January, 2009

Monthly archive · 13 posts


Stories from January, 2009

30 January 2009

North Africa: are political websites more likely to get hacked?

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Political opposition websites in North African countries, particularly in Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania, are becoming a primary target of hackers. This new phenomenon of defacing opposition and dissident websites emerged first in Tunisia, where at least 14 websites and blogs were targeted between 2007 and 2008, and seems to be spreading across the region as a result of the attempt to muzzle free speech both online and offline.

Egyptian Quranist Blogger Released

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Egyptian blogger Reda Abdel-Rahman (32) is freed on January 23, 2009, after being detained since last October. Reda is a social worker at a Religious Institute affiliated to Al-Azhar. The young blogger is known as a “Quranist” who rejects the Sunnah (which means “the way and the manners of the prophet Muhammad” - wikipedia) and considers the Quran as the only source of Shariaa (the body of Islamic religious law).

More than 1500 websites closed down in China anti-Smut

Since the anti-Smut campaign began in Jan 5, in less than a month, the China government has already closed down more than 1500 websites. Xiao Qiang, director of the China...

23 January 2009

LGBT content unreasonably filtered away in Hong Kong

A LGBT concern group, leslovestudy, conduced a research in Hong Kong [Chinese pdf] in November, 2008 on 5 major commercial and public filters in Hong Kong. The NGO found out...

22 January 2009

Morocco blocks four opposition websites

Four websites of the Jama’a Al Adl wa Al Ihsan (Justice and Spirituality), Morocco’s largest Islamic movement (officially illegal), have been blocked in Morocco this week and redirected to the following blockpage:

21 January 2009

Bahrain: Scores of Websites Blocked

Scores of websites have been blocked in Bahrain, following a new crackdown by the Ministry of Information. The latest sweep makes sites ranging from Google Translate to those of social, religious, human rights and political groups inaccessible to people in Bahrain.

Harry Nicolaides, Thailand's latest political prisoner

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The Harry Nicolaides case raises vital issues, procedurally, legally and in Thai society. Was Harry arrested because he wrote in English and therefore his self-published expat bargirl novel of 50 paid-for vanity copies of which seven (we repeat, seven) copies were actually sold, represented a clear and present danger to the Thai monarchy from the world community?