Stories about News from July, 2008
No to Kuwait's New Internet Law
Kuwaiti bloggers are angry at a proposed new Internet Law, which they claim would make their days as free bloggers numbered, after Attorney General Hamad Al Othman announced that a new law dealing with Internet crimes will be issued soon. Abdullatif Al Omar takes a closer look at the Kuwaiti blogosphere and their reactions to the impending law.
China: Another popular blog site shut down for the Olympics
Sohoxiaobao, not the prettiest but definitely one of the earlier blog service providers in China, has been out of operation for a week now. We've reported here on Sohoxiaobao before; some of you might remember the story of Chinese police officer and artist Wu Youming who lost his job due...
Iran: A news site restarted its activity
Ilna,Iranian Labour News Agency, restarted last week its activities after being filtered for several months.
China: Locking down IDC server rooms for the Olympics
While Chinese webmasters wait to see if the Olympics will bring tightened reins on the internet as is widely expected, more specific documents have recently appeared online which suggest part of Beijing's Olympic Plan is to place controls over Chinese internet data centers of severity that hasn't been seen since...
Belarus: The Blast, the Arrests, and Bloggers’ Solidarity
A week ago, a homemade bomb packed with bolts and screws tore through a crowd of thousands of people who had gathered for the Independence Day all-night concert near the World War II monument in central Minsk. The blast occurred around 12:30 a.m on July 4; some 54 people were wounded; Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko happened to be nearby when the bomb went off, but was not hurt.
Iran:Jahan News site was filtered
Several Iranian blogs and sites reported that Iran based Jahannews (means world news) site was filtered last week after it published a letter, written by an Iranian parliament member, criticizing Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's chief prosecutor. The main issue in this letter was about corruption in one of Iranian universities.
Iran: Students support Tavancheh, a leftist student
Abed Tavancheha, an Iranian leftist student and blogger, was sentenced to 8 months prison for his political activities. He has less than 3 weeks to request an appeal. More than 100 students signed a petition in Sos Tavancheh to support this leftist student.
No Movement on Death Sentence for Afghan Internet User
Journalism student Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, accused of supposedly copyng text from an Iranian website criticizing Islam's stance on the treatment of women and sentenced to death for heresy, was berated by his own judge at his most recent appeals hearing, according to Jean MacKenzie at IWPR.
China: Details on Olympic internet crackdown appear
Beijing's Olympic Plan for the mainland China-based portion of the blogging and BBSing netosphere is starting to take shape. While on one hand it's coming coated in talk of self-restraint and uses words like “professional” and “responsibility”, the wording in an official notice [zh] which appeared online this week and...
Iran: Hardliners mull death penalty for Internet crimes
According to several news sites Iran's parliament is set to debate a draft bill which could see the death penalty used for those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet. According to this draft bill bloggers can face the death penalty too.
