According to Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), and Human Rights Watch, here are the latest developments on threats to Freedom of Speech over the past week:

Tunisia: Government bans new journalists’ union from holding founding congress. RSF reports that the Tunisian government has decided to ban the Union of Tunisian Journalists (SJT) from holding a founding congress that had been planned for 7 September.

Libya: Web Writer's Arrest Stifles Debate. HRW reports Libya’s internal security force has detained al-Mansuri since last January in an apparent effort to silence a writer with critical views. See also the RSF appeal here.

China: Cyber-dissident Ma Yalian released on completing sentence. According to RSF, “A total of 62 other cyber-dissidents are still currently imprisoned in China for circulating articles and information critical of the authorities on the Internet.”

Maldives: Cyber-dissident Mohamed Zaki freed after two years in prison and 19 months under house arrest. According to RSF “Zaki, who helped run the e-mailed newsletter Sandhaanu, was freed on 18 August, two months after the release of another Sandhaanu staff member, Fathimath Nisreen.”

Belarus: KGB censors satirical Internet cartoons RSF reports on “raids carried out on 16 August by the Belarusian secret police, the KGB, on three apartments in Minsk and the western city of Grodno allegedly belonging to young members of the Third Way opposition movement who create satirical, animated cartoons (in Flash format) for Internet distribution.”