· July, 2007

Stories about Freedom of Speech from July, 2007

Hong Kong: GV Editor Oiwan Lam faces court battle over Flickr photo

  16 July 2007

On May 11th, Oiwan Lam, Global Voices Northeast Asia Editor, committed what she says was a deliberate act of civil disobedience. Writing on the citizen media website InMedia Hong Kong, Oiwan called on her readers to post links to erotic websites and also included an artsy photo of a topless woman that she found on Flickr, the photo sharing site owned by Yahoo!. The post was originally published here, but has now been removed from the InMedia site and posted on a Wordpress.com blog. As Boingboing and others reported earlier this week, Oiwan's post has been classified as "Class II indecent" by Hong Kong's Obscene Articles Tribunal.

Malaysia: Candlelight Vigil

  16 July 2007

Oon Yeoh has pictures from the candle light vigil that was organized in support of blogger Nathaniel Tan. Nathaniel was detained by police last Friday.

Iran:Three Iranian Scholars will “confess”

Kamangir reports that The Islamic Republic television has just aired short pieces of a program titled “In the name of democracy”. The program features “confessions” made by three Iranian academics and scholars about their anti Islamic Republic activities: Haleh Esfandiari, Kian Tajbakhsh and Ramin Jahanbegloo.Esfandiari and Tajbakhsh are still in...

Hong Kong: Selective Prosecution on Illegal Broadcasting

  16 July 2007

The Office of Telecommunication Authority had decided to prosecute guest speakers from a Civic radio channel which organized public broadcast illegally to protest against the government strict control over radio frequencies. Many politicians have spoken at the illegal channel as guest speakers, however, the OTA has selectively prosecuted two of...

Hong Kong: Signature Campaign Against Flickr Filtering

  16 July 2007

HKxforce launched a signature campaign against flickr filtering policy in Hong Kong. The petition demands Yahoo! to adjust the filtering policy in Hong Kong so that adult users are free to choose and view “unsafe” content. It also demands more transparency in categorizing the content, let the users know the...

El Salvador: What Bloggers are Saying About Protesters and Terrorism

  16 July 2007

A bloody street protest one year ago led to the passage of an Anti-Terrorism Law in El Salvador. The alleged cop-killer in the disturbances outside of the University of El Salvador has been arrested, and the Anti-Terrorism Law is being used — to prosecute protesters demonstrating against the government’s water policy. The Salvadoran blogosphere has had much to say about this turn of events.

Blog of a Tunisian journalist and blogger hacked

The blog of the Tunisian journalist and blogger Slim Boukhdhir has been hacked and deleted. The work seems to be done by the same group of hackers who are targeting Tunisian opposition websites and blogs. Last weeks, the website of the Progressive Democratic Party (a legal opposition political party) has...

Serbia's One and Only Science Blog: Help Save It!

Blogs would have been a great medium for interaction, publishing, communication and collaboration in science, a good place for showcasing Serbian scientific achievement, which has been in the shade lately, after years of sanctions, war and political disturbances. There is only one institutional science blog in Serbia, however - and it looks like it may soon disappear altogether. Please get involved and help save it!

Iran:More Student Activists were Arrested

City Boy reports that the July 9, 1999 Tehran student rebellion was the single most important movement against the Islamic Republic government.The 8th anniversary of this event in Iran started by attack on the Advar-e Tahkim Vahdat (High Council of the Office for the Strengthening Unity) who had gathered outside...

Cuba: Blogging for Cuban Liberty

  12 July 2007

Uncommon Sense is proud to be part of Bloggers United for Cuban Liberty and hopes that the campaign will influence The Police to speak out for the cause of political prisoners in Cuba: “But I am not sure whether it really matters if we do. Already, success is ours —...

Japan: Internet regulation up for debate, but nobody is debating

  12 July 2007

While nobody was watching, an interim report drafted by a study group under the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has set down guidelines for regulation of the Internet in Japan which, according to one blogger, would extend as far as personal blogs and homepages. In the report, this...