Friends and acquaintances of the detainees, as well as members of local youth movements have extensively used new media tools, such as Facebook and weblogs to spread the news and gather supporters in front of the court.

For instance, Mamedovali [RU] wrote in two languages - Azeri and Russian:

Завтра в 14:00 Аппеляционный Суд Будет рассматривать Дело Аднана Гаджизаде и Эмина Милли(Абдуллаева).
Приглашаю всех в знак поддержки прийти в 14:00 к Апелляционному суду.

Sabah saat 14:00-da Azərbaycan Apelliasiya Məhkəməsi Adnan Hajizadə və Emin Millinin(Abdullayev) işinə baxacaq. Hamini Dəstək olmaq üçün Apelliasiya Məhkəməsinin qarşisina gəlməyə təklif edirəm.

Tomorrow, at 14:00 the Court of Appeals will consider the case of Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli (Abdullayev). I invite all to come to the Court of Appels to show their support.

Matthew Collin from Al-Jazeera, who also blogs for UK-based Frontline Club and has a personal blog titled This is Tbilisi Calling, has arrived in Baku to cover the case of detained bloggers just in time for the appeal hearing:

I'm in Baku to cover the case for Al Jazeera, and people working in what remains of the independent media here in Azerbaijan have been telling me they are increasingly nervous about who the authorities might target next. This is a country where critical journalists have often been jailed, assaulted and even killed, where international broadcasters have been forced off the airwaves, and where television is relentlessly pro-government. Now anti-government bloggers have received what some of them perceive to be a warning not to step out of line too often.

Just hours before the court appeal, two alleged ‘victims' of Emin and Adnan's hooliganism unexpectedly appeared in public. In their appeal, as reproduced by Journaleast [AZ], they plead the Azeri media “not to let them be victims of false accusations” and “to write the truth and assist in emergence of the truth.“

Thoughts on the Road was somehow furious about their appeal:

[…] Amazing. In this account, Emin and Adnan are depicted as ruffians, drinking and swearing in a restaurant. Babek Huseynov and his associates were just some peaceful guys who wanted some peace and quiet, so they approached Emin and Adnan, asking the guys to quiet down. You can read the rest of it in the article. The fact that Emin and Adnan were pro-democracy activists is not mentioned in the [appeal]. Of course.

Now, I have never met Emin or Adnan personally and I was not in that Lebanese restaurant that night. I have, however, eaten in that very restaurant. It was noisy when I ate there. I find it incredible that Emin and Adnan were being that much noisier than anyone else. So much noisier that these fellows came over to ask them to quiet down. Why did these fellows have to take matters into their own hands? If Adnan and Emin were so out of hand, would the management allow them to be so disruptive? Perhaps if Emin and Adnan had been well-connected government officials, this might be possible. But they are not and the scenario described here is completely implausible.

No, the story published here doesn't smell right at all. It isn't even logical. But logic has never been an essential ingredient for government propaganda.

I was livetweeting outside the court sending regular updates to my followers. Here is a selection from my tweets:

After three hours of waiting, the lawyers of Emin and Adnan came out of the court with a new that their appeals and all objections refected:

Learning the news from Twitter, Thoughts on the Road came up with a bitter post:

The news via Twitter is that the appeal of Emin Milli & Adnan Hajizade has been rejected. Not many more details available at this point. On the Facebook pages this morning - expressions of disgust & frustration. The natural regret for hoping against hope that an undemocratic government would respect human rights. But the face of the Azerbaijani government is unmistakable. It is not democratic. It is not concerned with human rights. It is not concerned with fairness or justice.

However, Media Helping Media wrote a bit cold-blooded:

Tweets from supporters of the two Azerbaijani bloggers arrested and detained on 8 July say their appeals at separate hearings have been rejected.

The two men, Adnan Hajizada and Emin Abdullayev (Milli), now face two months detention before their trial on hooliganism charges will take place.

Al-Jazeera's Matthew Collin summed up the events of all these days in a short paragraph as below:

Friends of two detained internet activists in Azerbaijan sang and wept in the street outside court yesterday after their appeal for release was dismissed. Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli were arrested for ‘hooliganism’ after allegedly being involved in a fight in a restaurant in the capital, Baku, but their friends believe they were targeted for their use of online media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to build support for pro-democracy youth groups in this oil-rich but politically intolerant country. This satirical video, featuring a talking donkey, is the most celebrated example. There’s more on their activities in the OL! Movement blog, while their case has become an international issue partly due to their own networking skills and the mainstream media's post-Iran obsession with online culture, but also thanks to the tireless work of other bloggers, like the team at Global Voices Online.

