Stories about Digital Activism from October, 2006
Hugo Chavez in the Iranian left-wing blogs
Hugo Chavez, the leftist Venezuelan President, has developed a very friendly relationship with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian Islamist President. Iran even awarded the Venezuelan President its highest state medal for supporting Tehran in its nuclear standoff against the international community. This alliance was discussed a couple of months ago among...
IGF in Athens: searching globally for the Internet's common ground
The first meeting of the Internet Governance Forum – IGF, which aims to be a a place for a “multi-stakeholder policy dialogue”, starts tomorrow, going from 30 October to 2 November in Athens, Greece. The idea of the forum emerged during last year's meetings of the World Summit on the...
Prominent Bahraini Blog, Blocked!
It's official, Mahmood's Blog (http://mahmood.tv) will be blocked effective immediately, by the orders of the Bahraini Ministry of Information. Together with 6 other web sites (listed below), the official memo was delivered to all the ISP's in Bahrain this afternoon. Mahmood Al-Yousif, is a prominent Bahraini/Arab blogger. His blog is...
Bangladesh in Turmoil
Bangladesh is going through turbulent times as the row over an interim caretaker government chief persists who will lead the country towards the upcoming parliament election in January 2007. This unique caretaker government (CTG) system adopted in Bangladesh constitution worked in past three elections. However this time the opposition parties...
Russia: LJ and Politics
On October 25, International Herald Tribune published Evgeny Morozov's opinion piece on the recent developments in the Russian blogosphere. On his blog – Sharp & Sound: Perspectives On Modern Politics – Morozov wrote: […] I’ve been surprised how little coverage the story has received in the Western media…Hm, virtually none…...
The Week That Was in Bahrain
Bahrain's bloggers celebrated Eid this week, with many posting greetings on their sites or simply musing about the tradition. While Mahmood Al Yousif thinks that “Eid this time seems to be spread through the whole week, rather than a single day where the whole nation celebrates!”, Silly Bahraini Girl took...
Greece: Blog censorship in Greece ahead of the IGF forum in Athens
Currybetdotnet reports about the administrator of a Greek RSS aggregating service (blogme.gr) who was sued, arrested and jailed for hosting a link to a blog with allegedly offending content. This censorship case occurs days ahead of UN's IGF forum in Athens, which among other issues will be focusing on ‘Freedom...
Philippines: Reflections on blogging
Solar power teaches journalism in the premier state university of the country. While he appreciates the potential of blogging in the democratization process, he underscores the need to filter information from the internet: “These developments can be seen as empowering for people who want to use the Internet to get...
Iran:Kianoosh Sanjari, a new blogger in jail
We read in Sos Sanjari blog that Mehdi ( Kianoosh) Sanjari, blogger and human rights activist was arrested during disturbances in Tehran. He was there to report about the event. There is also an online petition in English to demand his urgent release.
Arabisc: Rebellious Behaviour and the Quest for Intellectuals
With the festive season wrapping up in the Arab world, Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer has decided to ‘come out of the closet’ and drop a bombshell – making some of his readers happy and others not so! The Alexandria law student doesn't mince his words when he announces to his...
Kenya: website in memory of Dr. Wanjiru Kihoro
Mental Acrobatics announces that there is a site dedicated to the Kenyan political and social activist, Dr. Wanjiru Kihoro, who passed away recently, “The tribute website for Dr. Wanjiru Kihoro is now up. Thanks to Mshairi and Mich.”
Russia: Thoughts on LiveJournal/ZheZhe
The Second Blog War continues in Russia. Brad Fitzpatrick, the LiveJournal's creator, has now joined the discussion over at sup_ru LJ community: in English, he offers some explanations and apologies here (and receives 248 comments so far) and lists the bloggers’ most common questions and concerns here (123 comments so...
Kenya: badge of endorsement for MPs
Alexcia has a simple proposal for Mzalendo, “My proposal is simple enough. Why don’t you introduce a badge of endorsement/ recommendation that you would include with the biographies of MPs that have signed up to some 5 or so core values?”
Bulgaria: Tripoli Six on WNYC
Declan Butler posts an audio of himself and vice president of Amnesty International USA on the NY Public Radio's show on the Tripoli Six.
Russia: Freedom to Blog
Two-Zero, an expat in Moscow, explains why blogging is so popular in Russia and why many bloggers are concerned about losing their freedom to blog.
Russia: The Ongoing Golden Calf Translation
Languor Management links to the site of Maciej Ceglowski and Peter V. Gadjokov, who are translating The Golden Calf, a 1930 Soviet classic by Ilya Ilf and Evgeniy Petrov: “Seventy years after its publication, The Golden Calf remains a cult classic among Russian readers, but it is out of print...
Reunion: Blogging to Decrease Elected Official Impunity
Prolific Reunion blogger Pierrot Dupuy is happy to see a proliferation in his mostly local audience (Fr): “We beat our last record [in the number of hits] yesterday … by more than 17%! … I am happy to know that you are thousands to read the blog every day and...
Russia: The Second Blog War
(more buttons and userpics are here) The Russian-language blogosphere (commonly known as ZheZhe) is on fire: some users are shutting down their blogs, others are emigrating to the virtual Trinidad & Tobago – all because LiveJournal.com's owner Six Apart has decided to team up with the Russian internet company Sup,...
Video exposes child-soldier's identity
If you've seen the guidelines for this site, you'll know that there are types of footage that we wouldn't post, and circumstances surrounding the shooting of particular videos that mean we wouldn't even link to them. Today's post is about one of those videos. I was researching a possible post...
Iran:Government Bans Fast Internet
According to media, service providers have been told to restrict online speeds to 128 kilobytes a second and been forbidden from offering fast broadband packages. A teenage blogger, Kourosh Ziabary wrote an open letter in his blog to Minister of Communication and criticised government on this subject [Fa].
Bulgaria: Tripoli 6 Letter to Gaddafi
Declan Butler posts a letter on the plight of the Tripoli Six that the New York Academy of Sciences has sent to Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi.
