This is how the US views the world (reporting by the Guardian): The United States was catapulted into a worldwide diplomatic crisis today, with the leaking to the Guardian and other international media of more than 250,000 classified cables from its embassies, many sent as recently as February this year. At the start of a…
The Iranian election is tough and unpredictable. The internet has become a key battleground in the struggle. This letter, published in the Guardian, offers an insight into a different future: We are a group of Iranian academic and anti-war activists in Europe and the US who, in the past few years, have consistently defended Iran‘s…
Dawn is Pakistan’s leading English language paper. Today it publishes a review by Mustafa Qadri of my book, The Blogging Revolution: Hot on the heels of his last book, My Israel Question (a history of the Israeli occupation of Palestine from the perspective of an anti-Zionist Jewish Australian), freelance journalist Antony Loewenstein delves into the…
Juan Cole runs one of the finest and most popular US-based Middle East related blogs. It’s been a beacon of rationality during the Bush years. My following piece appears on his site today: During last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai, new technology reacted to the news faster than traditional media services. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and…
My following interview by Hamid Tehrani for Global Voices was published today: Antony Loewenstein, a Sydney-based freelance journalist and blogger, has recently published his new book: The Blogging Revolution. This book talks about the impact of blogging on six countries: Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Cuba. He says: I chose the six countries…
Famed Saudi Arabian blogger Fouad Al Farhan – who features in my book, The Blogging Revolution, and with whom I spent time in 2007 before his brief stint in prison – offers a challenge to authoritarian states: If they did not want us to dream and speak and express our ideas and aspirations in dialogues…
Saudi blogger Fouad Al Farhan has been released from prison after more than four months away from family and friends. He is a friend and colleague (more on Fouad here.) The father of Saudi blogging is back, but I wonder how willing he will be to continue writing critically in his repressive regime.
My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed: Fidel Castro controlled Cuba for nearly half a century. His rule was defined by defiance and dictatorship, brutal repression against dissidents and the management of an immoral American embargo. Free speech has always been the Achilles’ heel of the regime. During my visit to the island last…
Imprisoned Saudi blogger and democracy activist Fouad Al Farhan – an inspiring person with whom I spent time in his country last year – has been allowed to make contact with the outside world. Saudi Jeans explains: Detained Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan has been allowed to make a phone call to his wife yesterday, FreeFouad.com…
Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, January 14: A day after George W. Bush gave his big democracy speech and declared the opening of “a great new era ”¦ founded on the equality of all people”—a line he delivered at the astonishingly opulent Emirates Palace hotel, where most of the $2,450-a-night suites are reserved for visiting royals—the president…