Freedom of expression

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.

An ant, they say, can infuriate an elephant. That is, if the ant choose the right target, and goes into the elephant’s ear. In the Egyptian world of technology, an 24-year-old engineer is doing the same by giving a voice to protest that’s otherwise stifled in that part of the globe.

Alaa has finally be released after 45 days in prison. We heard the good news from Manal earlier this week. Here is a news report from the The Independent published on 21 June 2006.