Stories about Feature from December, 2011
Turkey: No tweets from the courtroom!
“Today the judge is more strict” says the tweet, “One undercover police for each row! All monitoring the ones who are tweeting!“ In Istanbul-Turkey, today is the 2nd day of the hearings of 10 arrested journalists. Turkey is the leader country even before China and Iran with the figures...
Egyptian veteran blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah released
Egyptian veteran blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah has finally been released pending investigation from the Cairo Criminal Court yesterday after being detained for 56 days. He comes home to his family and his 20-day-old son, who was born while his daddy was detained. Cute little Khaled was named after Egypt’s...
Netizen Report: Remembrance Edition
Vaclav Havel, a poet, playwright, dissident, last president of Czechoslovakia, and first president of the Czech Republic, died on Dec 18 at age 75. His story and words continue to inspire people around the world to fight against repression. Netizens around the world are doing their best to resist injustice and abuse of power, as events of the past fortnight make clear.
For Bloggers at Risk: Creating a Contingency Plan
In 2011, we have witnessed the incredible power of bloggers and social media users capturing the world’s attention through their activism. At the same time, regimes appear to be quickening the pace of their cat-and-mouse game with netizens, cracking down on speech through the use of surveillance, censorship, and the persecution and detention of bloggers. Aware of the risks they face, some bloggers have created contingency plans to protect themselves and contacts in the event of an arrest. Here are some suggestions.
China: Real Name Registration for Micro-blogging
The Beijing city government introduced a new set of regulations on December 16, 2011 to control the flow of information in micro-blogging platforms. The Beijing Municipal Regulations Concerning the Development and Control of Microblogs [zh] (English version via Bill Bishop) requires users to register their real identity before posting messages...
Bahrain: Blogger Zainab Al-Khawaja Brutally Arrested
Bahraini blogger Zainab Al-Khawaja, whose tweets @angryarabiya are keeping the world up-to-date with atrocities committed by the Bahraini regime against protesters, was brutally arrested on Friday. The mother of a two-year-old, whose father and husband are in jail, has been detained for seven days pending investigation. Netizens were on the ground and documented her arrest.
PalConnect: Palestine's First-Ever Social Media Conference
Palestine had its first-ever social media conference on December 4-6, 2011. It brought together Palestinian social media activists from across Palestine with the goal of supporting the development of local digital activism.
SOPA undermines the U.S. in its negotiations for a free, open Internet
Yesterday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) approved a Recommendation on Principles for Internet Policy Making [pdf]. It contains a set of 14 principles intended as a blueprint guiding Internet policy development for its 34 member states. Many of these principles uphold core values we have long championed:...
Netizen Report: Fight for the Future Edition
As we celebrate the birth of Khaled Alaa Abdel Fattah, born last Tuesday to two Egyptian cyber-activists: mother Manal Bahey al-Din Hassan and father Alaa Abd El-Fattah who is currently in prison, we ask ourselves: "What are we doing to make sure that our children will even be able to use the Internet to fight for their rights speak truth to power?"
Syria: Free Razan Ghazzawi
Syrian authorities have arrested blogger Razan Ghazzawi on the Syrian-Jordanian border today. Ghazzawi, who was arrested on the Syrian-Jordanian border, was on her way to Amman to attend a workshop on press freedom in the Arab world. Her arrest has drawn criticism and anger from bloggers and activists around the world, who called for her immediate release.
For Chinese Netizens, SOPA is Another Great Firewall
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which expected to brought to a vote in U.S. House of Representatives before the end of the year, has spawned sarcastic commentary around the Chinese-language Internet. The Chinese government has long been criticized by Americans for obstructing the free flow of information through a filtering system popularly known as the Great Firewall. Now it is Chinese neitzens' turn to sneer at proposals for a Made-in-America Great Firewall.
