refWrite refBloggers Insert

Press Freedom: Arab Zone countries: Decline in press freedom, says Doha Conference re protection of journos

2012-01-26T14:27:00.000-08:00

-
-
International Conference to Protect Journalists in Dangerous Situations, Doha, Qatar

In quotes: Prioritising journalist protection

International press freedom advocates have signed

a list of recommendations aimed at ensuring the protection of journalists.

By Anealla Safdar

Mon, 23/01/2012

By January 22, the date hundreds of press-freedom advocates arrived in Qatar, at least three journalists had already been killed in 2012.

On January 11, Giles Jacquier, a 43 year old French reporter, was killed in the restive city of Homs, Syria. On January 17, gunmen shot dead Mukarram Khan Aatif, a Pakistani radio journalist who was making his morning prayers in Peshawar. On January 23, reports confirmed that Nigerian television journalist Enenche Akogwu had been killed by unidentified gunmen.

————————————————

Doha Centre for Media Freedom (January23,2k10)

article and slideshow by Annealla Safdar

— reposted here by Owlb, refWrite refBlogger Insert

Follow @Owlb

general editor, refWrite, co-ordinator refBlogger Insert

--------------------------------------

Throughout 2011, at least 100 journalists were killed in the line of duty.

The hundreds of delegates from across the world convened in Doha to discuss the protection and safety measures journalists should be entitled to (and should work on themselves) in order to improve on those deadly and depressing statistics going ahead.

A caption from an Al Jazeera documentary on recent killings and press freedom violations aired before the forum began perhaps captured the event's essence.

“A journalist is still killed every week,” it read. “Good will and strong words aren't protecting them.”

A full list of the recommendations agreed can be found by following this link.

Here, we highlight a few of the memorable and poignant quotes from the two-day event, organised by the National Human Rights Committee,Qatar:

Celso Schroder, Federation of Journalists in Latin America and the Caribbean president.

In Mexico, there is a total lack of security. The ratio of crime is very high and we have reached a record. We have to take some measures to help journalists, prepare them, train them, and help them understand the problems they may face when working.

In Brazil and elsewhere, they've (governments) have amended laws so as to make limit the crimes against journalists.

Omar Faruk Osman, Federation of African Journalists president.

As far as Africa is concerned, we are concerned with physical and legal safety of journalists. We see them being taken in the name of slander and defamation.

There are issues at play such as political extremism, like the al-Shabab (Somali Islamic militants) attacks on journalists.

I'm from Somalia, and every year we have to count how many have been murdered. Someone does not want the truth to be told.

The killing of journalists in Africa are organised crimes, politically motivated, institutionalised and within the state apparatus. A killer walks away freely without thinking about punishment, because a political force is behind him.

Jim Boumelha, International Federation of Journalists president.

No fewer than 1,000 journalists have died in the past ten years. This comes to about two journalists or media workers dying every week.

The second shocking thing is to learn how many of the murdered are beat reporters whose names do not resonate in the media. These are different from bylined war correspondents, who knowingly risk their lives, sometimes mistaken for combatants, get fatally caught in the crossfire, or walk in a land-mine.

His Excellency Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari, Qatar's minister of culture.

All of us are aware that journalism is playing an active role in global events. There is so much danger these days for the press when some events are accompanied by crises, turmoil and disputes.

A man believing totally in his professional career will try his best to give the truth but the dictators, as we can see in the Arab Spring, or the occupier of Palestine, do not want this truth to be unveiled. They frighten the journlaists and expose their lives to danger.

Our ethical duty is to work and protect their freedom. The protection of journalists in dangerous situations hasn't been given good attention by countries
.

China: Activist Hu Jia: Freed but now under house imprisonment

2011-07-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

Toronto Star (July18,2k11)

Read the whole article! — Politicarp

BEIJING—Hu Jia, one of China's leading human rights activists, was set free Sunday after 3½ years in prison, but many wonder whether the activist will be truly free — or face house imprisonment, a controversial technique increasingly used by China to silence critics.

Hu, 37, was found guilty for “inciting subversion of state power” in 2008, after he posted essays and co-authored a letter on the Internet, criticizing China’s rights record in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics.

The letter charged that rather than delivering on its promise to improve human rights if it got the Games, the government had sold the world a bill of goods: the Olympics brought greater restrictions, not fewer.

Hu Jia later won European Union’s prestigious Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought and was touted as a Nobel Peace Prize contender.

Keen to prevent publicity about Sunday’s high-profile release, Chinese authorities delivered Hu Jia to his home in east Beijing under cover of darkness, at 2:30 a.m.

“All’s well. Very happy. He needs to rest and heal for a period,” his wife and fellow activist Zeng Jinyan posted on Twitter. “Thank you everyone.”

But given the intensification of the current crackdown on activists, Zeng declined interviews.

“I’m worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems,” she told the Reuters news agency. “Please understand.”

The Chinese government has used a combination of arrests and threats in a sweep of activists here in recent months, forcing normally outspoken critics to go silent.

China: Release of Ai WeiWei: Flamboyant artist out of jail and hopes to take up offered post in Berlin

2011-07-18T05:20:00.000-07:00

Guardian (Jun22,2k11)

This article is a month-old, but gives background to a second article that ends the Ai WeiWei story for the present, as he prepares to accept an invitation to work in Berlin. refWrite recommends the whole article. My comment and Guardian materials posted by Owlb.

Ai Weiwei released from detention

China's best known artist, looking thinner after 81 days in detention, says 'I'm fine ... I'm on bail. Please understand'

Tania Branigan
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 June 2011 21.21 BST

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei waves from the entrance of his studio after being released on bail in Beijing. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

After 81 days in detention, China's best-known artist, Ai Weiwei, returned home a considerably thinner and noticeably quieter man.

"I'm fine. I'm out," the 54-year-old artist told the Guardian in a telephone call shortly after his release on bail. "I'm back with my family. I'm very happy."

The state news agency, Xinhua, said police had released him "because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes" and a chronic illness.

Speaking from his home in north Beijing, the usually outspoken artist said he could not comment any further, adding: "I'm on bail. Please understand."

China: Cyber Attacks: USA 'grills' China in regard to a 'hacked political site' published by Change.com

2011-06-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

--------------------------------
InfoWeek (June17,2k11)

— InforWeek Government materials re-posted here by Owlb

U.S. Grills China

about Cyber Attacks

Chinese IP addresses have been implicated in numerous, recent
distributed denial of service attacks, which top State Department
officials see as a human rights issue.

By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek
June 15, 2011 12:45 PM

In another sign that the United States government is concerned with

the threat of cyber attacks originating from China, a top State

Department official recently raised the case of a hacked U.S.

political site directly with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

according to a letter released by the political group Change.org.

