And while Google didn't confirm the ban of it's service in Libya, the Libyan al-Manara newspaper reported, citing an informed source in the LLT, that the ban is temporary and was meant “to ease pressure on the Network by the users of the website [Youtube] inside Libya“.

However, and according to Human Rights Watch it seems that Youtube was blocked after videos of family members of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and of demonstrations in Benghazi by families of prisoners who were killed in Abu Salim prison in 1996, were published on the video sharing website.

The move has worried Libyan bloggers who fear that the ban will be expanded to include their personal blogs. Some Facebook groups, like “We want YouTube back in Libya“, have been set up to protest the ban and provide instructions for how to use proxy servers to bypass it.

Instead it was then reported that the Internet governing body Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which monitors internet access from Pakistan has placed a URL-specific ban on one particular video in which the President of Pakistan Mr. Asif Ali Zardari is seen to deliver a very forceful and curt “Shut-up” to some participant at the rally he was addressing a rally barely a few weeks back.

It must be noted that Mr. Zardari actually says in Urdu

“What has happened to this democracy ……. Shut Up”

Many Pakistanis would find this as a hilarious coincidence coming from a infamous corrupt leader who has a quite a large number of corruption cases outstanding against him. In 2007, his wife Benazir Bhutto was assassinated after which Mr. Zardari successfully hijacked her party and nudged his way into the power corridors in Pakistan and land up in the Presidency. All this was only possible as he negotiated a compromise with the then President of Pakistan, General Pervaiz Musharraf by fabricating an illegal constitutional order [NRO - National Reconciliatory Ordinance] which pardoned him of all his corruption cases

Link to the Blocked Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzuHD5×1fEU [a few other variants have also been blocked]

Sources analyzing this recent censorship attempts suggest that the PTA engineers were yet again testing & fine tuning the URL-block list as they slowly nudged these videos inaccessible to Pakistani, this risky trial and error has been the hallmark of the very same PTA engineers who in February 2008 masterminded [accidentally] to knock out the entire youtube.com network as then PTA tried to block a certain election vote rigging video ending up to misconfiguring the DNS records of Youtube resulting an serious outage world wide for a good few hours before youtube scrambled to fix the errors

Political analysts believe this recent run of censorship is more a knee-jerk reaction by the present rulers of the country as they are facing pressure from a number of areas, more specifically the previously side-lined corruption cases that they had in 2008 nudged away by some illegal constitutional reforms, to get themselves elected have been reopened for a detailed investigation by the Supreme Court of Pakistan which as done away with the various constitutional reforms bringing at stake their appointment to these high-level offices

Ordinary netizens were outraged, and Syrian users fought back, blogging about the restrictions and calling for entrepreneurship in the community. Now, two weeks later, SourceForge has announced a change in restrictions that would allow greater autonomy for projects hosted on the site. On their official blog, SourceForge directors explained:

Our action provoked a strong, angry reaction from those it affected and from the community at large. But even before we heard your cries of outrage, we were looking for reasonable alternatives – and we believe that we’ve found one.

We have no way of knowing exactly which projects should trigger a block. But each project’s leadership is positioned to make such determination – so we’ve placed that power in their hands.

Beginning now, every project admin can click on Develop -> Project Admin -> Project Settings to find a new section called Export Control. By default, we’ve ticked the more restrictive setting. If you conclude that your project is *not* subject to export regulations, or any other related prohibitions, you may now tick the other check mark and click Update. After that, all users will be able to download your project files as they did before last month’s change.

We at SourceForge are fully committed to the ideals of free and open source software, including the principle of free exchange of information. We recognize that, for some people, the recent site changes called into question whether your support of us is justified. The changes that we deployed today are intended to empower our projects and reward your continued trust.

It remains to be seen how the new strategy will affect SourceForge users, or how many projects will choose to turn off the restrictions, but for now, users are happy to have regained access to the site.

Januray 2010- In the Philippines, the National Bureau of Investigation filed a libel complaint against blogger Ella Ganda upon the request of former Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Esperanza Cabral, over a blog post, published on October 21, 2009, that exposed stockpiles of unprocessed relief goods intended for victims of supertyphoon Ketsana. Blogger Ella claimed that “employees of the Department of Social Welfare and Development had hoarded relief goods that were donated for the victims of the devastating Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (Ketsana) and Typhoon “Pepeng” (Parma)”.

