CATEGORY: Digital Freedom

UAE: News website shut down

The Emirates Local News website (http://localnewsuae.com), which translates and posts all news about the UAE from around the world, has been blocked within the UAE. The ban came 10 days before the site's first anniversary and the government have...

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Turkey: News website founder sentenced

Cem Büyükçakır, founder and general publications director of the Haberin Yeri website was given an eleven-month long jail sentence for publishing a reader’s comment implying that Turkish President Abdullah Gül descended from an Armenian family....

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Turkey: BlackBerry faces ban

Research in Motion (RIM) faces a ban of BlackBerry data services in Turkey if it doesn’t obey new legislation requiring companies to hand over communication encryption keys to Information and Communication Technologies Authority. The new...

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Sarkozy calls for web censorship

In a recent visit to the Pope, President of France Nicolas Sarkozy remarked that greater regulation of the internet was needed.  President Sarkozy stated that "regulating the internet to correct the excesses and abuses that arise from the total...

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Canada: Website operator charged with libel

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced on Friday that a blogger in Calvary faces five charges related to his website. John Kelly, 53, has long been highly critical of Calgary police officers, using his site to accuse officers of “perjury,...

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USA: Website of Quran-burning church is removed

Webhost Rackspace has shut down the website of the Dove World Outreach Centre whose pastor planned to burn copies of the Koran on 11 September. Rackspace spokesman Dan Goodgame said that the church had violated the offensive content section of its...

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India sets BlackBerry utlimatum

The Indian government has told RIM, the Canadian manufaturers of BlackBerry mobile phones to either provide access to encryption or face a ban from 31 August onwards. The Indian government says the BES and messenger services pose a grave security...

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China threatens 122 adult websites with closure

The Chinese authorities have ordered 122 websites to remove all traces of pornography or lewd content from their sites or face censorship and prosecution. The content prohibited includes pornographic fiction available for online reading or...

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