Stories about Middle East & North Africa from April, 2011
Syrian uprisings and official vs. decentralized communications
The world looks at Syria for the first time in decades, while hundreds of thousands of citizens demonstrate against the regime that has ruled the country for almost 50 years. While hundreds of protesters were killed according to many reports, the official version shows quite a different picture. The gap...
MENA Journalists & Cyber Activists: In the Line of Fire
From Morocco to Bahrain, everyday people have taken on the cast iron hold of dictatorships and absolute monarchies resulting in an extraordinary collective awakening that has paved the way for epochal change in the region. The youth movement, which lies at the core of the uprisings, continues to play a prominent role in the pro-democracy and pro-reform demonstrations, which have swept through the region, unabated by government clampdowns or concessions.
Bahrain: Pro-Government Activists are Blogging too
Demands for change in Bahrain and recent incidents of violence against those demanding reform is being chronicled by number of bloggers. They present struggle within the country and also how external forces are influencing events. Adding another dimension to the discussion, pro-government and pro-establishment bloggers are also making their side heard online. Suhail...
Iran:Persecuted blogger won Theodor Haecker prize
Shiva Nazar-Ahari, a persecuted Iranian human rights activist and blogger, awarded Theodor Haecker prize.
Spam Bots Flooding Twitter to Drown Info About #Syria Protests [Updated]
After recent protests demanding freedom and democracy in Syria and the regime's brutal crackdown started, information warfare has been taking place on twitter. This post attempts to analyze the proliferation of twitter spams bots especially designed to flood the #Syria hash tag on twitter in order to make information about the events harder to find, and stop the conversation about them.
Middle East Feels Threatened by Bloggers
Such has been the role of bloggers and citizen journalists in fueling the region's season of fury against dictatorship, they are being seen as a threat to status quo. Now a campaign of arrest, intimidation and harassment is being launched against them. In Bahrain, cyber activists and bloggers are facing...
Egypt: Blogger Sentenced to 3 Years for Insulting the Military
Along the many years where the former president Hosni Mubarak ruled the country we didn’t witness large scale of cases where a blogger gets jailed for a blog-post. The first case in Egypt was in 2007 when Kareem Amer was sentenced for 4 years in jail based on blog-posts, he was charged for insulting Islam and Mubarak.
