Stories about Freedom of Speech from November, 2006
Arabisc: Arrested Blogger Released and the Civilisation of Terrorism
Egyptian blogger Ramy Siyam – aka Ayoub – is out of jail, after spending an eventful 108 hours being moved from one detention centre to the other. According to fellow blogger Alaa Abdelfattah: “He was arrested in a sweep in downtown while securing the area for the President's visit to...
The Balkans: Asylum-Seeker; Tito's Portrait
Neretva River writes about a Slovenian citizen seeking asylum in Croatia, and the Croat member of the Bosnian presidency decorating his office with a portrait of Tito, an ethnic Croat, too.
Interview with Kosoof, a leading Iranian Photo Blogger
Arash Ashoorinia is a leading photo blogger whose blog, Kosoof, won the Reporters Without Borders prize in the BOBs (Best of the Blogs) competition organized by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Arash's photos have been published all over the world in publications and on web sites such as the Washington Post...
Iran:Ted Koppel interviews a blogger
Thanks to YouTube, Iranian Truth has published an Iranian Blogger interview with Ted Koppel.The blogger talks about different subjects such as filtering.
Oman: Freedom of press in Oman
“You can't stop people from writing online. It's easy to regulate the press because 1) the press needs big expensive machines to print newspapers. 2) they need trucks to distribute. 3) they need shops to sell their papers. 4) they need advertisers to pay for all the above. 5) they...
The Blogoma retaliates while Blaise LLorca calms the angry e-crowd
Moroccan bloggers under fire! The Moroccan blogosphere (Blogoma) is very angry. Why? Well a Moroccan blogger qualified the Moroccan blogging as being still in the “teen aging period”(Fr). Mohamed Lachyab, a Moroccan journalist who's decorating his blog with …his own pictures, gave an interview(Ar) to the Moroccan newspaper Almasae, and...
Cambodia: Kite Weilding Terrorists?
Details are Sketchy writes about the ridiculous comments made by Cambodian information minister supporting the police confiscation of kites from protesters who were planning to fly them in front of the national assembly.
Voices from Zimbabwe
With the rainy season now underway in Zimbabwe, most of the nation's time and attention is given to pontificating and prognosticating what the agricultural prospects have in store for us. Like many other agro-based economies, the measure of a good (or bad year) is based on the nation's agricultural production....
Belarus: CIS Scandal
TOL's Belarus Blog writes about the scandal involving Russian journalists that broke out during the CIS summit in the Belarusian capital. Also, there's a post about the pain the summit is causing to downtown Minsk.
China: limited real name registration?
China Media project follows up the report and debate on blogger real name registration. The chairman of the Internet Society of China claimed that backstage real name registration is a limited real-name registration.
Albania: Ismail Kadare
Wu Wei writes about a talk given by Ismail Kadare in Oxford.
Syria: 8 Syrian Students Face Trial for Starting Discussion Group
On Novermber 28th, 2006 the Supreme State Security Court (SSSC) of Syria held the first trial for eight youth arrested for founding a public discussion group on cultural issues, including current cultural and political issues in Syria. No one has heard any news from them for over nine months as...
Ethiopia's bloggers disappear again
The bulk of Ethiopia's bloggers disappeared from Ethiopian computer screens for the second time in seven months this week. All sites hosted by the popular Blogspot platform stalled when internet users tried to log on to them through their Ethiopian Telecom Corp dial-up connections. The small stable of anti-government blogs...
Belarus: Kozulin Turns 51 in Jail
A former presidential candidate, Aleksandr Kozulin, has celebrated his 51st birthday in prison, in relative obscurity, and with no food – because he's been on hunger strike for over a month already, writes TOL's Belarus Blog.
Arabisc: Bahraini Elections, Dying Children and Confusing Freedom!
Bahrain held its second Parliamentary elections in its modern history this week, with about 300,000 voters going to the polls. Amongst them was Bahraini blogger Haythoo, who hoped his ‘party’ would emerge victorious. أنا الأن متوجه لتغطية العملية الأنتخابية.. أتمنى أن يحالفنا الحظ و نفوز بأكثرية نيابية.. يجب أن نعمل...
French minorities: Questioning the Republican Model
Togolese-origined French politician Kofi Yamgnane posts a December 13 conference announcement that questions the limitations of French republicanist integration (Fr): “Integration in the French tradition … is resolutely hostile to any differentiation or separation founded on individual origins … Contrary to the Anglo-Saxon model, the Republican model rejects communities and...
Japan: blogger survey
Kaishin in Japundit presents some data from a recent blogger survey: almost 70% of the people who took it responded that updating was too much of a trouble…
China: sex scandal
China Media project translates an article from Southern Metropolis Daily which comments upon the recent sex scandals and discusses about free speech and social responsibility.
Tunisia: Censoring Wikipedia?
Sami Ben Gharbia writes (Fr): “We don't yet know if it is censorship or not but what is certain is that the Wikipedia and Wikipedia Foundation sites have not been accessible from Tunisia since the 23rd of this month. According to a subscriber to the francophone Wikipedia mailing list …...
Ethiopia: pro-democracy websites and blogs blocked
“All pro-democracy websites are now blocked in Ethiopia. Blogs which were unblocked for the last three months are blocked again including this blog,” reports Ethiopian Life, Culture, Politics, and Arts.
The Week That Was in Bahrain
More than 300,000 Bahrainis went to the polls on Saturday to elect 40 Municipal Councillors and another 40 Members of Parliament. This is the second time Bahrainis vote in their modern history, after sweeping reforms initiated in 2002. According to official records, seventy-two per cent of the eligible voters took...