The site, which offers tools for online political campaigns, began

to be victimized by distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks in

mid April, soon after it carried a petition for China to release Chinese

artist Ai Weiwi, who helped design the centerpiece of the 2008

Summer Olympics, the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium, and who was

imprisoned earlier this year in the midst of a Chinese crackdown on

political dissent.

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The attacks raised the ire

of congressional leadership,

as both House minority l

eader Nancy Pelosi,

D-Calif., and Rep. Rosa

DeLauro, D-Conn.,

condemned the attacks and

called on the State

Department to take action

and bring the hackers to justice.

In response, the State Department

not only condemned DDOS attacks, like the one Change.org experienced,

that are "designed to stifle free speech on the net," but also raised the

issue directly with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in late April,

according to a letter from the State Department to Rep. DeLauro that was

released by Change.org. The letter indicates that deputy assistant

secretary of state Dan Baker raised the issue of the attack with the

Chinese government during a dialogue on human rights.

"The Department will continue to press China on the importance of an

open and unrestricted Internet," says the letter, written by acting assistant

secretary of state for legislative affairs Joseph Macmanus. "As part of the

State Department's Internet freedom initiative, we support efforts to protect

groups and individuals from such attacks."

The attack is only one of a number of recent attacks said to originate from

China. Google in late Mayannounced that hundreds of its Gmail users,

including senior U.S. officials, had been the targets of a spear-phishing

campaign that originated in China. A February attack on the G-20 was

similarly traced to Chinese IP addresses, and China has also been reportedly

eyed in recent attacks on the International Monetary Fund. Leaked State

Department cables indicate that the Chinese have been attacking U.S.

government agencies and companies since at least 2002.

What industry can teach government about IT innovation and efficiency. Also in the new, all-digital issue of InformationWeek Government: Federal agencies have to shift from annual IT security assessments to continuous monitoring of their risks. Download it now. (Free registration required.)

CopyrightUSA: Freedom of the Press: Removing photo credits a serious No-No

2011-06-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE New Jersey · June 16, 2011 · Libel

Removing photo credit creates

Digital Millenium Copyright Act

liability

Keywords: copyright; Fair use

Individuals who physically remove credit lines attached to photographs violate a federal law that prevents people from stripping out copyright ownership information from works, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia (3rd Cir.) ruled earlier this week.

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The ruling, which could also apply to attribution information included in videos, newspaper clips and other copyrighted material, interpreted the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Media attorney Tom Cafferty, who represented the defendants in the case, said the ruling could harm free expression by creating an additional level of copyright liability for those who legitimately use others' works. But Mickey Osterreicher, an attorney who represents photographers, applauded the ruling for recognizing that people should credit images that they don’t own.

The case began when photographer Peter Murphy was hired to take a picture of New Jersey disc jockeys Craig Carton and Ray Rossi for New Jersey Monthly. After the photo was published in 2006, an employee at the radio station deleted the caption, which included the photographer’s credit while scanning the image into a computer.

The altered photo was then uploaded to the station’s website, where listeners were encouraged to download it, make alterations and upload their creations to the website.

When the photographer demanded the website remove the images, the DJs responded by implying that the photographer was a homosexual, according to the lawsuit. The DJs also attacked Murphy's business reputation.

Murphy sued the DJs and the owner of the radio station for violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, copyright infringement and defamation. A trial court dismissed all of the claims.

On appeal, the Third Circuit ruled that the act of removing the photo caption that included the credit line for the photographer violated section 1202 of the DMCA, which prohibits altering information used to determine who owns an image’s copyright.

Courts disagree about whether the copyright law’s protections, known as copyright management information, extend to physical attributions. Some have ruled that the protection covered only electronic data embedded within an image or file that identified the copyright holder.

“In this case, the mere fact that Murphy’s name appeared in a printed gutter credit near the Image rather than as data . . . does not prevent it from qualifying” for the law’s protection, the court said.

Cafferty said the decision could create additional legal liability for journalists and other creators who use copyrighted material but do not attribute it.

“I think it creates a significant degree of uncertainty,” he said. “It has a serious potential chilling effect on free speech.”

Cafferty said he is still reviewing the decision and is considering asking the full appellate court to rehear the case.

Under traditional copyright law, individuals have limited rights to use copyrighted material owned by others without permission or attribution under a doctrine known as fair use. The doctrine recognizes the tension between copyright ownership and the First Amendment.

Such uses generally include speech that is non-commercial, satirical or newsworthy.

But the fair use defense would not apply to the digital copyright law’s anti-circumvention provisions, Cafferty said.

For example, a documentary may make a fair use of a copyrighted image, but omit the credit. Under the ruling announced by the appellate court, the documentary could still be liable.

“You may have a fair use, but still have a DMCA violation,” Cafferty said.

But Osterreicher, general counsel for The National Press Photographers Association, said that the ruling helps photojournalists, who often have little control over where their images end up online and whether they receive credit for their work.

“It gives credit where credit is due,” Osterreicher said of the decision.

Because people often strip out photojournalists’ credit from images, the decision helps photographers get paid for their work, Osterreicher said.

The appellate court also reversed the trial court’s findings related to the copyright infringement and defamation claims.

The court ruled that the radio station's posting of Murphy’s images to the website did not constitute a fair use, finding that the factors used to determine whether the use was fair weighed against the defendants.

The court also said that the trial court improperly dismissed the defamation claim before the plaintiff had been able to gather evidence to help prove his claim.

— Aaron Mackey, 6:33 pm · Comments: 0

Copyright 2011 The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

-- Reporters Committee material re-posted here by refBlogger Monitor

China tries to hide Zengcheng protests by blocking Google

2011-06-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

---------------------------------------------
SearchEngineWatch (June17,2k11)

China Blocks Google Searches for Zengcheng Protests

Rob Young, June 17, 20111 Comments

The People's Republic of China has never particularly been known for its free speech activism. As the information age has gained momentum, so have the restrictions of the Chinese government. Most recently, China blocked any Chinese search for terms related to Zencheng – a region that saw protests and riots in recent weeks.

The Zengcheng Riots

What's been reported is that two migrant workers selling goods on the streets of Zengcheng had an altercation with security officers. The exact details are uncertain, but one of the migrants – who was pregnant – collapsed to the ground. At that point, riots began, and a large crowd gathered and fought against the police.

The Chinese Government offers a contradicting version of the story, stating that the pregnant woman is in good condition and that most of the information being spread is pure rumor. Authorities have urged citizens to remain calm and disregard any "misinformation."

Perhaps to assure that the misinformation doesn't gain a foothold, Chinese authorities are also making sure that none of its citizens ever get a chance to see the information.

China's Banhammer and Sickle

While Google doesn't function in China due to censorship concerns and the fear that Google accounts may be abused to compromise the efforts of human rights activists, Chinese users who visit the Google site are still directed to the Hong Kong Google site.

As reported by PC World, Google searches in Chinese for Zengcheng "result in the browser's connection to the server being reset, with no search results offered." Additionally, many microblogging sites have had all searches related to Zengcheng blocked.