Matthew Collin also prepared a video report for Al-Jazeera on detained Azeri bloggers which was also posted on Youtube:

After hearing the news, Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines wrote a long post about her frustration which ended with an pessimistic note:

There are messages circling on Facebook saying to stay strong and be united. I couldn't agree more!

Incidentally, tomorrow 22 July is the National Media Day in Azerbaijan. On this day, in 1875, an Azeri intellectual Hasan bey Zardabi published what is now considered the first Azeri newspaper Akinchi (The Cultivator).

In February 2007, the European Parliament has passed a proposal (571 in favor, 38 against) submitted by MEP, to treat Internet censorship by national governments as a trade barrier.

Brussels, 25 November 2008

MEPs urge Internet and telecommunication companies to sign Human Rights code

Dutch MEP Jules Maaten: “Privacy protection in authoritarian states is a matter of life or death”

This morning the Dutch Liberal MEP Jules Maaten has together with seven of his colleagues from all the main political parties sent letters to the main European internet and telecommunication companies to call on them to sign a voluntary human rights code which was recently developed and signed by the American Internet companies Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Jules Maaten (Netherlands, VVD): “European business must not fall behind in the protection of human rights. They are confronted with the same ethical questions as their American rivals when operating in authoritarian states such as China, Cuba and Tunisia. Innocent European software can be used by authoritarian regimes for oppression and prosecution.”

The letters, of which you find a copy [below], have been sent to the CEOs of France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, BT, KPN, Skype, Nokia, Erikson, Eutelsat, Vodafone etc. The letter is signed by Jules Maaten (ALDE), Chistofer Fjellner (EPP), Edward McMillan-Scott (EPP), Paulo Casaca (PSE), Karin Riis Jorgensen (ALDE), Henrik Lax (ALDE), Eva Lichtenberger (Verts) and Frithjof Schmidt (Verts).

The Human Rights code, the Global Network Initiative, was developed in cooperation with human rights organisations and universities agreeing to a set of principles governing how they do business in countries that restrict free speech and privacy rights. In addition to limiting the personal data they share with governments, the companies agreed to assess the human rights climate in a country before they conclude new business deals. They also pledged to respect and protect freedom of expression.

Maaten considers the self regulation of the European internet and telecommunications industry as a welcome first step, but nonetheless would like to see binding legislation adopted. On the 17th of July Jules Maaten proposed together with seven other MEPs the European ‘Global Online Freedom Act', legislation which protects the Global freedom on the Internet.

Following is a copy of the letter:

Brussels, 25 November 2008

Dear Mr. Lombard,

Recently the US based Internet companies Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft together with human rights groups and investment companies agreed upon a set of principles governing how they do business in countries that restrict free speech and privacy rights. This self regulatory code is called the Global Network Initiative (GNI).
We are counting on you to ensure that the European Internet and Telecommunication Industry also takes part in this dialogue on human rights enable to ensure a free and open Internet. We therefore urge your company to sign up to the GNI agreement. Although we would like to see further binding measures to be taken as for example the adoption of the European Global Online Freedom Act, we consider the GNI code as a welcome first step in ensuring that human rights will also be respected Online.

Yours sincerely,

Jules Maaten (ALDE)

Chistofer Fjellner (EPP)

Edward McMillan-Scott (EPP)

Karin Riis Jørgensen (ALDE)

Henrik Lax (ALDE)

Paulo Casaca (PSE)

Eva Lichtenberger (Verts)

Frithjof Schmidt (Verts)

Why should we care about it?

Surveillance and data retention is a problem that deserves Global attention, even for developing countries. In developing countries protests for such causes are sometimes not among the list of priorities, such as poverty, hunger and violence, which are the major concerns. Not quite. In Peru, breaking news points to surveillance coming from the government, and recently in Guatemala, the President himself was under heavy surveillance.

