Stories about Feature from April, 2009
Egypt: Local Report Documents Violations against 43 Internet Users
The prominent Egyptian NGO Hisham Mubarak Center for Law (HMCL) issued a report, titled “Egypt on the Crossroad …2008“, documenting the status of freedom of expression in the country during...
Info-Rhizome: Report on Independent Media in the Chinese-speaking World
I have just announced the launching of Info-Rhizome: Report on Independent Media in the Chinese-speaking World at interlocals.net. Individual can download free copy from here. The book is consisted of...
Malaysia: The New Infomation & Communications Minister makes good with bloggers
Newly-minted Information, Communications and Culture Minister, Dr Rais Yatim, has called on Malaysian bloggers to help inculcate the “1Malaysia” concept, as espoused by new Prime Minister, Mr. Najib Razak. He...
Malaysia: RPK in hiding
Popular Malaysian blogger and editor of the Malaysia Today website, Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK), failed to attend his sedition trial on April 23, 2009. As a result, the Sessions Court in...
Madagascar: Transitional government is trampling on freedom of speech
A series of unfortunate decisions taken by the Andry TGV Rajoelina High Authority for the Transition (HAT) government is seriously threatening freedom of speech in Madagascar. First, there was the...
Egypt: A New Detention Order for a Blogger Arrested Since 2007
In an unexplained action, Egyptian Ministry of Interior issued a new detention order for blogger and activist, Mos'ad Abu Fagr. The detained blogger was transferred again to Borg El Arab prison in Alexandria instead of north Sinai prison. This transfer imposes hardship on Abu Fagr's family to visit him, as they are based is the Sinai. Abu Fagr was arrested on 26 December 2007, but the court and D.A issued e
China: Free Wu Baoquan
Soon after Wang Shuai's defamation case spread widely via media report and got strong public support, the Henan province police apologized to Wang and he was given a symbolic compensation...
While White-listing Syria, Linkedin Keeps Sudan's Internet Users Blocked!
After Linkedin the business social Network, blocked Internet users in Syria and then unblocked them and apologized (as ArabCrunch has reported.) It was confirmed that Internet users in Sudan (an African Arab country) still cannot access Linkedin, who were blocked by Linkedin since several months ago.
Build Your Own Alltop For Advocacy With WordPress and OneNews
Now, you can build your own Alltop-like dashboard for your advocacy project, using Wordpress and OneNews. While I won't encourage you to make a dashboard just because you can, I can see many applications for such dashboards.
LinkedIn Restores Services to Syrian Users
Last week, Global Voices Advocacy broke the news that Syrian users had been cut off from LinkedIn's services. The business-oriented social networking site had stated in e-mails to several of its users that, "Under the User Agreement, LinkedIn Users warrant that they are not prohibited from receiving U.S. origin products, including services or software. As such, and as a matter of corporate policy, we do not allow member accounts or access to our site from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria."
The Perils of Facebook Activism: Nisha Susan Locked Out of Pink Chaddi Campaign's Facebook Group
The Pink Chaddi Facebook Group has been getting hacked throughout last month, and, instead of dealing with the hackers, Facebook suspended both the group and Nisha's account last week. In an open letter to Facebook, Nisha wondered if the first rule of Facebook activism is to not use Facebook.
Syria: Linkedin Kicks Off Syrian Users!
AnasOnline blog reports (Arabic link) that Linkedin (AC Group here) completely blocked all Syrian users. According to the blog post: 3 weeks ago when Linkedin blocked all Syrian IPs users , but they were able to access the site by using IP changing programs (such as Tor), but in the last days, Linkedin blocked all Syrian users even if they changed their IPs
Thailand: Nine new charges against Prachatai webmaster
Chiranuch Premchaiporn, webmaster of independent Thai online news portal Prachatai, was arrested on March 6 under Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act. Her charges resulted from allowing comments posted by readers of Prachatai’s online discussion fora alleged to be lèse majesté.
China: Netizen jailed for 8 days for mocking local government
A 24 year-old netizen Wang Shuai was jailed for 8 days for posting pictures that mocked at illegal land requisition in Henan Ningbao county in 6 March. Latest update on...
DigiActive Guide to Twitter for Activism
DigiActive, an organization dedicated to helping the world's grassroots activists use digital technology, has just released The DigiActive Guide to Twitter for Activism. Following the recent protests in Moldova, the value of Twitter as a tool for digital activism is more prominent than ever. Yet in addition to bringing greater awareness to that tool, the hype surrounding Moldova revealed misunderstanding of the value of of Twitter for activism and, even though the realists responded strongly, there was not a stand-alone resource which clearly defined how Twitter could be used by activists. DigiActive hopes this guide will fill that void.
Egypt: Blogger Abu Fagr Remains Detained Despite Eight Release Orders
Today will mark one week since the eighth release order has been made for Egyptian blogger Mos'ad Suleiman Hassan (a.k.a. Mos'ad Abu Fagr); Despite that fact, Fagr remains locked at a police station in El Arish (North Sinai).
Tunisia: Blogger's Home Raided, Laptop and CDs Robbed
The house of the Tunisian journalist and blogger Zied el-Heni has been raided last night (April 10, 2009). In a blog post published today, Zied wrote that his laptop and CDs which contain all his work have been robbed: "I am sorry to inform you that my house has been raided and robbed on April 10, 2009. They stole my laptop and CDs which contain the efforts of my work day and night...
France: ‘3 Strikes’ Internet piracy law defeated in parliament
France's parliament rejected Hadopi (la Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur internet) bill on Thursday (09.04.2009) with the ruling UMP party failure (21-15)...
Moldova: “Grape Revolution” / “Twitter Revolution”
Peaceful protests that took place in Moldova's capital Chisinau on Monday, following the victory of the ruling Communist Party in the April 5 election, turned violent on Tuesday, as protesters stormed and set fire to the parliament building. While it's too early to speak of the outcome of the post-election uprising, one thing is sure: the impact of social media on facilitation and coverage of the protests in Moldova - which is known as "the poorest country in Europe" - has been outstanding.
Egypt: A Blogger Attacked in His House
At noon today, while Egyptian bloggers were in their jobs, or browsing the Internet, a Twitter message reached those following prominent blogger Wael Abbas, which read: My mother and I...
