· July, 2008

Stories about Law from July, 2008

No to Kuwait's New Internet Law

  30 July 2008

Kuwaiti bloggers are angry at a proposed new Internet Law, which they claim would make their days as free bloggers numbered, after Attorney General Hamad Al Othman announced that a new law dealing with Internet crimes will be issued soon. Abdullatif Al Omar takes a closer look at the Kuwaiti blogosphere and their reactions to the impending law.

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...

Brazil: Bloggers question the 13 new cyber-crimes

  17 July 2008

In the small hours of last Thursday, July 10, the Brazilian Senate passed the ‘Digital Crimes Bill’, which typifies the cyber-crimes punishable by law and stipulates penalties accordingly. The proposal will now be proceeding to the House of Representatives for a review of the last amendments, and the next step...

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...

Russia: One Year in Prison for Blog Comment

  15 July 2008

On July 7, Savva Terentyev, 22, a Russian blogger and musician, received a one-year suspended jail sentence for a comment he posted on Feb. 15, 2007, on the blog of a local journalist Boris Suranov. Below are rough translations of the comment and a small passage from the verdict, as well as an opinion poll on the impact of Terentyev's case on the freedom of expression in the Russian blogosphere.

No Movement on Death Sentence for Afghan Internet User

  10 July 2008

Journalism student Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, accused of supposedly copyng text from an Iranian website criticizing Islam's stance on the treatment of women and sentenced to death for heresy, was berated by his own judge at his most recent appeals hearing, according to Jean MacKenzie at IWPR.

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...

Portugal: First blog ever to be blocked

  5 July 2008

June saw for the first time ever a blog suspended in Portugal because of a local court decision. The now defunct Póvoa Online blog had been taken to court by Póvoa do Varzim’s council president, Macedo Vieira, and his deputy, Aires Pereira, who claimed the bloggers had been using the blog merely to defame them. The court concluded that most of the blog’s content were opinionated articles, and that its authors criticized Macedo Vieira and Aires Pereira not only as the council’s president and vice-president, but also as “citizens, fathers, family members and friends”.