Mass surveillance is threatening the fabric of a democratic and open society and a healthy Internet. Mass surveillance is also endangering the work and commitment of civil society organizations - on and offline. That is why many conscious people got together last Saturday to commemorate Freedom not Fear Day, with a variety of peaceful protests:

In Berlin the greatest protest march against surveillance in Germany's history took place: Participants in the 2 km long, peaceful protest march carried signs reading “You are Germany, you are a suspect”, “No Stasi 2.0 - Constitution applicable here”, “Fear of Freedom?” and “Glass citizens, brittle democracy”. Apart from related music tracks, loud chants of “Belittle it today, be under surveillance tomorrow” or “We are here and we are loud because they are stealing our data” could be heard. During the protests, which were supported by more than 100 civil liberties groups, professional associations, unions, political parties and other organisations, artists played parodies on surveillance society.

It all started with the opposition to a Data Retention directive in EU. Now it has evolved and become global, as expressed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):

Freedom Not Fear has evolved into a more general warning: showing how fundamental freedoms like privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic participation lose when reactionary surveillance systems penetrate our open networks, justified by a hyperbolic rhetoric of fear.

Saturday was a day to express why freedom, democracy, free speech, the right to private spaces and the right to private communication are important for any open society, and why mass-surveillance, mass data storage, mass data retention and video-surveillance by governments and private corporations are undermining such important liberties. The Internet is not immune for such invasion, actually, it has become a “tool” enabling many governments to control. The main argument has been Security concerns, but as explained by expert Bruce Schneir on his blog:

Too many wrongly characterize the debate as “security versus privacy.” The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

Events took place in more than a dozen countries around the World, and hopefully in the years to come more voices will join to act against such abuses from Governments and companies.

From a big picture (above) unveiled by Open Rights Group in London, to a meeting of up to 100,000 people in Berlin, activities in Argentina, articles in Chile, an informative talk in Guatemala, and a rally followed by a Statement for October 11, 2008 in U.S., many people joined efforts to express their opposition to the increasing surveillance and controls by governments and also against data retention.

The most important messages were to affirm international human rights, including freedom of expression and privacy protection, repeal legal authorities that permit warrantless surveillance, unconstitutional monitoring and tracking of individuals, and a call to end the culture of secrecy that allows government officials to hide mismanagement, fraud, and incompetence behind the veil of “homeland security”, i.e. a call to transparency.

As GNS Blog said:

Computer technology, with its ability to store masses of data and then mine it for patterns of behaviour, or reproduce it to the unauthorised, or just monitor people's everyday activity, has a huge potential for ill in the hands of repressive or technologically illiterate governments. Equally it has huge potential for empowerment, the enablement of free speech and social networking

Here you can watch this illustrative video on Youtube:

Tongue in cheek Póvoa Online, which had been available since 2005, was very popular among locals because of its sharp sense of humour and funny caricatures of local politicians, some of which illustrate this piece. Last week, the administrators received the following message from Google explaining the reasons for the closure of the blog hosted with Blogspot:

“Hello,

We'd like to inform you that we've received a court order regarding your blog http://povoaonline.blogspot.com. In accordance with the terms of the court order, we've been forced to remove your blog. A copy of the court order we received is attached. Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,The Blogger Team

No sooner was Povoa Online deleted than a new blog was created by the same group of irreverent bloggers who sign under the pseudonym Tony Vieira. Povoa Offline made its first appearance publishing the full court decision and amassing nearly 150 comments so far. However, they are still not sure why, as citizens, they were forbidden from expressing themselves in a blog, as Tony explains [pt]: “To my knowledge, nobody has been able so far to explain the legal aspects of the court decision to thousands of “bloggers” who are out there in Portugal, only to mention the Portuguese Lusosphere.”

Ludwig Krippahl [pt] believes that the Portuguese judges don't understand the basic principle that blogs, as opposed to the established media and journalists, are open spaces that represent people's opinions and this should be therefore defended under the right of expression. He also points out that since 2000 the Portuguese courts have been given five convictions by the European Court of Human Rights for violations of this fundamental right:

Este caso caricato mostra que os autarcas não percebem bem como estas coisas funcionam. Além de chamar mais atenção para estas alegações, agora qualquer um pode ler na notificação do tribunal precisamente aquilo que eles queriam retirar do acesso público. Além disso, apesar de não se saber se as alegações são verdadeiras, a decisão do tribunal só mencione o ataque à reputação, honra e bom nome dos queixosos e não a sua inocência.

Blogger JMSP [pt] has decided to resort to auto-censorship, and thought it was better not to comment further about the reasons behind the decision:

Nem queria acreditar: o blogue mais lido da Póvoa e um dos mais lidos em Portugal, o povoaonline foi eliminado! Resta a cache, aqui e aqui e suas sequelas que perdurarão no etérea www. Nem me atrevo a pronunciar-me sobre o caso, não me bloqueiem também a mim ou, pior, não me mandem para o Tarrafal. Mas, obviamente, disponibilizo-me para testemunha abonatória do velho Tony.