The Chinese argument, especially on government-run mediums, is that the news we get in Western media is tainted by anti-communist bias – and that our propaganda is what's painting the portrait of Chinese issues.

Anti-communist ideology, however, is not what we're talking about here. The concern is not with the economic model, but with the lack of free speech.

In other words, it's not the hammer and sickle – it's the banhammer and sickle being used so frequently to block information on riots, protests, and anything critical of the Chinese government. Beyond the Zengcheng blocks, the Chinese authorities have:

Prevented access to Facebook and various other social sites
Blocked searches for terms in the past, including the "Jasmine Revolution" used by activists inside the country
Prevented Gmail access to stop inter-activists communication
Prevented access to the Internet – full stop – for long periods of time in areas that showed civil unrest.

If nothing else, this current debacle makes it unlikely that Google or other major search/social sites will be re-entering China in the near future.

-- posted by refBlogger Monitor

Karachi hosts international bloggers network -- Egyptian Spring rep present

2011-06-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

Express Tribune (June12,2k11)

International bloggers

network in Karachi

at first-ever social media summit

by Mahnoor Sherazee

Published: June 12, 2011

Rebecca Chiao shared details of HarassMap's functionality, reach and response. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI:

Recent events in the Middle East have made the word ‘revolution’ almost synonymous with the term social media. Realising the power of citizen journalism, the US Consulate and some sponsors organised Pakistan’s first ever international social media summit called Network! on Saturday.

The summit invited five bloggers from Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia along with many local bloggers [Pakistan]who have garnered significant online traffic through their activities, updates and opinions. Two bloggers, one from the US and the other from the Netherlands, participated via Skype. It was an interesting choice to have included Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia which are also Muslim countries like Pakistan. When it comes to following trends, there seems to be a robust online presence in countries with oppressive regimes, something that has further fuelled the blogging community. Thus, it did not surprise many that the talk of revolution coming to Pakistan, followed by Egypt, was brought up by several participants during various sessions in the day-long summit.

Read more...click t+mstamp just below ...

The introductory phase included a welcome by Consul General William Martin. The USCG compared valiant and selfless journalists in Pakistan to soldiers on a battlefield — paying with their lives for stories that deserve to be told.

Education and good governance

Is it enough to initiate the movement for change but not see it through to its natural conclusion? Or does it suffice to simply get the ball rolling and leave it up to others while moving on to the next cause? These are just some of the questions that were generated in this discussion.

Egyptian blogger Mohamed El Dahshan shared the uprising of his people and the successful removal of president Hosni Mubarak. “About 18 million people participated in the national referendum after Mubarak’s removal which is a significant turnout as before people didn’t really trust elections,” he said. Dahshan then pointed out many technical blunders in the execution of the referendum. “In many cases the mainstream media does not know or report on these matters that is where bloggers come in. Is our job done with the removal of Mubarak?” he asked.

Part of the panel was Dr Awab Alvi, the dentist by day and Teeth Maestro by night. His blogs seem to have their finger on the pulse of political and social injustices. However, when asked if the local blogosphere was strong enough to walk the talk he resolutely replied, “No”. When asked for a clarification, he shrugged his shoulders. “People blog and are very aggressive in their comments but when we hold rallies only 0.5 per cent of the online community turns up.” On a similar revolution in Pakistan, he said, “Egyptians had a few triggers. One of them was the picture of the body of a young boy who had been tortured. Here just a couple of days ago a brutal murder was caught on tape of a boy being shot at point-blank range and… nothing!” Alvi did suggest though that text messaging has proven to be a stronger tool in Pakistan to rally public support as opposed to the web in Egypt.

Women and social activism

A great deal of interest was generated over Egyptian activist Rebecca Chiao’s HarassMap, an online forum for (wo)men who have been sexually harassed. The independently funded initiative also offers security and safety tips through video demonstrations.

In a later session titled ‘An interactive workshop on HarassMap’, founder for the site Chiao shared details of the tool’s functionality, reach and response. “Egyptian society wasn’t used to women, especially from rural areas, speaking so explicitly about their experiences, using harsh language to describe their ordeal and naming specific body parts that had been violated. So it was encouraging to see that women across the social strata had decided enough was enough.” When asked about the follow-up through legal channels, Chiao said, “First public attention will come then the government will and eventually the police will be on board as well. But we need to get the public motivated first. Our goal is to change the social acceptability of harassment.”

When questioned whether women activists feared repercussion of being outspoken, another avid blogger Jehan Ara commented, “What is worse? To keep quiet and remained scared or to speak up and face the consequences? If I don’t speak up then I deserve the society I live in.”

Monetising your social media space

“Blogs are the most explosive outlet, and are now no longer a business elective but a prerequisite,” said AJ Shirazi, a blogger. Blogger Imran Hussain added that monetising should not be a priority right from the start rather the main focus should be on getting more and more followers or users. Country consultant for Google in Pakistan, Badar Khushnood, agreed. “First it was Orkut now it is Facebook. One needs to focus on content first. The users will follow as will the money.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12th, 2011

Hoaxer plays 'Gay Girl in Damascus' blogger, turns out to be 40ish male American

2011-06-14T03:13:00.000-07:00

Slate, Cristina Gossman (June13,2k11)

"Gay Girl in Damascus" Author Comes Clean

40-year-old American man admits he posed as Syrian lesbian.

By Christina Gossmann | Posted Monday, Jun. 13, 2011, at 1:16 PM EDT

She captured the attention of thousands and became the symbol of an uprising: Amina Aballah Arraf, a 35-year old Syrian-American lesbian, detained in Damascus because of her open criticism of the regime.

The problem, however, is that Arraf wasn’t quite who she said she was. In reality, the person behind the “A Gay Girl in Damascus” blog was really a 40-year-old American man from Georgia.

Tom MacMaster, the actual author of the blog, posted apologies on Sunday and Monday admitting to the hoax. “I sort of by accident… created something that had a lot more interest than I had ever possibly expected and then when I tried to shut it down it just kept getting bigger,” he told the New York Times.

MacMaster had been posting to the blog for months, but the global attention reached a tipping point last week after McMaster, pretending to be one of Arraf’s cousins, wrote on the blog that Arraf had been detained by government forces. The post drew widespread attention, even prompting the U.S. State Department to open an investigation.

"I regret that a lot of people feel that I led them on,” MacMaster told the Guardian on Monday. “I regret that ... a number of people are seeing my hoax as distracting from real news, real stories about Syria and real concerns of real, actual, on-the-ground bloggers, where people will doubt their veracity."

His apology did little to quell the anger of many gay and political advocates who felt betrayed.

Reuters reports that Sami Hamwi, the pseudonym for the Damascus editor of GayMiddleEast.com, wrote on its website: "I say shame on you!!! There are bloggers in Syria who are trying as hard as they can to report news and stories from the country. ... We have to deal with more difficulties than you can imagine. What you have done has harmed many, put us all in danger, and made us fearful about (pursuing) our...activism."

