Stories about Freedom of Speech from September, 2007
Iran:Offices of Conservative Website closed
RSF (Reporters Without Borders) and Necas,an Iranian blogger,criticised [Fa]the closure of the offices of the hardline website Baztab.com.Baztab was highly critical of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
China: Guide To Etiquette
The State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) has issued a guide to talent shows, which includes a pre-screening process for program content, length, judges, hosts, and special guests. Joel Martinsen from DANWEI has translated the guide into English.
Jordan: Sad Day for Online Community
“The Jordanian government is going on, what can best be described as, an anti-online free speech jihad. A decision has been made to monitor websites (most likely including the rising popularity of blogs) and to keep them in check with the country’s notorious press and publication laws,” writes Naseem Tarawnah...
Ukraine: The Language Issue
Victor Yanukovych's Party of the Regions is pushing for a referendum on granting Russian official status as a national language, in addition to Ukrainian. Below is a selection of views on the "language issue" from the Ukrainian blogosphere.
Turkey: access WordPress blog with WordPrexy
Great Firewall of Turkey activists launched WordPrexy.com project to make Turkish blogs hosted on WordPress.com accessible.
Ukraine: Troubles Ahead; Kivalov Interview
Foreign Notes writes about political troubles that may await Ukraine following the Sept. 30 parliamentary election. Also, LEvko translates an interview with former head of the Central Election Commission, Serhiy Kivalov, whose “literary skills seem to exceed the numeracy skills that he demonstrated in 2004.”
Russia: The Pulse of the Blogosphere
Scraps of Moscow tries the Pulse of the Blogosphere, a new feature of the Russian Yandex portal and writes about some of the findings – here and here: “Consider this – the Russian blogosphere has consistently mentioned “porno” and “pornography” fewer times than it has mentioned Putin for most of...
Confronting Euro-American media biases against Africa
Malawian blogger on africa-aphukira (African Rebirth), Steven Sharra, chronicles serious biases by Euro-American media and scholars against Africa in not crediting the recent archeological finding to a Kenyan palentologist, Fredrick Manthi. He writes, "The question for us now becomes how to move beyond the cliché that describes the blatant anti-Africa biases not only in the EuroAmerican media, but also in the entire knowledge enterprise. "
Iran:”Haleh Esfandiari is still a prisoner”
Hanif,one of Iranian bloggers who had been arrested and jailed for blogging, says[Fa]that Haleh Esfandiari,Iranian-American scholar, contrary to many other former prisoners,after leaving Iran,told that she had not been mistreated in prison.Hanif says according to his prison experience,political prisoners had been asked by security agents to talk positively about their...
Bangladesh: Cartoons and Religion
Adda on the detention of Arifur Rahman because of a cartoon, laws and sensitivity of religious groups.
China: On the tazing
Actually, as with almost everything major that happens in America—even Michelle Malkin has multiple Chinese names—people from all corners of China have seen and heard all about Don't Tase Me Bro! Internet news and blogging crossover site Netease has a unique function where all commenters are identified by region, and...
China: 17 Correlations for the 17th Party Congress
Wang Ling spoofs the 17 Party Congress in the coming October by listing out 17 correlations. For examples, 8 honors + 8 humiliations + harmonious society = 17; control the price of pork to 17 yuan per 0.5 kilogram; close 17,000 websites before the congress; etc (zh).
Latvia: N. Irish Football Fans and Russian Nationalists
All About Latvia writes about an encounter between Northern Irish football fans and Russian nationalists in Riga.
Free Speech Roundup: Turkey, Russia, Pakistan, India
For the second time in a year, a Turkish court ordered, on Tuesday September 18, to block access to YouTube.com over videos deemed insulting to the country's leaders. In Russia, the 23-year old LiveJournal blogger, who wrote a fictional story on his blog inspired by the Virginia Tech shooting, could face up to three years in prison for "falsely warning of a terror threat." In Pakistan, access to the popular blogging platform blogspot.com has been blocked again. And Mumbai's police are planning to install keystroke loggers in cyber cafes.
Hong Kong: Book Distribution
Recently the publisher of a political spoof about Chief Executive Donald Tsang's Spin Doctor failed to find any distributor in Hong Kong for distributing the book to local bookstore. Buto from inmediahk.net interviewed the publisher who explained that the book distribution business in Hong Kong is highly monopolized by one...
China: Getting Around GFW with Hotspot Shield
Granite studio introduces a new tool called Hotspot Shield to access websites filtered by Great Fire Wall.
Egyptian blogger arrested and prevented from covering a taxi drivers strike
Mahmoud Chachtawi, Egyptian blogger and reporter of abna2masr.com website, has been arrested during a taxi drivers strike he was covering. After detaining him for four hours, the police released him and confiscated his camera, mobile phone and ID card. According to a twitter message left on the blog, it seems...
Moldova: Transnistria
Douglas Muir of A Fistful of Euros writes about Transnistria, “a sort of post-Communist gangster state”: “Travellers unanimously agree that Transnistria is weirdly fascinating for the first hour or two, then just depressing and boring.”
Iranian bloggers stirred over cockroach cartoon
About a week ago, a Chicago newspaper, The Colombus Dispatch, published a cartoon that depicts Iran as a sewer with cockroaches crawling out of it. The cartoon has created intense discussion among Iranian bloggers, especially those living in North America. Iranians as cockroaches Iranian Truth says, it is no small...
Internet Governance, Global Privacy and IGF-Rio
The global debate on Internet governance will once again gather people from all over the world at UN's IGF, this time in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The process was started last year in Athens, when more than 1,200 participants focused on discussion of the overarching issues tied to the future...
Russian LiveJournal blogger could face three-year sentence
The 23-year old Russian blogger, Dmitry Shirinkin, who wrote a fiction story on his blog inspired by the Virginia Tech shooting, could face up to three years in prison. In an interview with Russia Today (watch the video on GV Advocacy), Shirinkin said “I didn’t expect that a short writing...
