Archive for the ‘Saudi Arabia’ Category Category RSS

The Power of 140 Characters: Twitter in the Middle East

The massive, sustained protests in Iran this past month against the regime’s apparent falsification of the presidential election results was enabled by widespread employment of new communication technologies. Among them is Twitter, the micro-blog which enables its users to distribute short messages of no more than 140 characters ('Tweets') via ...

Saudi Arabia blocking Twitter pages of activists

Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has recently blocked access to Twitter accounts of a blogger @Mashi97 and a human rights activist @abualkhair. The move comes after the role Twitter played in the recent post-elections uprising in Iran. Blogger Khaled al-Nasser told AFP that his tweets which included ...

Arrest of Christian Convert blogger in Saudi Arabia

According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHR), Saudi authorities have arrested the 28-year-old blogger Hamoud Bin Saleh and blocked his blog Masihi Saudi (A Saudi Christian). The ANHR adds further that blogger Hamoud Bin Saleh was arrested "due to his opinions and announcement at his blog that ...

Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Syria Prevent blogger and journalists from Attending Free Press Conference in Beirut

One blogger, two journalists, and one online writer were prevented from traveling to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the 3rd Arab Free Press Forum that took place on 12 and 13 December, 2008 Saudi Arabia prevented the leading Saudi blogger, Fouad Al Farhan, from attending the event where he was scheduled to take part in a panel entitled “The Changing face of Arab blogging“.

The Blogging Revolution: from Iran to Cuba

Antony Loewenstein, a Sydney-based freelance journalist and blogger, has recently published his new book: The Blogging Revolution. This book talks about the impact of blogging on six countries: Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Cuba.

Saudi Arabia: Why Should Arabs Have Access to the Internet?

For days, cyberactivists have been busy discussing the case of Moroccan blogger Mohammed Erraji, who was arrested, put on trial, sentenced - and then freed, and then put on trial again and finally acquitted. Who is Mohammed Erraji? Why did he cross 'red lines' knowing well that in many countries in the Middle East criticising members of the vast Ruling families is very likely to result in repercussions and punishment? Saudi blogger Fouad Al Farhan, who recently found himself behind bars for his writings in Saudi Arabia, visits Erraji's blog looking for answers.

Saudi Arabia: Freedom for Fouad Al Farhan

Saudi blogger Fouad Al Farhan is now a free man, after spending 137 days in detention in Jeddah. While bloggers have all along speculated why he has been held by the authorities for this long, Arab bloggers are unanimously excited over his release. And they also share their hopes for the release of other jailed bloggers.