| Irrepressible | I've mentioned this before, but Amnesty have put out another press release as a Call to Bloggers. "Amnesty International today issued a ‘Call to Bloggers’, asking them to get online and stand up for freedom of expression on the internet. The organisation says this is a critical time when fundamental rights – particularly freedom of expression and privacy – are under threat from governments that want to control what their citizens say, and what information they can access." "Amnesty’s International's statement also coincides with an urgent appeal on behalf of a blogger in Iran who was detained this month. Kianoosh Sanjari was arrested earlier this month while reporting on clashes between security forces and supporters of Shi'a cleric Ayatollah Boroujerdi. He is being held incommunicado and Amnesty International fears that he may be at risk of torture or ill-treatment." "`Freedom of expression online is a right, not a privilege – but it’s a right that needs defending. We’re asking bloggers worldwide to show their solidarity with web users in countries where they can face jail just for criticising the government.`" "Amnesty International is also highlighting the cases of prisoners of conscience, imprisoned for the expression of their peaceful views online." "Chinese journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo! account to email a US-based website about an internal government directive instructing journalists how to handle media coverage of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for `illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities.`" "Tunisian lawyer and human rights defender Mohammed Abbou is serving a three and a half year prison sentence largely for publishing articles critical of the Tunisian authorities on the internet." "Vietnamese political dissident Truong Quoc Huy was first arrested in October 2005 with two other young people after chatting on a democracy and human rights website. His whereabouts remain unknown and no charges have been publicised." Amnesty are asking for Bloggers to add certain banned content to their own sites, amongst other things. More information can be found at Amnesty's website, or the dedicated website they have put up, http://irrepressible.info/. It is also worth mentioning the Hacktivismo Declaration, which is definatly worth a read, in fact the main Hacktivismo site is always worth mentioning. There was an article in the Observer this year written by Amnesty's UK Director, for more information. UPDATE : Brad is on it. Big up. UPDATE : MicroSoft consider pulling out of China over imprisoned bloggers. |
2006-10-27 08:38:49 |
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