In her blog post Ella also posted “photos of imported blankets and mats supposedly donated by foreign agencies stored in the alleged DSWD warehouse”.

According to the Inquirer.net, the libel case against Ella was “for claiming that relief goods were left to rot in a government agency warehouse“.

On her blog, Ella reacted by saying:

It was never my intention to villify Sec. Cabral, or the good people at the DSWD. My reaction at the sight of tons of relief goods which were apparently not moving was one of anger, of helplessness and dismay.

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 jury members for the award. The jury is drawn from experts and leaders in the freedom of expression, journalism, digital activism, and technology sectors, and includes representatives from around the world. Members of the jury are:

Sheila Coronel, Director, Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Jose Roberto de Toledo, Projects and Training Coordinator, Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI); Director, PrimaPagina
Edetaen Ojo, Convenor, International Freedom of Expression Exchange, Executive Director, Media Rights Agenda
Dean Wright, Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards, Reuters
Rebecca MacKinnon, Co-Founder, Global Voices; Visiting Fellow, Princeton University Center for Information Technology
Robert Boorstin, Director, Public Policy, Google

The Breaking Borders Award is open to people of all nationalities. Winners will be selected by a panel of experts in the field of freedom of expression. A cash prize of $10,000 will be awarded in each of three areas:

1. Advocacy, given to an activist or group that has used online tools to promote free expression or encourage political change
2. Technology, given to an individual or group that has created an important tool that enables free expression and expands access to information
3. Policy, given to a policy maker, government official or NGO leader who has made a notable contribution in the field

Nominations for and additional information about the Breaking Borders Award can be submitted at http://breakingborders.net and close on February 15, 2010.

Global voices is very excited to be associated with this event. Contact us at nomination@breakingborders.net with any questions.

The internet cleaning was jointly launched by the Ministry of Information Industry Technology (MIIT), Public Security Bureau, Culture Bureau and the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) under the pretext of anti-vulgarity campaign. In September 2009, SARFT started cleaning up audio-visual websites by demanding them to apply for license, as a result more than 530 video websites had been shut down. After the license crack down, SARFT continued to clean up the internet in November 2009 by making use of the anti-vugarity campaign. Most of the BT websites were gone and among one of them is BT China which had been online for six years and finally shut down in December 2009.

On 8 of December 2009, a total of 9 governmental departments, including International Communication Office of CCP and Public Security Bureau, held a tele-conference and decided to launch a campaign against internet and mobile phone's pornographic information between December 2009 and May 2010.

Chinese netizens said this is the most hard-handed repression of the Internet in the history.

The official data released by the Public Security Bureau shows that in 2009 the Bureau had shut down more than 9000 websites and issued warning 11 thousands internet operation unit. 6500 servers had been either suspended or shut down while 6 internet service providers and 8 internet advertisement service providers had their license suspended.

On 14 December 2009, CNNIC banned individual from registering cn domain name and three major telecoms agreed to filter illegal SMS content. It is estimated that more than 1 million individuals are affected by the CNNIC's new policy and more than 100 thousands websites were forced to shut down by the data center.

In order to get a proper license for BBS kind of websites, an individual needs to attain the Internet Content Provider license and the pre-condition of such license is to have a company registered with 1 million yuan capital. It implies that the new policy will make internet self-employed business impossible.

As a result of the CNNIC's policy, there is a sudden grow of “.com” registration from China. Between December 7-14 2009, there were more than 180 thousand “.cm” registration from China, the increase compared to the same period last year is up to 1300%. Moreover, a large number of websites were migrated out of China.

In this interview with Wael Abbas, we will learn more about the case and what activists can do to support him:

Noha:Are you already in jail, or expected to be taken to a prison?

Wael: No, I'm not in jail at the moment, but this might happen after the session of 18th of february.

Noha:Do you know where you will serve the sentence, which prison?!

Wael: No I don't which prison are they going to take me. I'm not sure about that.

Noha: Did you appeal the sentence?

Wael: Yes I did peal the sentence.

Noha:Do you think this sentence have something to do with your blogging activities?

Wael: Well, in the beginning I didn't think that it had anything to do with my blogging. But since my first case was held, a case in which I accused the officer of attacking me at home and breaking my tooth, since it was held and I was sentenced in absentia, I'm sure that there is something fishy behind it.

