30 Jun 11 | minipost, News and features
Istanbul police have arrested 50 contributors to Turkey’s largest user-generated dictionary. The “Sour Dictionary” (Eksi Sozluk) site offers satirical definitions of a number of common words and has been running for around 12 years. The anonymous authors, who were identified through their IP addresses, have been charged with “insulting religion” following a complaint over a discussion about the prophet Muhammed. The site’s administrators have faced criticism for agreeing to hand over authors’ IP addresses to the police.
27 Jun 11 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
Russian journalist, Oleg Kashin, has won the right to speculate about the identity of two men who beat him with iron rods. Kashin spent five days in a coma after he was attacked outside his apartmenton 6 November last year. The Kremlin’s youth policy chief, Vasily Yakemanko, filed a libel suit against Kashin, liberal newspaper Novye Izvestia and political analyst, Alexander Morozov, for reporting speculation that he might be behind the incident. A Moscow court ruled in favour of Kashin after it was found that Yakemenko had failed to prove that the accusations were factual statements.
24 Jun 11 | Index Index, minipost
Activists used popular Russian social network, Vkontakte, and Twitter hashtag, #2206v1900, to organise protest action in towns all over Belarus on 22 June. Over 1, 000 people gathered for a rally in Minsk despite warnings to would-be protesters from local police about “possible administrative charges for participating in unsanctioned protests”. Throughout the day Vkontakte group, “Movement of the Future”, with over 200, 000 members, tweeted regularly. A total of 450 protesters were arrested during the “silent” anti-government demonstrations, many remain in detention.
10 Jun 11 | Uncategorized
A Tunisian policeman who blew the whistle on a still-active core of officers from the country’s pre-revolution days — some of them alleged torturers, others linked to Tunisia’s long notorious internet surveillance squads — has been hauled in front of a military court for speaking out. (more…)
