Renata Avila

Latest posts by Renata Avila

Actions to silence Cablegate and Wikileaks, threats against Assange

  5 December 2010

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is in danger and his project Wikileaks is under attack. A week after the release of the largest number of classified information, the CableGate, prominent politicians even expressed their wish to “hunt him” or see him “executed“. The reactions are beautifully summarized by OpenDemocracy: As international...

Chiapas: Warrantless arrest of Free Software activist

  11 November 2010

Chiapas was a pioneer in the use of digital activism by grassroots social movements. It started in 1994 with the Zapatista movement and it keep growing to become a tool of empowerment beyond the rebels. It provides alternative digital media - newspapers and radio - it helps Chiapanecos develop their own software - they even have hackerspaces in autonomous communities such as Oventik and Tzajala - and their digital communities are growing as you can see in the Chiapatuit, Fedora and Free Software community.

Thailand activist arrested after #IAL2010 needs your support!

  24 September 2010

Chiranuch Premchaiporn, Prachatai director was arrested at Bangkok International Suvarnabhumi Airport. A Journalist and anti-censorship believer (@Jiew on twitter) was returning from the Conference “Internet at Liberty 2010: The Promise and Peril of Free Expression” held in Budapest.

IGF2009: #UNfail?

  16 November 2009

A medium size poster, in English, promoting the 2nd ONI volume “Access Controlled” book was removed by the Internet Governance Forum security forces, because of a phrase on it saying: The first generation of Internet controls consisted largely of building firewalls at key Internet gateways; China's famous “Great Firewall of...

WordPress.com blocked in Guatemala

  29 June 2009

Guatemalan users have reported blocked access to Wordpress since Friday afternoon. It seems that Internet Service Providers CLARO, TIGO and Turbonett (Telgua), Guatemala’s most prominent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have all blocked the blog domain. One blogger, reports calling customer service, but says he received no clear answer.

Worldwide protest against surveillance: Freedom not Fear 2008

  15 October 2008

Surveillance and data retention is a problem that deserves Global attention, even for developing countries. In developing countries protests for such causes are sometimes not among the list of priorities, such as poverty, hunger and violence, which are the major concerns. Not quite. In Peru, breaking news points to surveillance coming from the government, and recently in Guatemala, the President himself was under heavy surveillance.

Internet and South Ossetia Crisis

  17 August 2008

During the South Ossetia crisis, many people looked at the most popular Georgian pages to gather information about the situation. Big surprise, sites like the popular forum.ge or liberty.ge were not working and official sites were blocked or hacked.

Live: GV Advocacy Meeting (June 26)

  26 June 2008

A group of the leading online free speech activists from around the world have been invited to a closed meeting in advance of the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit by Global Voices Advocacy. The topic of discussion is how to work together towards a global anti-censorship movement. Renata Avila from...