Where Are the Animaniacs When You Need ‘Em?

A new report suggests web censorship by governments around the world is on the rise. Certainly I myself couldn’t hop on Wikipedia when I was in China, which was a real bitch when it came to settling bar disputes. Troubling as the report’s findings are I can’t help but feel that the rise in internet [...]

A Pen Dipped in Blood

Over at the SignandSight Web site (an invaluable resource for translated essays from the world of European magazines) there is a damning essay by Najem Wali, an Iraqi writer now living in Berlin. Using as a peg the annual gathering of the Arab Writers Union in Cairo last month, Wali unleashes a measured but [...]

C’est Treize Sérieux

Our legions (French foreign legions?) of francophone readers will recognize the above title as a jolly clever pun on Reporters Sans Frontieres’ “liste des 13 ennemis d’Internet” – “list of 13 enemies of the internet.” The fine froggy press freedom advocacy org is running a campaign for internet freedom in which they identify the “black [...]

Bloodied Are The Peacemakers

I’ve been remiss in getting this up:
Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is on trial for his life on a preposterous charge of spying for Israel. His great act of espionage: advocating peace and Muslim reconciliation with Christians, Jews and Israel. In November of 2003, he was arrested when he attempted to travel to Israel [...]

My Two Shekels

I feel compelled to add my own pontificating to this Tony Judt foofaraw (actually, I’d say it qualifies as an arglebargle), though I do of course concur with my partner-in-thought-crime’s comments on the matter. First, it seems obvious to me that, while their being a little coy about it, the Anti-Defamation League and the American [...]

Access Denied

Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan, a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy, has been denied a visa by the U.S. government even though some rather flimsy-sounding charges against him of supporting terrorism have been dropped. In 2004, Ramadan accepted a tenured position at the University of Notre Dame, rented a house in South Bend, Indiana and [...]

Free Speech in Africa

“The conditions of press freedom and freedom of expression are deteriorating rapidly or systematically in all regions of Africa.”
So says the Network of African Freedom of Expression Organizations (NAFEO). At a June meeting in Lagos, Nigeria NAFEO took note of significant increase in the arrests, detention, repression and harassment of journalists and other media [...]

“Help, help. I’m Being Repressed!”

Here’s a jolly good campaign from Amnesty International designed to promote free speech and internet freedom (see Campaigns in our ever-expanding links column).
Irrepressible.info is gathering signatures from around the world for a pledge to oppose internet repression. Sign the pledge HERE. The second facet of the campaign is truly brilliant, and I’m not only saying [...]