· January, 2008

Stories about Digital Activism from January, 2008

Brazil: Social blogging against paedophilia

  31 January 2008

Luz de Luma [pt] is one of the core bloggers at the social blogging that will take place at the Lusosphere next February 14to debate paedophilia.  “When I proposed this social blogging and used the very term, I was systematically visited by computers from the federal police. This is a...

Brazil: World's street children in charges

  31 January 2008

The Iranian website Iran Cartoon began a virtual series on world's street children, featuring artists from dozen countries, such as Mongolia, France, Vietnam, Colombia, Brazil, China. Sérgio Coutinho [pt] will feature some of them among the images usually displayed at the right hand corner of his blog”.

China: Hu Jia's family become human “state secrets”

  30 January 2008

And likely very skinny ones at this point, having been locked away from journalists and lawyers and bringers of milk formula for over a month now. Since AIDS activist-turned house arrested blogger Hu Jia's arrest, he's been described as a one-man human rights organization, that bloggers like him are the...

Brazil: Veja magazine and the anti-journalism phenomenon

  30 January 2008

“The biggest anti-journalism phenomenon in recent years is what happened to Veja magazine. Gradually, the largest weekly Brazilian mag was turned into a lampoon with no commitment to journalism, using the lowest of the low attacks against those who crossed their path, getting involved in trade wars and accepting that...

Barbados, Bermuda, USA: Standing for Change

  30 January 2008

Cheese-on-bread! notices a similarity between the new Barbados government's campaign slogan and Barack Obama's – and hopes that the “rallying cry will work for him as well as it did for PM Thompson et al…”; while Politics.bm thinks Bermuda's government “represents everything Obama rejects.”

Blog for a Cause!: The Global Voices Guide of Blog Advocacy

  30 January 2008

Blog for a Cause!: The Global Voices Guide of Blog Advocacy explains how activists can use blogs as part of campaigns against injustice around the world. Blogging can help activists in several ways. It is a quick and inexpensive way to create a presence on the Internet, to disseminate information about a cause, and to organize actions to lobby decision-makers.

Yemen: Free Kareem Site Blocked

  30 January 2008

Yemeni blogger Sami Noman says that the Free Kareem site is blocked in his country. Free Kareem was set up by activists to call for the release of Egyptian blogger Kareem Nabil Sulaiman, who has been sentenced to four years for insulting Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Islam on his...

Belarus, Latvia: “Ploshcha”

  29 January 2008

Marginalia watches Ploshcha (“The Square”), a film about the March 2006 mass protests in Minsk – “and watching it is a good way to mark Ceauşescu's birthday and Suharto's death” – and muses on freedom in Latvia and the lack of it in Belarus.

Trinidad & Tobago: On Not Eating Meat

  29 January 2008

“I am not the preachy sort of vegetarian,” declares Trinidadian Nicholas Laughlin, as he links to an article that “summarises so succinctly the good reasons to stop eating meat–or at least reduce the amount one eats…”

Using Web2.0 tools for Environmental Activism

  28 January 2008

To borrow a leaf from the Global voices Sub Saharan Editor's post on cyber-activism in the aftermath of the elections in Kenya; we take a look at how environmental bloggers and activists are using web 2.0 tools to bring attention to issues ranging from deforestation, conservation and global warming, and...

Brazil: 48 murders at the weekend in Pernambuco

  28 January 2008

Despite the fact that there is no official information from the relevant governmental body, PE Body Count [pt] carries on its independent count of the murder rates in Pernambuco, Brazil. The blogger found out that 46 people were murdered this weekend, although the PR team in charge of feeding the...