· March, 2012

Stories about Legal Threats from March, 2012

Bahrain: Where is Ali Abdulemam?

  18 March 2012

As I daily check my facebook messages and notifications, I also check Ali Abdelemam’s profile. Everyday I wonder if there are any posts from him. Everyday I check his wall to see his family’s posts, and photos hoping that I could at least know something about him. I ask my friends and colleagues in Bahrain about Ali, and no one knows anything about him. I wonder where is Ali now. Ali, a father of three, disappeared and left us wondering about his destiny. Why did Ali disappear?

UAE: Activist Arrested for his Tweets

  11 March 2012

With the birth of the Arab Spring, the United Arab Emirates’ authorities seem to be intimidated by any voice asking for reforms and change. The start was with the arbitrary arrests of five activists for signing an online petition and keeping them illegally in custody for months before giving them...

Annual Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in China, 2011

  9 March 2012

Chinese Human Rights Defenders has released its annual report on the situation of human rights defenders in China (2011). Despite the harsh crackdown on the Internet, netizens and activists continue to fight against the censorship machine. Below are some excerpts on the part of “freedom of expression” from the report....

China: Netizen detained for 3 days for reposting message to QQ group

  2 March 2012

A Poet, Zhou Nan, based in Wenzhou city, Zhejiang was arrested by re-posting a micro-blog message by Long Yihai in his QQ group. [QQ group is a popular online platform for group chat.] Long Yihai's Weibo message was about military vehicles running in the street of Baoding, Hebei province on...