June, 2007

Stories from June, 2007

CIA facility in Tunisia?

  26 June 2007

From his prison cell in Bizerte (65km north of Tunis), The Tunisian prisoner Ramzi Bettibi managed to smuggle a very alarming letter that found its way on to the Internet (available in French). Ramzi is serving a four-year sentence at Bizerte for copying, onto a forum board he moderated, an...

Egypt: Judge's request to block websites rejected

  22 June 2007

The State Commissioner Committee in Egypt has rejected the request made by the judge Abdel Fattah Mourad to block 51 websites and blogs deemed insulting the state's dignity and threatening Egypt’s interests. In the meantime, the investigation on blogger Amr Gharbia, who was charged for defaming Judge Mourad, has been...

Zimbabwe: The Interception of Communications Bill

  18 June 2007

Last week, Zimbabwean parliament passed “The Interception of Communications Bill” that will allow the government to monitor telephones, emails and the Internet. Zimbabwean ISPs are condemning this law, which is waiting the approval of the Senate, because it will require them to purchase expensive monitoring equipments they cannot afford. Transport...

“Beat the Censors!”, a gift of freedom for Thai Internet users

  13 June 2007

(Photo Credit – sivanelle: Anti-censorship protestors gathered outside Pantip Plaza, a popular IT mall. June 9th, 2007 ) To date, Thailand’s ICT Minister, Dr Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, has not kept his promise to unblock the popular video-sharing site, YouTube. YouTube, which is owned by Google, was blocked by the Thai government...

Algerian blogger taken to court

  11 June 2007

Today, June 11th, 2007, will be the first time that an Algerian blogger is being taken to court for articles posted on his personnel blog. Abdulsalam Baroudi is being sued by Tlemcen’s Director of Religious Affairs, who has accused him of posting defamatory material on his personal blog on February...

China: Flickr filtered and the Flickr community reacts

  9 June 2007

Flickr, the popular photo-sharing site is being blocked in China since June 7th: “It seems that access to our image servers is being blocked for users in much of China. Our technical staff has looked into this at depth and determined this is not a technical issue from our end....

Monem is free

  2 June 2007

Egyptian blogger and Journalist Abdel Monem Mahmoud, is free. Monem “arrived to his home in Alexandria less than two hours ago after being released from police custody,” said a statement published on the Brothers English website accompanied with recent photos of Monem smiling between his father and friends. “I just...