Stories about Freedom of Speech from July, 2007
Bahamas, Cuba: Plots Against Castro
Rick Lowe at WeblogBahamas.com shares his views about the CIA's assassination plot, freedom of speech and Castro's revolution.
Afghanistan: Interview with Baktash Siawash, blogger and journalist
What follows is an interview about censorship, media and blogs in Afghanistan with blogger and journalist Baktash Siawash. Baktash writes for several magazines including WashingtonPrism. Q: Please introduce yourself and your blog. A: My Name is Baktash Siawash and I live in Afghanistan; my blog's name is “Writings of Siawash”...
Sudan: where is the bridge? + more floods, more photos
The question is “where is the bridge?: “Back at the flood, the officer spent two minutes looking at my card, then said “No photos. I think there is a bridge here”. I did a quick scan of the landscape – 360 degrees of flat, flat plains, flood water and a...
Russia: FSB Archives
FSB is declassifying some of its archives, and Sean's Russia Blog writes about getting access to them.
Honduras: Honoring a Modern-Day Heroine
La Gringa calls attention to the online newspaper Revistazo.com and its coordinator Dina Meza, who recently was awarded the Amnesty International Special Award for Human Rights Journalism Under Threat.
Kurdistance: The State of Kurdish Activism
Some may be surprised to hear that coverage of the Kurdish blogosphere has been appearing on Global Voices for longer than coverage of the Turkish blogospheres. Whereas the Turkish blogosphere has been expanding, the Kurdish blogosphere (at least the English language end) is slowly disappearing. Today's article will focus on the current state of Kurdish activism (as blogging can be considered as a primary element of that) and a new initiative that is designed to help extend the Kurdish voice.
EXCLUSIVE!–>Interview with the Host of the BBC-Award-Winning Citi FM Breakfast Show
The Trials and Tribulations of a Freshly-Arrived Denizen…posts an exclusive interview he conducted of Bernard Avle, the host of the CITI Breakfast Show, which won the BBC Radio Award for “Best Interactive Show in Africa”. Bernard Avle(left) He cuts a contemplative and tall figure. Be-spectacled with some degree of seriousness...
Venezuela: Roger Santodomingo's Resignation from Noticiero Digital
Venezuelan journalist Roger Santodomingo felt the need to resign from his post as an editor with Noticiero Digital due to threats on his family. The site's forum was a place of personal attacks from often extreme points of view. Santodomingo's resignation caused quite a stir among Venezuelan bloggers, who see these threats as further restrictions on freedom of expression, while others question the purpose of anonymous fora, which may not contribute to constructive discussion.
Croatia: “Thompson International”
Illyrian Gazette writes on media coverage of the controversial Croatian musician's concert tour.
Poland: Photo Report From Nurses’ Strike
The beatroot posts a photo report from the ‘White City’ in Warsaw, where “close to three weeks on strike and camped opposite the main government offices, the nurses refuse to give up. The strike, for more pay (well, you couldn’t get much less than they get) has been supported by...
Russia: Photos of Beslan Terrorists
A Step At A Time links to a Russian newspaper article with photos of those who, according to the official inquiry, carried out the school siege in Beslan in 2004: “The paper wonders why the official inquiry made no use of these photos, basing its evidence instead on pictures of...
Hong Kong: There are no Adult in Hong Kong?
I have written a post at inmediahk.net on the application of filtering in Hong Kong by flickr which is not based on jurisdiction but on localized yahoo account(zh). Moreover, its censorship is stricter that local law which allows access of adult information with a warning message. The present flickr filter...
Hong Kong and China: Cross border citizen reporting
Chong from inmediahk.net has interviewed Zoula about his citizen reporting trip in Hong Kong, his obervation of the two societies (zh).
Iran: Media under Pressure
Iranian authorities stepped up the pressure on Iranian media last week. Ham Mihan (Compatriot), a pro reformist journal was banned on 3 July. Iranian Labour News Agency, Ilna, that covered news about strikes and unrest in universities has also been suspended temporarily and its director resigned. Many bloggers are talking...
China: Xiamen to kill off anonymous posting
Joel Martinsen from DANWEI has translated some local reports about Xiamen Bureau of Industry and Commerce's preparation to implement the use of real names on the Internet.
Poland: Illogical Censorship
Boo is perplexed by what gets censored in Poland and what doesn't: “That Paul Coelho book with a cover that shows a baby's finger pointing at a nipple […] has a big black box over the nipple on all the posters around Warsaw. But, the magazine that has the terrible...
China: Internet control after Xiamen protest
“Under a new city regulation, online users would have to use their real names when posting messages on more than 100,000 Web sites registered in Xiamen”, a Southern Chinese city where citizens used blogs, chatrooms and SMS to organize a protest against a planned construction of a toxic chemical plant.
Armenia: RFE/RL Update
Onnik Krikorian explains why the Armenian parliament rejected new media bills that would have put the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty at risk of being shut down. He also warns of complacency now that the immiment threat has waned – the government might find yet another reason...
Russia: “Khodorkovsky's Land”
A few photos from Chita – “Khodorkovsky's Land” – by Oleg Klimov are here. The last one allegedly shows windows of the former billionaire's cell. (The text is in Russian.)
Russia: Tesak Arrested
Leader of a neo-Nazi group (a college student as well as a blogger) is arrested in Moscow, and Sean's Russia Blog “for once [stands] with the Interior Ministry.”
China: robot fight robot
Douban's blog aggregator uses a technology to fetch the blog posts even the host is blocked, and the popularity of the post is determined by the reviews and recommendations it receives. All done by a software “robot” against another robot: Great Fire Wall. — More from Bingfeng