[*Translation note: Tarrafal, also known as “Camp of the Slow Death”, was a concentration camp in the former Portuguese colony, Cape Verde]

JCD [pt] says that the blogger could not really be considered a loose cannon, but agrees that it is only fair that the courts deal with the type of accusations they used to make in cases where people felt victims of libelous accusations. However something does not feel quite right:

Mas… não é incomodativo este tipo de actuação judicial, semelhante à queima dos livros, esta opção pelo apagar da história das ofensas passadas? “Crime”, disse o juiz. “Que as palavras heréticas jamais sejam lidas…”

The proposal will now pass to the European Council. If adopted as a European Union (EU) law, the proposal could have an impact on future trade negotiations between the EU and governments engaged in Internet censorship. “As the adopted amendment on treating internet censorship as a trade barrier is currently only the wish of the Parliament it is not yet part of EU legislation. We will nonetheless keep on pressuring the European Commission and the Council to formally adopt such a proposal in EU legislation,” Jethro van Hardeveld, the political assistant to Jules Maaten, said in an email.

On November 7th, 2007, a public hearing on “Censorship & cyber-dissidents. Freedom on the internet in authoritarian states” was organized by Jules Maaten and two other MEPs from the Alliance for Liberals And Democrats for Europe (ALDE Group) in Brussels. The hearing included voices from cyber-dissidents from Tunisia and China, Reporters sans frontières (RSF), and the Dutch ISP XS4all, on “the increasing grip of governments in repressive states on the content of the Internet.”

The hearing also called for a European version of the Global Online Freedom Act (PDF) in the United States: “The EU will now have to make supporting journalists and cyber dissidents a priority. Free speech must remain the basis of the Internet. Europe should follow the American example where legislators are working on a Global Online Freedom Act. We urge the European Commission to follow this example and come up with a European version of this Act,” Jules Maaten declared.

In a recent parliamentary question on February 21, 2008, Jules Maaten asked whether the Commission is, “willing to invest 20 million euros in technologies able to develop and distribute anti-censorship tools and services which could help Internet users breach electronic firewalls set up by China, Iran and other closed societies?”

I sent some questions for an interview to MEP Jules Maaten which were answered by his political assistant Jethro van Hardeveld:

Sami: Can you give us a brief background about this Internet anti-censorship proposal?

Jethro van Hardeveld: Since 2006 our office has been active on the issue of internet censorship. We started working on internet censorship with the resolution and debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2006 on ‘freedom of expression on the internet'. The motivation for working on the issue of online censorship is that free speech must remain the basis of the Internet and that human rights should also be protected online.

Sami: Why this focus on the “great firewall” of China? Does China represent the primary target of this initiative or does it also include all other countries engaged in online censorship - even those commonly described by the EU as “moderate Arab regimes” such as Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, etc.?

Jethro van Hardeveld: The proposal is not focussed at any specific country. It calls on the European Commission to deal with censorship in third countries through it´s external trade policy. It is in no way solemnly directed at China. In a press statement (also attached) from Jules Maaten however we did mention the ‘Great Firewall of China' as it it is a concrete example and one of the most well known cases of censorship.

Sami: The European Union's association agreement with countries like Tunisia explicitly requires them to observe human rights and political freedom, however, the EU did not establish a well-functioning mechanism to address continuing human rights abuses by those governments, so how you will deal with the online censorship? Are we going to see the EU boycotting products or imposing sanctions?

Jethro van Hardeveld: We are calling for the EU to adopt a European version of the American Global Online freedom Act. This EU legislation should cover and deal with online censorship by European internet companies in third countries. This legislation should also contain provisions obliging European internet companies to place their servers in non authoritarian/western states, in order to guarantee that will we not get another ‘Shi Tao' case (the arrests of cyber dissidents ). Furthermore, the European Commission more or the less admitted in an answer to written questions by Jules Maaten that the self regulation in the European internet industry has failed. The European Commission answer: …”the Commission welcomes this clear and unequivocal statement and calls for the industry to work in close cooperation with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on a code of conduct to prevent and counteract cyber repression. The Commission regrets that, so far, no progress has been made on this issue.”…