MacMaster says he initially created the Arraf character with the aim to present “a perspective that doesn’t often get heard on the Middle East,” but also admits that the blog served as something of a writing exercise.

“Ever since I was a child,” MacMaster wrote in one of his apology posts, “I’ve wanted to write fiction but, when my first attempts met with universal rejection, I took a more serious look at my own work and I realized that I could not write conversation in a natural way nor could I convincingly write characters who weren’t me.”

While he may have given an informative, if fictional, alternative view of Syria’s uprisings, MacMaster’s Amina also lived a personal life online. In her name, MacMaster had a Facebook relationship with Sandra Bagaria, a Canadian woman, among others.

“I feel really guilty about that,” he told the Guardian. “I got caught up in the moment and it seemed ... fun. And I feel a little like [expletive] about that."

Photo by Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images.

-- Slate / Christina Gossmann materials re-posted here by Owlb

Artists: Repressed in China: Ai Weiwei deserves visible support from art establishment

2011-06-08T01:25:00.000-07:00

Guardian (May7,2k11)

--Guardian/Bishop material posted by Owlb

The art establishment

needs to make

its support for Ai Weiwei

visible

A curator's signature on an online petition is not enough. The great museums should publicise China's detainee via their sites

- Philip Bishop
- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 June 2011 19.00 BST
- Article history

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei with his installation 'Sunflower Seeds' inside the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern gallery in London, October 2010; in April 2011, Ai was arrested and detained by the Chinese authorities. Photograph: Lennart Preiss/AP

One of the most successful attempts to galvanise public support for the detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been a petition started by the Guggenheim Museum and other art institutions. To date, it has been signed by over 140,000 individuals and organisations. The petition has been so popular, in fact, that the social action website Change.org, which hosts it, said its site has been the target of repeated cyber-attacks originating in China and which, the organisation believes, are aimed directly at taking down the Ai Weiwei petition. The attacks have been so disruptive to Change.org that they've called on the FBI for assistance and a US lawmaker, championing their cause, is calling on Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to tell the Chinese government to stop the attacks.

Ai Weiwei and his associates – Wen Tao, his friend and assistant; Zhang Jingsong, his cousin and driver; Hu Mingfen, his accountant; Liu Zhenggang, a designer — were rounded up by Chinese authorities on 3 April, when police arrested Ai as he was about to board a plane in Beijing. Although there has been chatter in Beijing-controlled media about crimes supposedly committed by Ai, no charges have been brought against the man rated the world's top artist.

Despite the popularity of the Change.org petition and the international furore surrounding it, however, if you visit the websites of virtually any of the petition's major signatories, you would not know that Ai was incarcerated. Judging from these websites, all is well with the world.

The Guggenheim is currently promoting an exhibition about Kandinsky at the Bauhaus; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is talking up an exhibition about Elizabeth Taylor in Iran; and even the Tate Modern in the UK, which until a few weeks ago hosted Ai's Sunflower Seed installation, doesn't disturb its homepage to inform visitors that the artist has been criminally detained, hasn't been charged with any crime, hasn't been heard from for over eight weeks. These three institutions are not alone in their homepage silence. Numerous other headlining signatories of the Change.org petition also have nothing to say on the matter on their homepages, including: MoMA; Art Institute of Chicago; Hammer Museum; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Queensland Art Gallery, Australia; Harvard Art Museums; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

On the other side of the ledger, the US city of Minneapolis deserves credit – as both the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Centre have had some text on their sites about the Change.org petition, while the Serpentine Gallery in London also has text about the petition and a photo of Ai. For its part, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, has a photo of Ai Weiwei at the Tate Modern tossing his sunflower seeds heavenward – and a reference to the Change.org petition – as part of a series of images that cycle through in a Flash slideshow.

Finally, a tip of the cap goes to the Taipei Contemporary Art Centre, which has a brave message on its homepage calling on its mainland adversary to release all activists and to protect the creative freedom of artists, a freedom it says is a sign of any country's mature development. That's four institutions out of 20 publicly supporting Ai Weiwei on their websites – and not the biggest names in the art gallery and museum world, by any stretch of the imagination. This is surely a golden opportunity that sadly has been missed. Yet, as Hari Kunzru writes of the Montreal Museum (currently hosting a China show), it's also a golden opportunity that can still be taken.

The Chinese government, having abducted Ai Weiwei, is making a concerted effort to make him invisible, including removing all references to him from public media, including the internet. They can do this in their land. They should not be allowed to do it in any other. Ai Weiwei was committed and creative in his use of the web when he was free to express himself. He would expect no less of us now that his freedom has been taken from him and he is relying on others to fight for his release.

Censorship: China: Provocative artist Ai WeiWei 'disappeared'

2011-06-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

Unbeige (Apr7,2k11)

As Support Grows

for the Missing Ai Weiwei,

State-Run Chinese Newspaper

Issues ‘Ominous Editorial'

by Steve Delahoyde on April 7, 2011 7:02 AM

Despite more calls for his release from countries
across the world, which now include the US and
the UK, and even more newspaper, magazine and
online editorials demanding the same, artist
Ai Weiwei still hasn’t been heard from since his
arrest and detainment on Sunday as he attempted
to leave his native China. However, as the
Telegraph reports, the state-run Global Times
issued “an ominous editorial” yesterday, saying in part:

“Ai Weiwei [...] has been close to the red line of

Chinese law. As long as Ai Weiwei continuously

marches forward, he will inevitably touch the red

line one day,” the newspaper wrote. “Ai Weiwei will

be judged by history, but he will pay a price for his

special choice,” it added.

While certainly not a positive development in the slightest,
the attention this detainment has received has grown
dramatically, which one believes might benefit the artist in
the end (Art Info has saidthat he “may at this moment be
the most famous artist in the world” and have filed this great
report on how he got there) Closer to home, in New York, the
city has said it will move forward on the public art project it
commissioned from Weiwei that will “occupy the Pulitzer
Fountain outside the Plaza Hotel” and is set to be finished next
month. And in China, people are managing to get around
Chinese sensors online to voice their support by writing
“Love the Future” instead of “Ai Weiei,” as they both look and
sound very similar when written in Chinese characters.

-- Unbeige material posted here by Owlb

China source takes out 'hundreds of Gmail accounts,' as expert expounds on Cyber War

2011-06-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

InformationWeek (June1,2k11)
the business value of technology

USA Department of Defense says "cyber attacks may mean war."

Google says

hundreds of Gmail accounts

hijacked

An attack from China has affected hundreds of users, including senor U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries such as South Korea, military personnel, and journalists.

by Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
June 01, 2011 06:05 PM

Slideshow: Top 15 Google Apps ForBusiness

(click image for larger view and for full slideshow)

Google has detected a campaign to gather Gmail account credentials that appears to originate from Jinan, China, and is warning users to take a few minutes to review their security settings.

