15 Feb 2011 | Digital Freedom, Uncategorized
Anyone interested in free expression will be anticipating Hillary Clinton’s speech on web freedom today, particularly as in light of recent events throughout the Middle East, it seems that one cannot really talk about web freedom without meaning, well, freedom freedom.
Clinton is expected to say:
“Together, the freedoms of expression, assembly, and association online comprise what I have called the freedom to connect. The United States supports this freedom for people everywhere, and we have called on other nations to do the same… “
The speech continues:
“We are convinced that an open Internet fosters long-term peace, progress and prosperity. The reverse is also true. An Internet that is closed and fractured, where different governments can block activity or change the rules on a whim—where speech is censored or punished, and privacy does not exist—that is an Internet that can cut off opportunities for peace and progress and discourage innovation and entrepreneurship…”
There is a certain irony to the privacy comments, with Clinton’s speech coming on the same day that the US is attempting to force Twitter to hand over details of Wikileaks-linked users.
Index will be publishing reaction to the speech from a range of experts, plus the full text of the speech. In the meantime, here are some snippets, courtesy of Politico’s Laura Rozen.
7 Feb 2011 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Amid the constant Egyptian government promises these days that it is committed to reform, growth and dialogue with all opposition forces, it’s worth noting that the campaign of harassment, detention and arrest of activists and journalists has never actually stopped.
On Sunday, Ayman Mohieldin, a journalist with Al-Jazeera English spent at least six hours bound and blindfolded before finally being released.
Monday brought the news that blogger and activist Kareem Amer had been arrested along with documentary filmmaker Samir Eshra.
Amer’s detention is particularly poignant since the 26-year old had already spent four years in jail for his online writings — which bluntly stated his atheist beliefs. Amer won the Hugo Young Award for Journalism at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression awards in 2007. He was released in November of last year.
5 Feb 2011 | News and features
It has been reported that an “accredited” journalist for Wikileaks, Israel Shamir, met with Uladzimri Makei, the Head of the Presidential administration in Belarus. Subsequently, it was reported in the Belarus Telegraf that a state newspaper would be publishing documents about the Belarusian opposition.
Wikileaks has always maintained it takes care to ensure that names of political activists are redacted from cables before publication on its website. Index on Censorship is concerned that some of the Wikileaks cables relating to Belarus that have not appeared on the main Wikileaks website are now in the public domain.
(more…)
13 Jan 2011 | Asia and Pacific, China
The sad death of jailed writer Zhang Jianhong went by with hardly a blip from the foreign media.
Zhang, 52, died 31 December in hospital while on medical parole from a rare neurological disease. He leaves behind a wife and daughter.
A few months into his prison term in Zhejiang province, Zhang, whose pen name was Li Hong, was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, a disorder in which the muscles irreversibly waste away. The prison repeatedly denied him medical parole until June last year, by which time he was completely paralysed and was kept alive by a respirator.
Zhang had been sentenced to six years for “inciting subversion of state power” in March 2007 for his work as a contributor to anti-Chinese government, pro-human rights media overseas including the Epoch Times and Boxun.
Radio Free Asia also reported that Chinese police warned his dissident friends not to publicly mourn Zhang.
Zhang had a long history of angering the authorities. In December 1989 he was sentenced to three years of Re-education Through Labour for publicly criticizing the Tiananmen Square Massacre. He briefly took part in the protests but left the Square on 2 June.
His contacts with the China Democracy Party also got him periodically in trouble.
In 2005, he founded Aegean Sea, a literary website which was closed down by the police the following year for its anti-government content.
Zhang was also a commercially successful freelance writer and poet, penning several novels and a popular TV show The Firm of Red Clothes.
He was a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) which released a statement mourning his death.
“ICPC considers Mr Zhang Jianhong as the most recent victim of contemporary literary inquisition in China and one of its worst cases in over 30 years,” the centre said.
“May his spirit live on,” said US-based Human Rights in China.
