Bloggers, like others at the forefront of activities promoting freedom of speech and information, can run into trouble with the authorities. At Global Voices we have had first hand experience of this with the illegal detention of one of our editors, Hao Wu. He has now been held for three months by the Chinese authorities at an undisclosed location, denied access to his family and lawyer.
The most recent victim of state displeasure is the award-winning Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El Fatah who is one among many detained during peaceful protests advocating democratic change and supporting the independence of the country's judiciary.
Immediate and widespread web-based action was launched to campaign to Free Alaa! involving a number of initiatives, the most recent of which is a Free Alaa Frappr Map.
In order to help aggregate all the actions on behalf of bloggers at risk we have set up a page on Global Voices tracking current cases. We also have a wiki page - Global Voices Advocacy - where anyone can add information about bloggers under threat and actions being taken on their behalf.
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Advocacy: Help protect global bloggers
(Cross posted from Global Voices) Bloggers, like others at the forefront of activities promoting freedom of speech and information, can run into trouble with the authorities. At Global Voices we have had first hand experience of this with the illegal…
Great. We should start to creat a list of organizations & politicans to contact. Best
Global Voices Advocacy: Great idea!
I just heard about this website while listening to a Podcast of the May 31st Democracy Now show. I will definitely make a point frequent the site and read the blog content. I’ll spread the word.
[...] As some readers here may have noticed, my friends at the Committee to Protect Bloggers have curtailed their work due to funding shortages. People still concerned about bloggers threatened by their governments because of the contents of their blogs (and there are plenty of reasons to be concerned) should check out this new advocacy project, from Global Voices Online. See also the project’s introductory post and wiki. Thanks to Curt for pointing this out. [...]
[...] It’s an adjustment not to be running the Committee to Protect Bloggers anymore. The host, Civiblog, restored the site’s posts temporarily, but they’re down again. Hard to complain since I’m not keeping it current, though I think it’s not a bad resource even if it’s not being updated. I get frustrated, though, each time there’s a new arrest of a blogger somewhere. Global Voices Online is planning an advocacy arm. They’re certainly competent. I hope their sense of diplomacy doesn’t keep them from the bold moves that are sometimes necessary to attract attention to the plight of these bloggers. [...]