Eric Grosse, engineering director for Google's security team, said in a blog post that hundreds of users have been affected, including senor U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries such as South Korea, military personnel, and journalists.

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We spoke with Chris Sather, Product Management for Network Defense at McAfee about McAfee's next generation firewalls that analyze relationships and not protocols.

"The goal of this effort seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users' emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples' forwarding and delegation settings," Grosse said.

By changing these settings, which are only evident through the appropriate Gmail Settings tab page, the attackers could generate copies of incoming and outgoing email that would be forwarded without the account holder's knowledge.

Learn the security essentials of mobility
Business-Ready Mobile Infrastructure

Google declined to provide further details or information about those it believes may be behind the attack.

In January 2010, Google reported that it had uncovered "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China." Google said at the time that it had reason to believe that one of the main goals of the attackers was to compromise the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

In that respect, the attack was not very successful: While Google acknowledged that the attackers had stolen unspecified intellectual property, it stressed that only two Gmail accounts appeared to have been accessed.

Jinan, capital of Shandong Province in Eastern China, happens to be the location of the Lanxiang Vocational School, one of the two Chinese schools linked to the 2010 attack against Google.

An October 2009 report on Chinese cyber espionage prepared by defense contractor Northrop Grumman said that the Chinese military maintains at least six technical reconnaissance bureaus for gathering cyber intelligence in the Lanzhou, Jinan, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Beijing military regions.

The current attack differs from the 2010 attack in that it doesn't involve a vulnerability in Google's infrastructure; it is simply a phishing campaign to dupe users into revealing their Gmail login credentials.

Google said that it detected the phishing campaign through its cloud-based security and abuse detection systems, through the reports from users, and through a report published in February on the Contagio blog, a collection of malware samples and threat analysis. The company said it has notified victims and the relevant government authorities.

Google is advising Gmail users to consider steps to improve the security of their accounts. The company recommends using two-factor verification, using a strong password, only entering account information at the proper Google domain, checking Gmail settings for unknown forwarding addresses or unauthorized account delegation, watching for suspicious account activity warnings, using Google Chrome, and reviewing security education materials available online.

Arab Spring, did it change the image of Social Media in global society

2011-06-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

Managing Technology blog, Arabic Knowledge at Wharton
[Wharton School of Finance, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]
(May31,2k11)

Creative Commons' Joichi Ito: Arab Unrest Altered Social Media's Image

Published May 31, 2011 in Arabic Knowledge@Wharton

Share this Article

Throughout his career, Joichi Ito has filled numerous roles -- entrepreneur, angel investor, blogger, and CEO of a number of companies, including Creative Commons. In September he adds a new title when he becomes director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.

Currently residing in Dubai, Ito sat down with Arabic Knowledge@Wharton to reflect on his time in the Arab world, and the role social media has played in the region's unrest. He also outlines the challenges traditional media face to become competitive in the wake of new media's growth.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Arabic Knowledge@Wharton: You came to live in the Arab world to learn and understand its culture. What lessons are you taking away from your time here?

Joichi Ito: I am not leaving, first of all. I'm going to keep my place here. The MIT media lab is an international institution and it has to become even more international. I'm going to try to set up a regional presence here. The Middle East is going to continue to get a lot of my attention. I'm trying to learn, trying to understand the culture and also trying to make relationships here.

When I first came, I really didn't understand anything. Everything seemed like chaos. And now, I can see a little bit of order and I can usually guess who's the Egyptian and who's a Libyan and who's the Lebanese guy. So I'm starting to understand the relationships between the different Arab countries and also some of the basic things about how stuff is done here. But I still don't know that much. For me, it's a ten-year project to get to know this region better both culturally and business-wise.

Arabic Knowledge@Wharton: Have you had a chance to reflect on the current unrest in the region?

Ito: I tend to be more on the activist side. I have written about emergent democracy, and about how I think technology will change democracy. I think this time really is an important step in the future for media and the future of relationships between new media and governments. I think it's also a key period for the region, and it's interesting to see how much the Internet is playing a role. I know people who are on one side of the argument and I know people who are on the other side. I'm sure everyone knows people on both sides, so it's kind of interesting to listen to the establishment talking, as well as the students.

PoliticsPakistan: Journo assassinated: Suggested link btwn Al Qaeda and Pakistan navy personnel

2011-06-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

Christian Science Monitor (May31,2k11)

An excerpt of an article by Issam Ahmed:

Journalist killed

Today, veteran journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad was found dead in his car after being missing for two days, following the publication of an investigative story into last week’s attacks on a naval base in Karachi in which he suggested a link between Al Qaeda and naval personnel.

In a note to Human Rights Watch last fall, Mr. Shahzad predicted that he might be detained by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency. Shahzad wrote for Asia Times Online and the Italian news agency Adnkronos International.

Ali Dayan Hasan, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, is calling for a full investigation. “The manner in which this killing took place echoes other documented cases in which Pakistan’s intelligence services, chiefly the ISI, have been involved,” he said.

“This only means this country is dangerous for anyone trying to work as a journalist," according to Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan’s Herald magazine. "Regardless of your professional standing, you are under threat. This is not the first time that agencies have been involved in intimidating journalists.”

-----------------------

-- Ahmed's entire article is h+ly recommended. -- Owlb

Transnational company, Cisco, helps Chinese police track dissidents

2011-05-30T01:05:00.000-07:00

InformationaWeek Government (May24,2k11)
-- IWGovt material posted by Owlb

Cisco Accused Of Helping

Chinese Police Track

Dissidents

A lawsuit claims internal marketing material shows that Cisco encouraged Chinese authorities to use its products for surveillance and control.

article by Thomas Claiburn

Networking equipment maker Cisco and its top executives were sued last week in San Jose, Calif., for allegedly providing censorship and surveillance technology to China in violation of the Alien Torts Statute.

The Alien Torts Statute allows individuals to file claims in U.S. courts over violations of the law of nations or a U.S. treaty. It has become a tool by which victims of torture seek redress for human rights abuses, particularly those alleged to have occurred outside the U.S.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong, a religious group that faces ongoing persecution by Chinese authorities. In addition to Cisco, the complaint names CEO John Chambers, and two Cisco China executives, as well as other unspecified defendants.

The complaint charges that Cisco "designed, supplied, and helped maintain a censorship and surveillance network known as the Golden Shield in collaboration with Chinese Community Party and Chinese Public Security officials, knowing and intending that it would be utilized [by authorities] to eavesdrop, tap, and intercept communications, identify and track Plaintiffs as Falun Gong members for the specific purpose of subjecting them to gross human rights abuses."

