Stories from May, 2008
Introduction about censorship in Uzbekistan
Now Uzbek bloggers have problems with renewal of their blogs. Sometimes in order to post information they send it by e-mail to their friends outside Uzbekistan and they publish it. This situation reduces democratic processes in the country. Not all bloggers have reliable friends outside the country and to make a request to post your new article every time is not comfortable.
China: Political blogger arrested, computer confiscated
Guo Quan, co-founder of China's Netizen Party and litigant in a recent lawsuit against Yahoo!, had his computer confiscated over the weekend and is now halfway through a ten-day detention...
China: Ethnically diverse forum shut down
[Sept. 6 update: Northwest Chinese netizens allowed to exist again! Thanks to Fool's Mountain we see that Uighur Online is back and living up to its name.] On May 15,...
Iran:12 women sites got filtered in last 24 hours
Change4equality says [Fa] that 12 Iranian sites supporting women's rights such as Change4equality or Photochange got filtered by Iranian authorities today,19th of May.
Letter from Egyptian blogger in hunger strike after detention and torture
Below is a translation by Amnesiac of a letter handed out at a Journalists’ Syndicate protest about the individuals still being detained in connection with the April 6th strike, among them blogger Kareem El Beheiry
Israel: Knesset Freezes Talkback Law for Web-Comment Censorship
The Knesset has decided to freeze legislation regulating readers’ ability to respond to articles via the so-called “Talkback Law”, in an effort to allow web sites to practice self-regulation. The...
Syria: Three-Year Sentence for Blogger Tariq Baiasi
On Sunday 11-5-2008 the State Security Court in Damascus stated its verdict on the Syrian blogger Tariq Baiasi who was held in detention since 7-7-2007. Tariq was detained for leaving a comment on websites disfavored by the Syrian government.
Egypt: leading opposition website blocked
According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, the website of the leading Egyptian Movement for Change – Kefaya, has been blocked in Egypt since May 4 by the...
Syria Blocks the Arabic Wikipedia
According to anasonline blog, access to Wikipedia Arabic, the Arabic language version of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is now blocked by all ISPs in Syria.
Malaysia: Vigil for jailed Raja Petra this evening
Take note of what's been happening in Malaysia these past few days since popular blogger and political commentator Raja Petra Kamarudin, 58, was imprisoned on Tuesday after a trial which...
Saudi Arabia: Freedom for Fouad Al Farhan
Saudi blogger Fouad Al Farhan is now a free man, after spending 137 days in detention in Jeddah. While bloggers have all along speculated why he has been held by the authorities for this long, Arab bloggers are unanimously excited over his release. And they also share their hopes for the release of other jailed bloggers.
Brazil: WordPress attorney blogs about the blocking
Marcel Leonardi [pt], the Brazilian attorney who is representing WordPress in the case of a possible ban on the platform in the country, blogs: “In the motion filled by the...
