John Kennedy

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China: Attack on a #netfreedom Blogger

  19 June 2011

For all the talk of Internet freedom, little of it takes into account the bleaker reality of inhabiting Chinese cyberspace. Influential tech blogger William Long addresses this with a post criticizing the destructive bent to China's hacker communities, which then brought on a multi-front attack against Long.

Blog for a Cause guide is now available in Chinese!

  24 November 2008

Nine months too late, but thanks to the same gracious individual who translated GVA's Anonymous Blogging guide, we are now able to present you with the Chinese version of Blog for a Cause!: The Global Voices Guide of Blog Advocacy: Download PDF “[T]o inform and to inspire,” for that is...

China: An hour later, he was taken away

  25 September 2008

Another blogger arrest, this time we find out about merely by chance. Just days after WordCamp China 2008 wrapped up, citizen reporter and web editor Wen Yunchao is in Beijing and today posts, ‘An hour later, he was taken away‘: This morning Mr. Peng came looking for me; I'd recommended...

China: Zeng Jinyan resurfaces with news of visit to Hu Jia

  25 August 2008

Since stating [zh] on August 3rd that she was going to be made to leave Beijing and soon after falling silent on Twitter, home-arrested blogger Zeng Jinyan has returned! She posted several tweets today about where she was held after having been taken to meet with her husband Hu Jia....

China: Citizen reporter Zuola under ‘town arrest’

  14 August 2008

Chinese citizen reporter Zhou "Zuola" Shuguang has yet another encounter with various law enforcement bodies near his hometown today, tweeted it live, and learned that he is under several forms of heavy surveillance.

China: More foreigners protest, aided by 2.0 tools

  9 August 2008

One (possibly) last protest post before we get back on topic around here; first is the pseudo-guerrilla Exodus 8:1 mission of Christian activist Eddie ‘iamgadfly’ Romero for human rights in China which has seem him paint murals on the walls of at least 2 rooms in upscale Beijing hotels and...

China: Another popular blog site shut down for the Olympics

  24 July 2008

Sohoxiaobao, not the prettiest but definitely one of the earlier blog service providers in China, has been out of operation for a week now. We've reported here on Sohoxiaobao before; some of you might remember the story of Chinese police officer and artist Wu Youming who lost his job due...

China: Bloggers take stand against web activist's arrest

  21 July 2008

Following his apprehension last month as he was pitching in with the earthquake relief in his native Sichuan province, web activist Huang Qi was this weekend formally arrested for “illegal possession of state secrets”. Volunteers at his well-known website 64Tianwang.com (English) have been actively posting all news coverage and details...

China: Locking down IDC server rooms for the Olympics

  15 July 2008

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...

China: Details on Olympic internet crackdown appear

  5 July 2008

Beijing's Olympic Plan for the mainland China-based portion of the blogging and BBSing netosphere is starting to take shape. While on one hand it's coming coated in talk of self-restraint and uses words like “professional” and “responsibility”, the wording in an official notice [zh] which appeared online this week and...

China: Facebook blocked? Not quite!

  4 July 2008

Just as pictures from Hong Kong's annual march for democracy began appearing on Facebook, a segment of the users of the social networking site in mainland China began blogging their troubles accessing the site altogether, seemingly fulfilling predictions made when news that a localized Chinese version of Facebook was in...

China: Zeng Jinyan asks for harassment to stop

  1 June 2008

Zeng Jinyan wrote last week on her Twitter account that the heavy surveillance she and her daughter are under has been stepped up as June 4 approaches, and now includes regular physical harassment.

India: Google assists police in Orkut user's arrest

  22 May 2008

With the arrest of Orkut user Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid last weekend, Google has joined Yahoo! on the list of multinational American internet companies that have enabled foreign law enforcement authorities to prosecute netizens in their countries; in this case, the 22 year-old Indian IT worker has been charged under two...

China: Political blogger arrested, computer confiscated

  21 May 2008

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 period. According to the Guardian newspaper, Guo's arrest, carried out as he was walking his son to school, comes “because...

China: Ethnically diverse forum shut down

  20 May 2008

[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, Uighur Online, the main online forum serving to bridge the huge communication gap between China's Muslim population, other minority ethnic...

Malaysia: Vigil for jailed Raja Petra this evening

  8 May 2008

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 saw him charged with sedition for having written a blog post. If the Malaysian government was truly worried about bloggers...

Vietnam: Blogger Dieu Cay arrested

  24 April 2008

If you go to YouTube right now you can easily find footage from most of the stops along the ongoing Beijing Olympic Sacred Flame torch relay. On the San Francisco leg, protesters went viral, covering the event through Twitter, video and even audio live updates. Come next Tuesday, however, what...

Zeng Jinyan speaks out on Hu Jia's sentencing

  13 April 2008

On the day after her husband's sentence to 3.5 years in prison for his blogging activities, house arrested blogger Zeng Jinyan wrote a letter explaining her side to their story. Here now thanks to one friendly netizen is an English translation: Please tell me: is this a just verdict? Zeng...

Hu Jia sentenced to 3.5 years

  3 April 2008

After spending over four months in detention, Beijing-based blogger Hu Jia was sentenced today to 3.5 years in prison for “state subversion,” which, according to his lawyer Li Fangping, is “a decision that is likely to draw more international criticism of the country's political controls ahead of the Beijing Olympics.”...

China: Hu Jia to be sentenced today

  3 April 2008

Hu Jia goes back on ‘trial’ in a few hours where it is expected he will be handed down a sentence of up to five years in prison based on two interviews given and six unspecified blog posts most of which were written during the more than one year he...