Cisco disputes these claims. "There is no basis for these allegations against Cisco, and we intend to vigorously defend against them," a company spokesperson said in an email statement. "Cisco does not operate networks in China or elsewhere, nor does Cisco customize our products in any way that would facilitate censorship or repression. Cisco builds equipment to global standards which facilitate free exchange of information, and we sell the same equipment in China that we sell in other nations worldwide in strict compliance with U.S. government regulations."

China has proven to be a problematic market for many foreign companies, particularly those in the U.S. In 2005, a Chinese court sentenced Chinese journalist Shi Tao to 10 years in prison for revealing state secrets. Yahoo provided Chinese authorities with critical evidence about Shi Tao's email communication. The incident prompted a widespread outcry against Yahoo and tarnished the company's reputation. Two years later, Yahoo offered financial support to the families of Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning, another jailed dissident, and then-CEO Jerry Yang delivered a public apology to Shi Tao's mother at a Congressional hearing.

Google in 2006 acknowledged how difficult it was to provide adequate service to users in China, but insisted the compromises it had to make to do business there would lead to a more open China in the years ahead. Then in early 2010, the company changed course and severely curtailed its operations in China, citing "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google" and attempts to hack into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

This is not the first time Cisco has had to justify its business with in China. Cisco was among several Internet companies that testified on Feb. 15, 2006, before a U.S. House of Representatives International Relations subcommittee on the issue of censorship in China. During the hearing, Mark Chandler, Cisco's SVP and general counsel, defended his company, asserting, "Cisco does not customize, or develop specialized or unique filtering capabilities, in order to enable different regimes to block access to information."

Yet the company's claim that it merely provides neutral technology without being aware of how its products will be used was rebutted two months later in a hearing before the same subcommittee on April 19, 2006, when author Ethan Gutmann cited Cisco brochures from the Shanghai Gold Shield trade show in December 2002 as evidence of the company's effort to cater to the needs of police authorities.

"Newly translated documents explicitly show Cisco was training the Chinese police in surveillance techniques as early as 2001," Gutmann claimed.

The lawsuit cites internal Cisco marketing material as part of its evidence, but those documents aren't public yet and there is no way of knowing if they are the same material cited by Gutmann in his testimony. If such marketing material exists and gets introduced as evidence, it's likely to play a central role in determining the outcome of the lawsuit.

Media: YouTube: Channel honors fallen journalists

2011-05-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

SearchEngineWatch (May17,2k11)

YouTube Channel

Honors Fallen Journalists

Greg JarboeMay 17, 2011

Yesterday, Steve Grove, Head of YouTube News and Politics, announced on both the Official Google Blog andOfficial YouTube Blog that the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Google and YouTube are together launching theJournalists Memorial channel on YouTube to remember the journalists who have died in the last year while reporting news around the world.
In his post on both blogs, Grove said, “As we become accustomed to nearly ubiquitous coverage of the news and events unfolding around the world, it’s easy to forget the price that is sometimes paid to obtain quality, accurate reporting on important stories—particularly in areas of conflict or in cases of government repression of the media.”
He added, “Their stories are incredible: heading into a street battle with no weapon other than your camera; talking about politics over the radio, only to be beaten to death with iron bars by a group of thugs on the way to work. The risks and sacrifices that many have made in order to provide us with accurate information is remarkable. On the Journalists Memorial channel you can watch a collection of videos representing these journalists’ lives and their work.”
Krishna Barat, the founder and head of Google News, delivered the keynote address at theJournalists Memorial Rededication Ceremony. The Journalists Memorial channel on YouTube will become a digital version of the Newseum’s Journalists Memorial, which is re-dedicated annually to honor journalists worldwide who have died during the preceding year.
Yesterday, the names of 77 journalists who died or were killed while on assignment in 2010 were added to the memorial, which already included the names of more than 2,000 journalists who have been recognized for their sacrifices since 1837.
Meanwhile, Katie Rogers of The Washington Post reported today that several foreign journalists detained by the Libyan government could be released this week. This includes GlobalPost correspondent James Foley, Clare Morgana Gillis, who has written for The Atlantic and USA Today, and Manuel Varela, a Spanish photographer who works under the name Manu Brabo. They have now been held in Tripoli for six weeks.
All three were taken together on April 5, 2011, by forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi while they were reporting on the outskirts of Brega, the eastern oil town that has seen some of the worst fighting since the conflict began.
A fourth journalist, South African Anton Hammerl, had also been with them at the time. But his whereabouts remain unknown.

-- Search Engine Watch materials posted by Owlb

ChinaCensorship: Blogger: Has been dissappeared, apparent detention

2011-05-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

Financial Times email newsletter (Mar30,2k11)

Novelist blogger goes missing in China
A Chinese-born Australian writer has disappeared in what appears to be the latest detention of an internet blogger in the weeks since online calls were made for a ‘Jasmine revolution’http://link.ft.com/r/UXDMSS/BMCKQ4/0TLSD/YHF2J2/ZBFA7F/ZH/h?a1=2011&a2=3&a3=29

-- FT item posted by Owlb

Press Freedom USA -- for Industry, or Technology? Eugene Volokh SSRN abstract

2011-04-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

The Freedom...of the Press, from 1791 to 1868 to Now - Freedom for the Press as an Industry, or the Press as a Technology?

Eugene Volokh
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law

University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 160, 2011
UCLA School of Law Research Paper 11-10
Abstract:
Both Justices and scholars have long debated whether the “freedom...of the press” was historically understood as securing special constitutional rights for the institutional press (newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters). This issue comes up in many fields: campaign finance law, libel law, the news gatherer’s privilege, access to government facilities for news gathering purposes, and more. Most recently, last year’s Citizens United v. FEC decision split 5-4 on this very question, and not just in relation to corporate speech rights.

This article discusses what the “freedom of the press” has likely meant with regard to this question, during (1) the decades surrounding the ratification of the First Amendment, (2) the decades surrounding the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, and (3) the modern First Amendment era. The article focuses solely on the history, and leaves the First Amendment theory questions to others. And, with regard to the history, it offers evidence that the “freedom...of the press” has long been understood as meaning freedom for all who used the printing press as technology - and, by extension, mass communication technology more broadly - and has generally not been limited to those who belonged to the institutional press as an industry.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 64

Keywords: Free Speech, Free Press, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, First Amendment, Constitutional Law, Constitutional History

Accepted Paper Series

-- abstract for Social Science Research Network 64-page study by Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School posted by Lawt, refWrite frontpage columnist

Suggested Citation

Volokh, Eugene, The Freedom...of the Press, from 1791 to 1868 to Now - Freedom for the Press as an Industry, or the Press as a Technology?. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 160, 2011; UCLA School of Law Research Paper 11-10. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1802229

PoliticsChina: Artist disappears: Police grab politically-articulate artist at airport

2011-04-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

BBC News (Apr4,2k11) -- materials posted by Aesthetipol

Ai Weiwei is a successful artist and a vocal critic of the
Chinese government. He has been disappeared.

