Human rights, boycotts and nationalism

My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China: With only 100 days until the Beijing Games, human rights activists are continuing to pressure the Chinese regime and authorities may be starting to feel the pressure, writes Antony Loewenstein. After months of criticism of its human rights record,…

How to escape a brutal American friend

A reliable American ally – Egypt continues to repress any kind of political activism – requires creative thinking by anybody caught up in its madness: James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone. Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in…

Selective outrage at the IDF

Reveal “state secrets” and watch out: A soldier serving in the IDF’s elite 8200 military intelligence unit was sentenced to 19 days in prison on Wednesday for uploading a picture onto the Facebook social networking site. Abuse the Palestinians and human rights group are forced to challenge the rules: Today, … 16 April 2008, The Public…

The Saudi godfather is back

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.

One confused company

Yahoo goes green. (It’s a shame, therefore, that the company collaborates with the Chinese dictatorship, though it appears to be making progress towards protecting human rights): Yahoo boss Jerry Yang, whose company once allegedly helped Chinese police nab and jail cyber dissidents, is today in the forefront of a global campaign to free those languishing…

Tibet, Zimbabwe and loving China

My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China: The nationalistic genie has escaped the Chinese bottle. Citizens across the world have reacted strongly to the perceived anti-Chinese political and media elite in the West. Protests have mushroomed throughout China against what demonstrators view as a slight against…

Spraying in Tehran

The growing global interest in the Middle East has allowed an Iranian graffiti artist such as A1one to gain prominence. He has to work covertly in the Islamic Republic but his blog provides ample examples of his fine work:

Anti-democrats be damned

Autocrats, censors and filters beware: The Pirate Bay is known for defending people’s right to freedom of speech on the Internet, and this is exactly what motivated them to start this new blogging service. Brokep, one of the co-founders of the site, told TorrentFreak that the idea to start a blogging service came up when…

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