Freedom of expression

Greetings! Lauren writing from the AMARC 9 World Assembly in Amman,Jordan. It has been a privilege to be present here among the global and regional AMARC family and the many local community radio activists and journalists. I wish to share very good news from the Community Radio sector of India….

Delegates to the Amarc9 conference in Amman, Jordan supported the condemnation of the broadcast suspensions in the DRC. Over 150 delegates signed the petition.

This statemen was issued at the end of the Middle East and North Africa regional day during the Amarc9 conference held in Amman – 11 November 2006.

Blatant censorship is one thing, and can be fought. But who controls the controllers? What about the more subtle forms of control and blockages, that often can work in the more brutal ways of the unseen hand? APC member-organisation RITS’s Carlos Afonso, made this point articulatedly at the Internet Governance Forum in Athens. Afonso underlined that it was difficult to deal internet-relat...

Television and radio broadcasts were suspended yesterday, and back in full-swing again. Meanwhile, bloggers have quickly responded by setting up community sites to let the news out.

On the first day of the Digital Citizen’s Indaba in Grahamstown, South Africa, Ethan Zukerman asked: “50 million people blog out of a global population of 6 billion people – not exactly representative is it?”

Getting to the 2006 iSummit took Andrew Garton to Santiago where he spent two days musing over digital rights management amidst trips to the Brazilian Consulate, Internet cafe’s and "real" coffee shops.

India is planning to significantly amend its Copyright Act of 1957, to include among other things the concept of Digital Rights Management, a move which could well restrict access to knowledge. Lawyers-with-a-difference are closely monitoring what’s happening on this front.