April, 2008

Stories from April, 2008

Egyptian activists released

  24 April 2008

Two Egyptian activists, Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed, who launched the “6 April” Facebook group and blogger Mohamed Sharkawy, have been released. Both Esraa and Sharkawy were arrested on 5 April while distributing leaflets announcing the 6 April strike.

UAE: Du prepares to block offensive websites

  16 April 2008

DU, the United Arab Emirates’ second Internet Service Provider serving Dubai free zones such as Dubai Media City, Dubai Internet City, Knowledge Village, Marina and other residential complexes, has started blocking access to websites that are considered “morally harmful” and offensive to local “moral, social and cultural values”. According to...

Zeng Jinyan speaks out on Hu Jia's sentencing

  13 April 2008

On the day after her husband's sentence to 3.5 years in prison for his blogging activities, house arrested blogger Zeng Jinyan wrote a letter explaining her side to their story. Here now thanks to one friendly netizen is an English translation: Please tell me: is this a just verdict? Zeng...

Saudi Arabia: Fouad Alfarhan's blog and Freefouad blocked

  3 April 2008

The blog of the detained Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan has been blocked today in Saudi Arabia, along with Freefouad website dedicated to Alfarhan's case and the pro-reformist blog Freedoms. Users trying to access these blogs from Saudi Arabia were met with a notice saying “Blocked URL. Dear User, Sorry, the...

Hu Jia sentenced to 3.5 years

  3 April 2008

After spending over four months in detention, Beijing-based blogger Hu Jia was sentenced today to 3.5 years in prison for “state subversion,” which, according to his lawyer Li Fangping, is “a decision that is likely to draw more international criticism of the country's political controls ahead of the Beijing Olympics.”...

China: Hu Jia to be sentenced today

  3 April 2008

Hu Jia goes back on ‘trial’ in a few hours where it is expected he will be handed down a sentence of up to five years in prison based on two interviews given and six unspecified blog posts most of which were written during the more than one year he...