China police silent on

artist Ai Weiwei's detention

by Michael BristowBBC News, Beijing

The internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been missing for more than 24 hours after being detained at Beijing airport.

The artist was stopped while passing through security checks for a flight to Hong Kong.

No one has seen or heard from him since. The authorities have not commented.

Ai Weiwei has become one of China's most outspoken critics, complaining about a lack of human rights.

The artist was detained on Sunday morning while travelling with an assistant, Jennifer Ng.

The documents of both were checked thoroughly before Ms Ng was allowed to continue on her journey to Hong Kong.

She told the BBC that Ai Weiwei was taken away by border guards.

"I went back to check with the security officers and they said, 'He has other business - you go on the flight on your own'," she said.

A few hours later, more than 40 police officers raided the artist's Beijing studio.

Dozens of items were confiscated, said another assistant, and several people were taken to a nearby police station. They were released a few hours later.

Vocal critic

Ai Weiwei's artwork is known across the world.

He helped design the main stadium used in the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. It became known as the Bird's Nest because of its intricate steel latticework.

He currently has an exhibition at the Tate Modern gallery in London. It is made up of 100 million porcelain objects made to look like sunflower seeds, a popular snack food in China.

The artist has also become a vocal critic of the Chinese government.

Some of his work has political connotations - he tried to gather the names of every school child who died during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.

This is a sensitive subject as many schools fell down in the earthquake, leading to claims that they were shoddily built.

The Chinese government is reluctant to talk about this issue and has arrested activists who do.

Ai Weiwei has also lent his support to others who have tackled the authorities.

He turned up outside the Beijing courthouse when fellow artist Wu Yuren went on trial at the end of last year.

He used the opportunity to talk to the foreign media, berating the government for what he believes is a lack of basic rights and freedoms in China.

These activities have brought him to the attention of the authorities.

The 53-year-old was last year prevented from travelling abroad and, in a separate incident, was briefly held under house arrest.

He is under constant surveillance. Miss Ng, his assistant, said the police had visited his compound three times recently.

She said that had led Ai Weiwei to wonder if his next detention was not far away.

Censorship: Chinese govt: And Google's own Chief Executive Officer

2011-04-03T02:12:00.000-07:00

<HuffPo (Apr 1,2,11)

Google CEO tried to

c e n s o r

Google Search Results,

hide political donation,

book claims

The same day that Huffington Post carried the above story, it also published another item regarding the Chinese government's censorship of Google's email service in China.

BEIJING — Google said Monday the Chinese government is interfering with its email services in China, making it difficult for users to gain access to its Gmail program, amid an intensified Internet crackdown following widespread unrest in the Middle East.

Google Inc. said its engineers have determined there are no technical problems with the email service or its main website.

"There is no technical issue on our side; we have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail," the company said in a brief statement.

And this ain't the first time for China. But then again it probably wasn't the first time for the Google CEO either.

-- Owlb

JuridicsCanada: TV show blocked: Court blacks-out American TV network coverage of murder case

2011-04-03T01:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a truly difficult case of a court faced with sticking to a h+ view of freedom of speech and expression, or preventing a broadcast that coud influence jurors and hence the outcome of a h+ profile murder case before the court. That's the infamous Twitchell case. Montreal Gazette is the provenance of the news story, but the URL for the live link has gone dead, I'm afraid - Story - News - Montreal Gazette.

Canadians blocked from viewing

ABC program on Twitchell case

BY MARIAM IBRAHIM, EDMONTONJOURNAL.COM MARCH 19, 2011

Mark Twitchell is shown in a court sketch in Edmonton court on March 14, 2011.

Photograph by: Amanda McRoberts, Global Edmonton, edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON — Canadians were blocked from viewing Friday night’s episode of the ABC News magazine program 20/20 featuring the case of accused killer Mark Twitchell because of a publication ban concerning the ongoing trial.

Instead of the program, a message was broadcast by the Canadian distribution channel, Shaw TV, apologizing for the inconvenience.

“Due to a publication ban concerning the content of tonight’s episode of ABC’s 20/20 as it relates to the ongoing Twitchell murder trial in Edmonton, tonight’s episode is not available for viewing in Canada,” the message read. “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The episode was censored in Canada to prevent the jury from

viewing evidence before it is heard in court or learning information

that could influence the outcome of the trial.

Twitchell, a 31-year-old city filmmaker, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Johnny Altinger. Twitchell is accused of luring Altinger to a Mill Woods garage in October 2008 before killing him, dismembering his body and dumping the remains down a sewer.

In September 2008, Twitchell made a short film at the garage, in

which a killer lures a male victim to a location using an Internet

dating service.

....

mibrahim@edmontonjournal.com

twitter.com/mariam_di

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Canadians+blocked+from+viewing+program+Twitchell+case/4472299/story.html#ixzz1IRlDJ2eP

-- Montreal Gazette material posted by Lawt

Libyan exile's London UK flat becomes media hub for protestors in his home country

2011-02-25T19:03:00.000-08:00

Libya: how an exile in Britain finds the chinks in Gaddafi's wall of silence

Author Hisham Matar's 'newsroom' in a small London flat feeds telephoned reports from protesters to world's media

Hisham Matar
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 February 2011 18.05 GMT
Article history

Author Hisham Matar, whose London flat has become a media hub. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod

Anticipating the pro-democracy protests in Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his family and security forces built a wall of silence around the entire country: Libyan journalists and writers were arrested and beaten, and foreign journalists were not granted visas.

Several Libyans abroad set up ad hoc "newsrooms", gathering information from people inside the country and feeding it to the media. I was one of them. My small London flat has become a busy hub. Up to 50 calls are made every day to sources inside Benghazi, Tripoli, Darnah, al Bayda and Misurata.

We, those here pretending to be journalists, sometimes hug each other. This happens at odd moments and not necessarily out of a clear sense of jubilation or fear, but while standing silently waiting for the kettle to boil. We are all sleep-starved. I feel a strange detachment from my surroundings: the polite view from my window – the trees, the houses across the way – seems as remote as a faraway country. Yet I am not in Libya either.

The people I speak to in Libya have become more real than those in the room around me. The telephone suddenly seems the most intimate means of communication. Even though I am always playing the cruel one: the one who asks all the questions; the one who says things like, "What do you mean, 'they fired'?" and "What do you mean by 'large crowd'?" and "How do you know they were 'mercenaries'? What proof do you have?" I am the one pretending it is all about facts and figures, the one who goes silent when the voice at the other end starts crying; I am the one who thinks about one thing and one thing only – precise information.

I have heard of journalists becoming novelists, but not the other way around. I only broke down once. And it was at a most unlikely moment. Not when someone was relaying some awful account of a massacre, but when one man in the middle of a demonstration congratulated me. It is the good manners of people facing death that gets you. He said "Hello" in that tone that over the past few days has become familiar to me, which says everything you need to know about the struggle between fear and hope, optimism and the abyss. When I introduced myself he said, "Congratulations, Mr Hisham, I hear you have a new book coming out."

