouri teenager who committed suicide after being bullied online has brought the problem into national debate. Lori Drew, a mother, along with her daughter and an employee created a hoax MySpace profile and harassed Megan Meier....

Poland: Discussions of TOR and Internet Filtering

  12 January 2010

The end of 2009 in Poland was marked with the beginning of a public discussion of on-line privacy, the government's potential attempts to restrict access to websites and a growing awareness of TOR software supporting on-line anonymity. On Nov. 6, Piotr Waglawski [PL], aka VaGla (recipient of the Internet Citizen of...

Iran's Intelligence Ministry listed 60 organizations as ‘soft war’ agents

  9 January 2010

Recently, a list of 60 organizations was published by Iranian ministry of intelligence with the accusation that they are active in the soft war against Islamic regime in Iran.  Any collaboration with these organizations and media outlets with ties to these organizations will be regarded as a crime and banned....

New laws for cyber activists

  7 January 2010

Reports from Iran show that, conditions for cyber activists became much more difficult and dangerous. Recently, Iran’s prosecutor published a list about internet crimes. One of the prominent laws in this list claimed that distribution of links to circumvention tools or softwares is prohibited. It is also against the law...

China: the Internet as an ideology battlefield

  6 January 2010

Xinhua News Agency Outlook Weekly reported on a Teleconference on national law enforcement on 4 of Jan, 2010. The Ministry of Public Security reported in the conference that the police will tightening up control over the Internet. According to the report, the Ministry of Public Security will put together resources...

Tunisia and Bahrain Block Individual Twitter Pages

  4 January 2010

First, governments blocked Blogspot. Then they blocked Facebook, and then Twitter. And just when technophiles all over the globe started groaning, a couple of governments got a bit wiser to social media and, rather than block the entire platform for the transgressions of one user, began blocking individual accounts instead....

Algeria Joins Filtering Fray

  4 January 2010

Algeria is the latest Arab country to join the ranks of Internet filterers, leaving only Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Lebanon without widespread filtering. The first report of a blocked site came about a week ago, when users on Twitter reported www.rachad.org, the site of political movement Mouvement Rachad to be blocked. The sites have since been reported to Herdict.

Egypt: E-mail Monitor officially recognized

  4 January 2010

While the local and international media are getting more concerned about the Egyptian government's policy in restricting convoys to Gaza Strip, there isn't much information concerning the active monitoring of convoy members by the Egyptian government. Recently Foreign Affairs official revealed that e-mail communication among convoy members are monitored. In...

The Metaverse in the Arab World

Virtual worlds are becoming more complex and more intertwined with the actual world. Hence, their influence on real matters is increasing. I am speaking about the programs and games in which users, represented by avatars of their choice, can create 3D environments and virtually forge any imaginable object in them....

The Internet in post-Saddam Iraq

  3 January 2010

The status of the Internet in Iraq, regarding both governmental policies and usage, underwent a fundamental change following Saddam Husayn’s deposal in 2003. Still, as is true with so many other features of Iraqi life, Iraq does not constitute a single, homogenous unit with regard to the Internet. Along with...

RSF 2009 Review: More than 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents imprisoned

2 January 2010

Reporters Without Borders released its 2009 year-end round-up on on December 30, 2009. There are 151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents arrested, 61 physically assaulted and one died in prison in 2009. When compared with 2008, the number of bloggers arrested increased 155%. The report pointed out that China continued to be...

Egypt: In Cairo International Airport …Be Careful if You Are A Blogger!

  1 January 2010

Meanwhile leading NGOs and studies centers all over the world becoming more interested in listening to the Arab bloggers and their digital activism, the Egyptian bloggers have bad luck in their country's airport! As a number of bloggers had problem in Cairo International airport, because of their views written online,...