Latest posts by sami ben gharbia
Morocco: Stop Internet Censorship!
In March of 2006, Livejournal, the popular blogging site, was blocked by the state-controlled telecommunications provider Maroc Telecom (a subsidiary of Vivendi International), depriving Moroccan citizens of access to the roughly 2 million blogs the service hosts. On May 25, 2007, Maroc Telecom blocked access to YouTube for few days. In August 2006, Google Earth was added to the list of major websites being blocked. And as expected, Maroc Telecom didn’t give any justification for this instance of censorship.
Syrian blogger Roukana Hamour has been Kidnapped
Update: Last night (October 26), we've received a call from Rokana Hamour. She is fine. She has been interrogated by the Syrian Security Services about a comment left on her...
Kazakhstan blocks opposition websites
On October 18, 2007, Kazakhstan has blocked access to a number of independent websites switching off main opposition outlets including kub.kz, geo.kz, zonakz.net and inkar.info [more on GV Advocacy…]
Bahrain blocks Haq political movement website
A Press Release issued on October 12th by the HAQ: Movement of Liberties and Democracy- Bahrain, which Global Voices Advocacy received a copy of it, reveals that Bahrain has blocked...
Syria: more victims of Internet repression
A new report released by Human Rights Watch reveals that two persons are being held in incommunicado detention at an undisclosed location in Syria. Karim ‘Arbaji (29) and Tarek Biasi...
Free Speech Roundup: China, UAE, Jordan, Iran and more
Two interesting documents related to Internet censorship and circumvention were published recently: “Everyone's Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide”, released by The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and a “Journey to the Heart of Internet censorship” in China, released by RSF and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, and written by an anonymous Chinese technician. In Jordan sending emails and writing online poems can send you to jail. And, is Facebook blocked in the United Arab Emirates?
Jordan: sending emails and writing online poems can send you to prison!
[More on GV Advocacy…] Ahmad Oweidi al-Abbadi, the 62-year-old former parliamentarian and leader of the Jordanian National Movement, was sentenced to two years in prison for “undermining state dignity”, “sending...
Facebook blocked in the United Arab Emirates?
[More on GV Advocacy…] According to Download Squad, access to the popular social networking website Facebook has been blocked in the United Arab Emirates…
Belarus: Give Lukashenko his LuNet!
When the Belarusian activist Dzianis Dzianisau was detained for nearly two months on charges of “taking part in manifestations which disturb public order”, the Belarusian blogsphere successfully organized an online...
Polish computer programmer arrested for Google Bombing
The 23-years old Polish computer programmer Marek W. might face up to three years in prison for having created a Googlebombing software linking Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s website to the...
Turkey: access WordPress blog with WordPrexy
Great Firewall of Turkey activists launched WordPrexy.com project to make Turkish blogs hosted on WordPress.com accessible.
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.
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...
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...
Iran blocks access to Google and Gmail
Iran has blocked access to Google search engine and Gmail Google's free webmail service, Mehr news agency reported today. “I can confirm these sites have been filtered,” said Hamid Shahriari,...
Mumbai police to monitor cyber-cafes
In its war against terrorism, Mumbai’s police is planning to install keystroke loggers in Mumbai’s cyber cafes. This new monitoring software, CARMS (Cyber Access Remote Monitoring System), that Mumbai’s police...
Thailand: the first victim of the Computer Crime Act
It seems that the Thai authorities have used the recently passed Computer Crime Act to arrest two Thais for alleged offensive comments posted on the Internet about the country’s revered...
Free Speech Roundup: Tunisia, Egypt, China, Thailand
France-based video sharing site Dailymotion has been blocked, again, in Tunisia. Egyptian blogger Abdel Monem Mahmoud, who has been released in June 2007 is facing detention threats. In China people who are using China Telecom are unable to access FeedBurner feeds. And Thailand lifted its ban on YouTube but Veoh and MetaCafe still blocked.
Dailymotion in Tunisia blocked-unblocked-blocked again
Dailymotion, France’s YouTube-like video sharing site has been blocked, again, in Tunisia. Still unclear if the government-controlled body, ATI (Agence Tunisienne d’Internet), throw whom all Tunisia’s ISPs are operating, has...
Egyptian blogger Monem threatened again
Egyptian blogger and journalist Abdel Monem Mahmoud, who has been released in June 2007 after 46 days imprisonment in Southern Cairo Torah prison, is “facing detention threats [again]. Both as...
ThinkProgress blog banned from the U.S. military network in Baghdad
The liberal ThinkProgress blog has been banned from the U.S. military network in Baghdad. “The ban began sometime shortly after Aug. 22, when Ret. Maj. Gen. John Batiste was our...
sami ben gharbia's space
I'm the co-founder of several Tunisian online projects:
Nawaat (The Core)
