February, 2010

Stories from February, 2010

Thailand: Another lèse majesté computer act arrest

  16 February 2010

On February 5 an unidentified man was arrested for comments he posted to a webboard. His house was searched, his computer confiscated as evidence, his family frightened, and friends panicked. These are ordinary people who express opinions that the authorities consider dangerous, and the mainstream media never allows. The Internet...

Malaysia: Doctored Photos of Politicians No-No

  15 February 2010

A blogger, who had allegedly posted doctored images of Kelantan Mentri Besar, Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim. The image is reported to have Nik Abdul Aziz having anal intercourse with Anwar.

China: Police shut down hacking school

  10 February 2010

As the Google hacking incident is turning into an international scandal, the China Daily News released the news that Chinese police had cracked down the country's largest hacking school in Hubei back in November 2009. The report seems to suggest that hacking is a private business and has nothing to...

Libya blocks access to Youtube and independent websites

  9 February 2010

On January 24th, 2010, Libya Telecom and Technology (LTT) has blocked access to the popular video sharing website Youtube and to several Libyans based abroad political and independent websites such as Libya Al Youm, Al Manara, Jeel Libya, Akhbar Libya,and Libya Al Mostakbal. And while Google didn't confirm the ban...

Pakistan: PTA Blocks President's “Shut-Up” Video

  9 February 2010

Sunday evening [7th February 2010] Youtube.com started facing intermittent reports of irregular inaccessibility across various ISP's in Pakistan. It initially started off with a simple white page displaying the word “This Site is Restricted” throughout the Youtube domain which were reported widely on Herdict Web, roughly displaying that the site-wide...

SourceForge Removes Blanket Block

  8 February 2010

In late January, on the same day as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech on Net freedom, open source community SourceForge blocked access to users from Sudan, Syria, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea, in an effort to keep in line with U.S. Treasury export restrictions on those countries. On Sunday, SourceForge announced that they had revoked the ban, unveiling their new strategy for complying with U.S. law.

Global Voices and Google announce freedom of expression award jury

  3 February 2010

The Breaking Borders Award is a new prize created by Google and Global Voices and supported by Thomson Reuters to honor outstanding web projects initiated by individuals or groups that demonstrate courage, energy and resourcefulness in using the Internet to promote freedom of expression. We are proud to announce our...

China: More than 100 thousand websites shut down

  3 February 2010

According to Southern Metropolis’ report on 18 Jan 2010, more than 100 thousand websites have been shut down in China since the white list policy has come into effect in December 2009. Self employed individuals who tried to maintain their business online were affected the most. The internet cleaning was...

Interview with blogger Wael Abbas and call for support!

  2 February 2010

On November 11th, 2009, prominent Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas has been sentenced in absentia to 6 months in jail and LE 500 pounds (92 USD) as a judiciary bail, as a lawsuit was filed against him by a citizen and his police officer brother on charges of damaging an internet...