Noha:How people can show solidarity with you?

Wael: I don't know, it's up to the people. but spreading he word and exposing that this is unjust or this might be motivated by security, government retaliation or something, ..this might help. Because it's totally unjust. I'm accused of something that I didn't do and I'm getting the maximum punishment which is usually given to somebody who tore down a factory or destroyed a farm or tore down a house. And I'm accused of cutting cable, so you go figure! Tank you.

Blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah has called for the support of his fellow blogger Wael:

As usual with these cases much of what needs to be done is in courts, what you can do at the moment is the usual:

1. Contact your embassies in Cairo, pressure them to officially inquire and show concern. Make it clear that you believe strongly this is a political case and not a criminal one.
2. Contact the egyptian embassy in your country and ask yourself about wael. again make it clear you are not buying the official story.
3. Contact local and international media and journalists, ask them to cover the story. wael is well known and has been interviewed many times but this particular threat is being ignored. explain to them that wael is not the only blogger or activist facing covert prosecution through trumped up criminal charges.
4. Contact NGOs and even governmental agencies concerned with human rights, freedom of expression, press freedom, digital liberties, protecting human rights defenders. make sure they know about the case and understand the threats.

You should also try and learn more about the situation in egypt, wael is being punished for exposing the truth, by knowing and spreading this
truth you make sure he doesn't take these risks for nothing.

Google’s unprecedented declaration that this corporate giant would no longer censor its Internet search results in China had a great measure of shock-and-awe. Google created some major spin, some wow-factor. What is especially striking is that a huge corporation would commit itself to embarking on a campaign of civil disobedience, of speaking truth to power.

Google’s actual announcement, through chief legal officer David Drummond, was that it would “phase out” its search censorship in China. Now, we really don’t know how that might be possible—you either censor or you don’t.

Since FACT’s inception in 2006, through Thailand’s military coup’s seven-month YouTube block up to the present day, Google has failed to be responsive to FACT’s concerns over Google’s censorship in Thailand. FACT’s every email, to many individuals throughout its corporate structure, has gone without reply.

In stating Google would stop its censorship in China, Google means it will continue to censor all the rest of us in every country. We find this hypocritical, to say the least.

Google created the technical marvel of geolocational blocking by country at the behest of Thailand’s military coup government in order to become unblocked here. Since that time Google has implemented geolocational blocking in all other countries to protect their “national security interests” and to shield netizens from “culturally sensitive topics”. How very thoughtful.

China’s overwhelmingly youthful population has reached over 1.4 billion people, 384 million of whom use the Internet. That’s 36.5% Internet penetration, an impressive figure in itself. For any company, China is an enormous market.

But the simple fact is that the Chinese use Chinese search engines, buy their swag from Chinese websites, social network on Chinese sites, and so on, with never a thought of the Western Internet giants. This conundrum, at least in the rest of the world, is fueled both culturally and linguistically. English may be the world’s lingua franca but China speaks only Chinese.

That means Google’s real losses in China may be minimal. It seems reasonable that Google simply did not have the effective business model in China that they implement in the rest of the world. Chinese just don’t click on Google’s ads.

Every netizen in the world interacts, if only in a minimal way, with Google. Even if an Internet user eschews Google’s search engine, Gmail, Google Talk, Google Voice, Google News, Google Docs, Google Scholar, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Books, and has not installed Google’s DNS, others you contact do and therefore your habits are known to Google.

Google’s business model is predicated on knowing the habits of every Internet user, to sell you stuff. Whether you like it or not, Google logs your searches, copies your email, records your contacts’ names and addresses, logs your chat sessions, records your phone calls, knows where you get your news and what topics are important to you, copies your documents, checks your research, knows where you’ve been, knows where you are, what you like to read and now follows you to every website. Google is a company that has no regard or concern whatsoever for your personal privacy. Google Sky, Google Moon and Google Mars might be safe…maybe. Most of us simply exchange our privacy for the convenience of using Google everything.

So when Google says, no censorship in China…or else, we cock precisely one eyebrow. Do no evil, petabyte server Google has a hidden agenda here. It’s not about an affront to corporate secrecy by the (widely-presumed to be) Chinese government hack of Google’s Gmail accounts for Chinese human rights activists. Get real: that’s just for show. Nor do they care much about the other 31 US corporations the Chinese government hacked.

