By Jessica Reed
These days it is quite common to read about banned blogs:
The Elections Department reminded parties and individuals on Thursday to abide by the ban on political blogs and podcasts during Singapore's general election campaign with the Internet abuzz with video clips and chatter.
Jailed bloggers:
Sina Motallebi, well-known blogger and journalist was arrested this morning. He is accused of threatening the national security by giving interviews to Persian language radios outside Iran, wrtiting articles both in newspapers and his weblog.
Expelled diplomats turned bloggers:
The government is angry about the remarks which Mr Pronk put on his weblog about the military situation in Darfur. (via)
And chat rooms monitored by the authorities:
Civil liberties activists say a number of measures contained in the act encroach upon individual rights. Specifically, they point to powers by the FBI to monitor e-mail and Internet chat rooms, political and religious gatherings, library records, financial transactions and consumer buying habits.
Interestingly enough, Amnesty International recently launched a new campaign called "irrepressible.info" which aims to denounce some governments and big IT companies' efforts to undermine freedom of expression on the Internet. The site presents a petition that will be sent to governments and companies from all over the world who will attend a UN conference to discuss the future of the Internet next November. It also encourages people to publish "irrepressible" fragments of censored material on their own sites.