Doctors are now the ones I telephone most often. I tell myself it is because they can tell me how many are dead, and how many injured. The truth is different, of course. I call them because they assume the necessary detachment.

On Thursday I spoke to one of the demonstrators, an ex-diplomat, in Az Zawiyah, a town 50 miles from Tripoli. The day before, the demonstrators had flown the pre-Gaddafi red, black and green flag, now a symbol of the uprising, over one of the rooftops surrounding Martyrs' Square, the focal point of the small town. And there was further good news: they had heard that Mahdi al Arabi, one of those involved in Gaddafi's 1969 coup d'etat, had defected and joined the people.

But at 5am on Thursday that same Mahdi al Arabi arrived at the head of a savage brigade. Using light and heavy artillery, they fired at protesters for four straight hours. The protesters defended themselves with a couple of kalashnikovs and a semi-automatic rifle, captured from the army, and some old hunting rifles. They captured six soldiers from the Mahdi al Arabi brigade: some Algerian, some from sub-Saharan Africa, the rest Libyan.

"We lost 100 men," the ex-diplomat told me. "We have just finished digging 20 graves in Martyrs' Square." He gave me his number. "Please ask journalists to call me," he said. Then, after a devastating silence, he added,"Soon, please." That "soon" said it all: his fear that he might not be alive to report one of the latest massacres in Libya.

Hisham Matar is the author of In the Country of Men

2011-02-25T14:53:00.000-08:00

Social network LinkedIn blocked in internet crackdown in China

Networking site falls victim as government stifles online calls for a pro-democracy uprising in wake of Middle East upheaval

Josh Halliday
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 February 2011 14.03 GMT

Until now LinkedIn has been allowed to grow largely unhindered in China

LinkedIn has become the latest major social network to fall victim toChina's renewed crackdown on the internet, as the ruling Communist party stifles online calls for a pro-democracy uprising.

The networking site for business professionals – which has more than 1 million users in China – was blocked for the first time in the country on Thursday. Internet searches on the Chinese Twitter equivalent are also being heavily censored.

Authorities have tightened control of the internet in recent days in the wake of the political uprising sweeping the Middle East. Activists havedescribed the situation as "one of the worst crackdowns on the mainland's activists in recent years".

Hani Durzy, a spokesman for LinkedIn, said on Friday: "We can confirm that access to LinkedIn is being blocked for some in China.

"This appears to be part of a broader effort in China going on right now, involving other sites as well."

LinkedIn has been allowed to grow largely unhindered in China, unlike more popular Western social networks such as Twitter, Facebookand YouTube which remain blocked.

A LinkedIn user named Jasmine Z set up a "Jasmine Voice" discussion group on the network on Wednesday, claiming to be "becoming a critical dissent dying for democracy, freedom and justice in my homeland".

Authorities have also blocked searches for the Chinese name of the US ambassador, Jon Huntsman, after a video was published of him near a pro-democracy gathering in Beijing.

Searches for "Egypt", "jasmine", "jasmine revolution" and "Hillary Clinton" were also censored on the popular Chinese internet portal Sina.com.

A number of activists have been arrested in the country over the past week, charged with "endangering state security" as fresh calls for demonstrations were posted on the overseas website Boxun.

China's tight grip on the internet is thought to involve one of the world's most sophisticated online censorship systems.

But the creator of "The Great Firewall", Dr Fang Binxing, recently admitted that it could be subverted by using technology called virtual private networks (VPNs). "So far, the GFW [Great Firewall] is lagging behind and still needs improvement," he told a Chinese newspaper.

Bahrain: UPDATE: Shi'ite blogger maps unity plan for 7 parties leading protests

2011-02-24T05:58:00.000-08:00

In Bahrain, Jailed Blogger Ali Abdulemam Free

by Global Voices for Global Voices February 23, 2011

Written by Amira Al Hussaini

Jailed Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam is finally free. The news was welcomed by netizens from around the world, as tweeps posted pictures of a smiling Ali being greeted by family and friends.

Ali, the administrator of a popular online forum Bahrain Online (blocked in Bahrain) was arrested at the beginning of September, during a crackdown on opposition figures, which saw up to 250 people arrested, starting from August. Charges against them kept changing as the government tried to pin them down for crimes ranging from terrorism to plotting to overthrow the regime. Finally, a group of 25, including political and human rights activists, were rounded up as the main cell and put on trial - a saga which continued to be discussed everywhere, except local newspapers, which were banned from reporting the court proceedings.

Yesterday, Bahrain King Hamad ordered the release of around 100 prisoners, including political prisoners, among them Ali.

-------------------

The figure of 100 prisoners released has since been raised to 300 (Voice of America). See also: refWrite page 1 "Anti-govt protesters hit Bahrain streets" (VOA) and "Opposition lists demands" (IANS).

---------------------

Update:

Bahraini blogger urges opposition to unite

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refWrite refBloggers Insert

Press Freedom: Arab Zone countries: Decline in press freedom, says Doha Conference re protection of journos

In quotes: Prioritising journalist protection

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Artists: Repressed in China: Ai Weiwei deserves visible support from art establishment

The art establishment

needs to make

its support for Ai Weiwei

visible

Censorship: China: Provocative artist Ai WeiWei 'disappeared'

As Support Grows

for the Missing Ai Weiwei,

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Arab Spring, did it change the image of Social Media in global society

Creative Commons' Joichi Ito: Arab Unrest Altered Social Media's Image

PoliticsPakistan: Journo assassinated: Suggested link btwn Al Qaeda and Pakistan navy personnel

Journalist killed

Transnational company, Cisco, helps Chinese police track dissidents

Cisco Accused Of Helping

Chinese Police Track

Dissidents

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YouTube Channel

Honors Fallen Journalists

ChinaCensorship: Blogger: Has been dissappeared, apparent detention

Press Freedom USA -- for Industry, or Technology? Eugene Volokh SSRN abstract

Suggested Citation

PoliticsChina: Artist disappears: Police grab politically-articulate artist at airport

China police silent on

artist Ai Weiwei's detention

Censorship: Chinese govt: And Google's own Chief Executive Officer

Google CEO tried to

c e n s o r

Google Search Results,

hide political donation,

book claims

JuridicsCanada: TV show blocked: Court blacks-out American TV network coverage of murder case

Canadians blocked from viewing

ABC program on Twitchell case

Mark Twitchell is shown in a court sketch in Edmonton court on March 14, 2011.

Photograph by: Amanda McRoberts, Global Edmonton, edmontonjournal.com

Libyan exile's London UK flat becomes media hub for protestors in his home country

Libya: how an exile in Britain finds the chinks in Gaddafi's wall of silence

Social network LinkedIn blocked in internet crackdown in China

Bahrain: UPDATE: Shi'ite blogger maps unity plan for 7 parties leading protests

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