The Committee to Protect Bloggers primary aim is to "focus...on the inappropriate use of state force against bloggers." They link today to a new project from Human Rights Watch, aimed at convincing people to speak out, research and disseminate information to fight for human rights through blogging. In countries such as Iran and China, bloggers are frequently the target of state repression. Publicising these cases and highlighting the need for Western governments to increase the pressure (especially on China, Australia's newfound friend in the region), becomes vital.
2 Comments:
Antony - I'm an Australian currently living in China and I am, strictly speaking, not allowed to view your blog at all. There is a national firewall which blocks all sites considered unsavoury by the government, which includes anything with blogspot in the url, probably because blogging makes it too easy to criticise the government. This doesn't stop me, of course, because I use a proxy site to view blocked pages. Sometimes I also find sites such as the ABC news website unreachable for a period.
Broadband is easy to get here but is slow, because the firewall wastes an enormous amount of bandwidth, and there is only one provider, so it is easy to monitor. And don't get me started on what passes for "news" here.
Cheers, love the blog.
Shay in Beijing
(can't give a real name for obvious reasons)
'Shay', thanks for reading. Having spent some time in China many years ago, I'm well aware of the hopeless state run media there. Keep reading.
Saddam, it's better if you stay in your hole, away from public view. HOWEVER, if and when your trial begins, I suspect you'll be having some rather interesting things to say about Western support for your regime in the good old days...
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