Committee to Protect Bloggers

Chinese internet writer and activist, Chen Qitang who write under the pen name Tianli, was during the recently sentence to two and a half years in prison for alleged fraud and impersonation.  This a charge the Chinese authorities frequently charge activists with.

Chen was put in custody in October 2007 and formally arrested in December of that same year, according to a Chinese civil rights body, Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, Chen’s wife was informed of the sentence five days after it had been passed, they were unaware on any trial.

Neither court officials nor the Nanhai Police offered any comments about the issue to the International Herald Tribune.

Seems this year is rather ominous for Chinese disidents.

H/T to China Digital Times

Not satisfied with the crackdown on major western news sites including, BBC, VOA and The New York Times, China has decide to go after search engines next.  It is doing so to crackdown on child pornography and other material that could poison young peoples minds.

While blocking child pornography is important, China’s blocking and filtering actions have in the past been known to go beyond this to include disident blogs and sites.  AP reports that the exercise will be to ‘purify the Internet’s cultural environment and protect the healthy development of minors‘

According to the Chinese Government Google and Baidu, China’s most used search engines have failed to take appropriate measures to combat these issues.

CPB hopes that this is not just another attempt at stifling online freedoms.

Filtering on the web continues unabated, from the Australian government’s introduction of filters on web content, to Burma’s regime’s dictatorial fiats on what can and what cannot go up on blogs and websites.

Follow discussions I had with Curt a while back, we have decided to dedicate a post each week on filtering.  We will strive to expose the underhand methods used by authorities to overtly or sometimes covertly block and filter sites and blogs.

We will also look into the role of corprates in providing software that helps these people achieve their filtering schemes.

I will appreciate any links, resources and any material on this.

On an aside; the site has not been updated for while due to a holiday break I had taken which is in its dying stages, I’ll be back to work on Friday and would like to wish you all a happy new year and hope that this coming one will be freer than the one we are leaving behind.

As of this date, I am handing the reins of the CPB over to our current Associate Editor, Victor Ngeny. For the next month, Victor’s will be the only voice you hear on this site. I have been at this, with one break, for four years. I think it is time to hand it off to someone who sees it with new eyes, but manages it with experience. Victor is the guy for that.

To find out more about your new editor, check out Victor’s introductory post. I’ve been very happy about his energy, intelligence, empathy and writing talent in the last few months. With my being American and Victor being Kenyan, it’s also nice that we’ve succeeded in ensuring that the editorial voice is as international as the subjects it covers.

Say hello to Victor and send him your tips if you hear anything the global blogsophere should know.

Amnesty International had the following report.

Blogger Hossein Derakhshan was arrested at his family home in Tehran on 1 November 2008. Denied access to his family and to legal representation, no one knows where Hossein Derakhshan is held. Although he has been allowed to make four telephone calls to his home, each lasting around one minute, the last was in late November. He may face torture or other ill-treatment while held incommunicado.

The Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, confirmed the arrest.

Our initial report on Hoder can be found here. On that earlier report we neglected to mention that Hoder was, for a short period, early on, an advisor to the CPB.

Iranian blogger and journalist, Omir Reza MiSyafi, has been sentenced to more than 2 years in jail.  Omid was accused of insulting Iranian religious leaders and spreading proganda against the Iranian state.

We will strive to bring you more information as the English version of the reporting site, AUT News, seems not up-to-date.

Yemeni Blogger, Nashwan Abdu Ali Ghanim on November 18 posted an appeal to international advocacy groups and Arab bloggers to come to his rescue, (after 3 failed assassination attempts,) he believes his life is in danger.  Nashwan who blogs on makhtoobblogs.com and kitab.com belives that his latest blog post has triggered another attempt on his life.

He says,

“They want to kill me… So I urge you to immediately intervene”

in support The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI),has released a letter criticizing the Yemeni Government for its excesses in policing the web and clamping down on dissent.

Nashwan’s situation is currently dire and we hope that nothing foul befalls him.

From GlobalVoices

There have been so many, and the transliteration of their names different enough in various sources, that we’re always wary about covering the same arrest twice, though I don’t think this is the case, though the photo on his blog seems awfully familir

RSF reported that Reda Abderrahman Ali was also arrested. 

Around 20 police officers turned up at 2am on 27 October 2008 at the home of 32-year-old Reda Abderrahman Ali, in the village of Abu Hariz, in the north-east of the country.

The blogger’s sister told Reporters Without Borders that the security forces searched his room and seized his computer. In the days following his arrest, the family sent letters to the interior ministry as well as to President Hosni Mubarak, but these letters have so far gone unanswered. One month after his arrest, his family do not know what he is to be charged with or where he is being held.

Abderrahman Ali has been blogging for nearly two years. During this time he has had countless problems with his employer in connection with his writing. His sister said he had been threatened with legal proceedings by al-Azhar for his articles on the Koranists movement of which he is a member and who believe that the practice of Islam should not be based on any text other than the Koran.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information reported that Egyptian blogger Mohamed Adel was been taken by that country’s security forces on November 20th. Adel’s blog is Meit.

Adel’s house was surrounded by fourty soldiers, special police forces and three police vans who broke into his home, made a search of his house and confiscated books and CDs. The twenty year old blogger was outside his house during the police campaign. It seems that police had been keeping a track on his phone, and he was kidnapped while he was on his way to meet his friend who is a journalist.

In a confusingly edited story, Reuters called Adel a “pro-Hamas” blogger, while also possibly assigning him membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood. (Can anyone confirm any of this?)

Adel’s blog featured a picture of the founder of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, a burning American flag, and pictures of Hamas fighters.

Egypt says the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most powerful opposition, is a banned group and police regularly arrest its members.

ANHRI said Adel is the second blogger to be arrested during the latest “state of emergency.” Musaad Abu Fagr has also been taken.

According to BBC Persian, Sobh Sadegh, the official publication of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, has recently published an article about the Internet in Iran.

Sobeh Sadegh alleged that foreign governments are helping to establish independent websites in Iran. These websites are used, they say, to transform the Internet into an instrument for a “velvet revolution.”

According to the same source, the Islamic Republic’s Parliament has published a “study” of independent websites and blogs that they allege are devoted to a ”soft overthrowing” of the Islamic State.

—  Hamid Tehrani of Global Voices