· January, 2008

Stories about Human Rights from January, 2008

Afghanistan: Journalist in Danger

  31 January 2008

Nasim Fekratْ urges action on the death threats that are addressed to Basir Ahang, 27, an independent journalist who was directly involved in the release of Gabriele Torsello, the Italian journalist, who was kidnapped by Taliban in Helmand province.

China: Internet Privacy

  31 January 2008

Vincent points out that many social networking sites have violated the protection of privacy. For example the fact that spokeo.com can track down hundreds of friends’ online activities via their email accounts is a form of surveillance, probably against the account holders’ will to be left alone.

Afghanistan: Ongoing Culture Wars

  30 January 2008

Safrang reports on the continuing disturbing developments in the case of Perwiz Kambakhsh, the young Afghan student of journalism who has been sentenced to death by a primary court for propagating “blasphemous” literature.

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.

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.

Bahrain: Are Gulf Arabs Lazy?

  29 January 2008

Earlier this week the Bahraini Labour Minister Majid Al Alawi was interviewed in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, and in the interview he said that the Gulf was facing an 'Asian tsunami' because Gulf nationals are 'lazy' and 'spoilt' and depend on imported labour to do even simple tasks. He said that that the nearly 17 million foreign workers in the Gulf, mostly Asian, represented 'a danger worse than the atomic bomb or an Israeli attack'. What do Bahraini bloggers think?

South Korea: Cry from a Nepalese Migrant Worker

  29 January 2008

Suwash Budathoki, a Nepalese citizen, was arrested in the S. Korean capital Seoul on July 7, 2007 and now struggling to overcome his ill-health in Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center. IBMK has interviewed the desperate migrant.

Azerbaijan: Ethnic Novelist

  27 January 2008

Window on Eurasia says that a book by ethnic Azerbaijani author Eduard Bagirov is causing a stir as a best seller throughout the Russian Federation. In particular, notes the blog, Bagirov's books generally examines the “extraordinary difficulties Azerbaijanis and other non-Russians living in the Russian capital now face in trying...

Davos: peeking in and participating through videos

  26 January 2008

The World Economic Forum´s annual meeting of political and business leaders is taking place between January 23rd and January 27th in Davos, Switzerland. This year, common people can participate in this forum by giving their ideas to make the world a better place and posting it on the YouTube video sharing site.