The sad truth is that Google simply doesn’t have so much to lose in China. And they can always climb back into bed with China once this tiff is over and the world’s netizens have largely forgotten. Both sides, government and corporations just have their eyes on the money.

Let’s look at Google’s role as world leader as an inspiration to others. Do we really think other corporations will endanger their shareholders’ profit margins by supporting Google? If you think so, I can get you a great deal on the Rama VIII bridge!

Google has done exactly nothing in China to support human rights, free speech or a free press, including the citizen press, in China or, for that matter, in any other country. It has reliably failed to support or link any means for circumvention of China’s censorship to Chinese netizens such as TOR or Psiphon. Google hasn’t even created free proxies. That means we’re still standing in the cold whistling.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had long prepared her January 21 speech on defending Internet freedoms before Google’s announcement. However, the US’ new commitment against censorship (they are so far just talking the talk not walking the walk) may, in fact, call Google’s bluff. If they want to be an American company, then they may just have to toe the current administration’s line.

Google is megabucks, business acumen and engineering expertise, the best money can buy. Google is both huge and hugely successful almost everywhere.

If Google were to make the declaration that they were stopping censorship everywhere, including Thailand, we’d be their biggest fans. Hell, we’d buy stock!

It has been obvious Google has been setting about creating its own corporate vision of the Internet, through sheer might and money. But if Google really cares about ‘net freedoms, it will devote a miniscule portion of its enormous resource of brainpower to making the Internet uncensorable anywhere.

FACT welcomes Google’s announcement it will stop supporting censorship in Thailand.

Wael Abbas, clarifies in a statement that the man who filled this lawsuit, was the same doer of another violation against the blogger:

Officer Aglan, of Cairo tourist police force, and his brother Ahmed Aglan raided Wael Abbas house and beat him up leading to several injuries on his body and a broken tooth. The officer abused his connections such that his brother would report Wael for damaging the brother’s internet cable
The public prosecutor has filed the complaint submitted by Wael Abbas in April 2009 after he had been physically assaulted by a police officer and his brother. The complaint was concluded allegedly for insufficient evidence despite the presence of three medical reports including a forensic record of injuries and despite that one of Wael’s teeth got broken.

Ta3beer (Expression) Blog reveals more informations about other harassments Wael Abbas has faced:

Until some months ago, Abbas had generally been left to operate with limited interference or intimidation from authorities. However, he has been subjected to steadily increasing curtailment as he faced annoyances every time he entered or left Egypt

As Abbas was receiving this bad news; Amnesty international called for the immediate and unconditional release of blogger Hani Nazeer, a prisoner of conscience. Nazeer, a Coptic Christian and blogger from Qina (Upper Egypt) has been detained since October 2008, This was after residents of Qina denounced him for posting on his blog the cover of a book they deemed insulting to Muslims.
AI called on the Ministry of Interior to release Nazir, and condemned his administrative detention:

Amnesty International urges the Interior Minister to respect the court decision to release Hani Nazeer and to immediately order the release from administrative detention of all those who are detained under the Emergency Law for whom release orders have been issued by the court. The Minister should also stop misusing emergency powers to curb the right to freedom of expression

It is expected that Hani Nazeer will remain in Borg al-Arab Prison until a new administrative detention order is issued against him, as has been the case since his arrest in late 2008.

The report stated that the definition of illegal content is based on the 13 areas listed by the CIIRC, including

1. Content that expose and depict sexual organs;
2. Contents that imply sexual behavior or that seduce or insult a person
3. Content with sexual implication and describe sexual intercourses
4. Nudity
5. Nipple slips or up-skirt kind of content
6. Vulgar and sexy subject line for attracting views
7. Censored or banned words, video and movie clips
8. Information related with one night stand, partner shifting and SM behavior
9. Pornographic animation
10. Violent and insulting content
11. Ads on illegal drug and sexual transmitted disease treatment
12. Contents that invade other's privacy
13. Links, photos and texts that recommend vulgar and pornographic websites.

The mobile company stressed that “In theory, whenever a yellow SMS is sent out, it would be detected by the system and the mobile number's SMS function would be suspended”. The company will then handover the case to the government authority for further investigation.